Re: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000
Finally official SDR-1000 support in a HRD beta: http://www.ham-radio.ch/forums/viewtopic.php?p=15785#15785 - sorry about the delay - being stretched in every direction possible. Groans and moans here (best for me please) or in the HRD forums http://www.ham-radio.ch/forums/index.php . If possible please *no* direct email as I am swamped and direct mail can be lost via my spam filters and senior moments. It also fills up my inbox while I am away - along with the medical offers I so kindly receive :-) Simon Brown --- www.hb9drv.ch www.laax.ch RSGB HF Convention: Friday 7th - Sunday 9th October 2005 Holidays: Monday 10th - Thursday 20th October 2005
Re: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000
For the archives... On Sep 3, 2005, at 2:44 PM, Tim Ellison wrote: I have decided to go with the fastest machine I can afford to build. I selected the AMD Athlon 4400+ 2X (dual core) with the VIA chipset (Asus motherboard). This combination had the best floating-point performance per $ ratio. The dual core should come in handy when the SDR software evolves additional signal processing features that will require benefit from on-chip multi-tasking. The “real” fun was finding a good all steel case and a FCC Class B certified p/s to ensure this would not be a spurious RF generator. This is an excellent choice. It will be a little while before Intel gets its act together for multi-cores (two die in one package doesn't count). But over the next few years we will see lots of affordable multi-core processors become available. This is particularly useful for those applications with real-time requirements. Basically, one core can be busy running a real-time thread or process which leaves another core free to do the other things we take for granted, like e-mail. Net-net is that you can get excellent response with a slower and lower-power multi-core solution than with a barn burner. In the mean time I have been evaluating Windows XP 64 and my conclusion is that it is not ready for primetime. The 32-bit emulator (WoW) seems to work OK. The biggest issue is that there is no support for 16-bit applications (WoWoW) and a lot of applications use 16-bit install programs (ouch). Also there are no print drivers and limited device drivers available. In general, unless you need an address space larger than 4 GBytes (2 for some OSes), then running in 32-bit mode is just fine. Those of us who use lots of cores and memory don't tend to run Windows anyway. -- richard, kb4hb
Re: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000
Title: PC Specifications for SDR-1000 Thanks a lot to all that provided there comments and to Julius W2IHY who called with some interesting observations. I have decided to go with the fastest machine I can afford to build. I selected the AMD Athlon 4400+ 2X (dual core) with the VIA chipset (Asus motherboard). This combination had the best floating-point performance per $ ratio. The dual core should come in handy when the SDR software evolves additional signal processing features that will require benefit from on-chip multi-tasking. The “real” fun was finding a good all steel case and a FCC Class B certified p/s to ensure this would not be a spurious RF generator. In the mean time I have been evaluating Windows XP 64 and my conclusion is that it is not ready for primetime. The 32-bit emulator (WoW) seems to work OK. The biggest issue is that there is no support for 16-bit applications (WoWoW) and a lot of applications use 16-bit install programs (ouch). Also there are no print drivers and limited device drivers available. In addition, there are not any real 64-bit applications (I don’t consider IE a “real” application I’m a FireFox guy) available, so I am holding off on Microsoft’s new bloatware version for a while. Thanks again for all the advice. 73 es tx de W4TME -Tim --- Tim Ellison ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Integrated Technical Services ( http://www.itsco.com ) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 7:07 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000 Hi all, I think my inquiry may have been lost in the noise and fury of the e-mail barrage of the past two days, so I am re-posting my request in the hopes that I can get some additional feedback on my questions other than use LINUX. At this time LINUX isn’t an option. Maybe it will be in the future. I really want to get my PC taken care of so I can order my SDR1K and really join the fun! -Tim --- Tim Ellison ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Integrated Technical Services ( http://www.itsco.com ) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 12:32 AM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] PC Specifications for SDR-1000 To all, I am starting to put together a PC system for use with a SDR-1000 and PowerSDR I am planning to get in the near future and had a couple of questions. What performance metric is most desirable in a CPU / motherboard combination? I want to make sure I get a system that will meet current and future performance needs. I have not done a lot of research on the DLLs or libraries used, so I was hoping to get some insight from those that know a lot more about the internal operation of PowerSDR than I. Specifically, what is most to least important of the following items (a ranking of sort): Floating point performance Integer operation Memory performance Multi-tasking performance CPU cache Graphics performance In addition to processor / motherboard metrics, has anyone used Windows XP Professional x64 with PowerSDR? If so how did the WOW64 emulation handle PowerSDR and is there any advantage to using a 64-bit OS. Will PowerSDR be compiled to be a 64-bit app in the future? Also, are there any known compatibility issues with AMD processors? In advance, thanks for the information. 73 de W4TME -Tim --- Tim Ellison Integrated Technical Services Apex, NC USA 919.674.0044 Ext. 25 / 919.674.0045 (FAX) 919.215.6375 - cell >>> PGP public key available at all public KeyServers <<<
