Article View: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Article #14081Re: Graphics Accelerator Cards
From: Holger Skok
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:45
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:45
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2548 bytes
In article <1992Nov17.213906.504@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> young@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (young.u.huh) writes: >I am looking for an inexpensive way to improve the speed of Windows >applications running on my PC. An example of the type of improvement >in speed I'm looking for: I compared the speeds of Quicken for DOS >and Quicken for Windows. In DOS, I can scroll through the transactions >very fast by holding down the up-arrow or down-arrow, and as soon as I >release the key, the scrolling stops. In Windows, however, the >response is much slower. When I hold down the key, it scrolls very >slowly, and after I release the key, it keeps on scrolling for a while. > >The PC has an Intel 386SX/16MHz processor, 8 MB of RAM, and a Trident >SVGA card with 1MB RAM running at 640x480 with 256 colors. In the >above example, is the speed bottleneck in the graphics card or in the >processor? Since Quicken runs so much faster under plain DOS on the same machine (yours) what do you think? (;-)) Due to the antiquated hardware design of the PC the CPU has to put the image onto the Windows screen pixel by pixel and all that via the slow AT-bus. 640x480x256 - that's a lot of info to be put into the VRAM on your card (How many MB does that amount to, by the way? I could never get that right). And that takes TIME. > For a quick fix, try switching to the plain vanilla VGA-driver included with Windows. That'll only give you 16 colours, but at the same time it reduces the amount of info on the screen by a factor of 16. Consequently things like scrolling are a lot speedier. HSK -- Sie singen das alte Entsagungslied, das Eiapopeia vom Himmel, womit man beruhigt, wenn es greint, das Volk, den grossen Luemmel. Ein neues Lied, ein besseres Lied, oh Freunde, will ich Euch dichten, Wir wollen hier auf Erden schon das Himmelreich errichten. ... H. Heine
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<1992Nov19.094530.5007@news.uni-stuttgart.de>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!math.fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!itwds1!skokReferences:
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!math.fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!itwds1!skok From: skok@itwds1.energietechnik.uni-stuttgart.de (Holger Skok) Subject: Re: Graphics Accelerator Cards Message-ID: <1992Nov19.094530.5007@news.uni-stuttgart.de> Sender: news@news.uni-stuttgart.de (USENET News System) Organization: Inst. f. Thermodynamik u. Waermetechnik (ITW), U. of Stuttgart, FRG References: <1992Nov17.213906.504@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:45:30 GMT Lines: 34