Re: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000
Title: PC Specifications for SDR-1000 Tim I’ll take a stab here. However, you realize that this is also somewhat of a political question and there are MANY motherboards out there. I have an ASUS micro ATX MB with a 3.6 mb Pentium 512 of ram with the (not exactly sure what it is called) but bank selected ‘dual access’ to the ram. You don’t say if you are going to build or buy a system the choice is VERY important! A package system from Walmart, is a lot different from the myriad of ‘put it together yourself Modding systems!’. My system above works fine with the SDR and I can get you the specs if you want. It was about 610 with the MB and 512 mb. With 2 mb cache. I run a max of 20% CPU load with SDR running and this will improve as they go to direct-x and make the code more efficient. The SDR runs fine on the hardware, and the only limitations are really in the code produced to date. I really don’t think that with XP you have control over some of the parameters you have listed. I also don’t know whether dual cores are available yet (I go through about a 3 year cycle now before I start comparing MB’s and they come out daily and I am only at about 1.5 years now). Obviously a dual core system it pretty slick rather than 2 processors on board. Much more efficient on the die. My priorities on your list are: Cache as much as you can afford and is offered. Although quite frankly I have never checked how much of that ultra speed scratch is in use at any time! Memory? Sure go for it – Dual Access. Don’t wait to order the SDR. Your questions sort of indicate you are a modder and probably have more than enough to run the SDR. My MB is most certainly 1.5 years old and there are better out there now. It loafs even with NAV and many other co-processes running at the same time. You can always up the priority of Powersdr.exe. Eric From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 7:07 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000 Hi all, I think my inquiry may have been lost in the noise and fury of the e-mail barrage of the past two days, so I am re-posting my request in the hopes that I can get some additional feedback on my questions other than use LINUX. At this time LINUX isn’t an option. Maybe it will be in the future. I really want to get my PC taken care of so I can order my SDR1K and really join the fun! -Tim --- Tim Ellison ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Integrated Technical Services ( http://www.itsco.com ) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 12:32 AM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] PC Specifications for SDR-1000 To all, I am starting to put together a PC system for use with a SDR-1000 and PowerSDR I am planning to get in the near future and had a couple of questions. What performance metric is most desirable in a CPU / motherboard combination? I want to make sure I get a system that will meet current and future performance needs. I have not done a lot of research on the DLLs or libraries used, so I was hoping to get some insight from those that know a lot more about the internal operation of PowerSDR than I. Specifically, what is most to least important of the following items (a ranking of sort): Floating point performance Integer operation Memory performance Multi-tasking performance CPU cache Graphics performance In addition to processor / motherboard metrics, has anyone used Windows XP Professional x64 with PowerSDR? If so how did the WOW64 emulation handle PowerSDR and is there any advantage to using a 64-bit OS. Will PowerSDR be compiled to be a 64-bit app in the future? Also, are there any known compatibility issues with AMD processors? In advance, thanks for the information. 73 de W4TME -Tim --- Tim Ellison Integrated Technical Services Apex, NC USA 919.674.0044 Ext. 25 / 919.674.0045 (FAX) 919.215.6375 - cell >>> PGP public key available at all public KeyServers <<<
[Flexradio] PC Recommendations for SDR-1000
Title: PC Specifications for SDR-1000 Hi all, I think my inquiry may have been lost in the noise and fury of the e-mail barrage of the past two days, so I am re-posting my request in the hopes that I can get some additional feedback on my questions other than use LINUX. At this time LINUX isn’t an option. Maybe it will be in the future. I really want to get my PC taken care of so I can order my SDR1K and really join the fun! -Tim --- Tim Ellison ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Integrated Technical Services ( http://www.itsco.com ) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 12:32 AM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] PC Specifications for SDR-1000 To all, I am starting to put together a PC system for use with a SDR-1000 and PowerSDR I am planning to get in the near future and had a couple of questions. What performance metric is most desirable in a CPU / motherboard combination? I want to make sure I get a system that will meet current and future performance needs. I have not done a lot of research on the DLLs or libraries used, so I was hoping to get some insight from those that know a lot more about the internal operation of PowerSDR than I. Specifically, what is most to least important of the following items (a ranking of sort): Floating point performance Integer operation Memory performance Multi-tasking performance CPU cache Graphics performance In addition to processor / motherboard metrics, has anyone used Windows XP Professional x64 with PowerSDR? If so how did the WOW64 emulation handle PowerSDR and is there any advantage to using a 64-bit OS. Will PowerSDR be compiled to be a 64-bit app in the future? Also, are there any known compatibility issues with AMD processors? In advance, thanks for the information. 73 de W4TME -Tim --- Tim Ellison Integrated Technical Services Apex, NC USA 919.674.0044 Ext. 25 / 919.674.0045 (FAX) 919.215.6375 - cell >>> PGP public key available at all public KeyServers <<<
