rec.autos.simulators

by **William Silve** » Sun, 20 May 2001 13:06:24

> > Compatibility. See earlier post of mine.

> Explain to me how an Intel CPU based system is more compatible please.
And
> more compatible with what exactly? Intel made benchmark software perhaps?

Nope. 3dStudio Max + miro video capture card + WinNT + Adaptec 2940UW +
9.1gb 10k/RPM drive + 256mb RAM on an Athlon 800 + latest drivers etc ad
nauseam = KABOOM. Sorry. It might be a fine system for ***, but I've
seen it die on the above system. It's not a question of speed, it's a
matter of stability as well as speed. I ran a different 3d package on it
(VistaPro 4.01, a terrain generator) and hey, 9000 frame animations that
took 72-128hrs to render on my PII-300 were returned with estimated render
times of 8-12 hours on the Athlon. Unfortunately, the system wasn't mine to
use and VistaPro wasn't the only 3d package being run on it. Further,
losing hours of work because of the instability like that is unacceptable
for a professional. Not quite like a CTD in Falcon 4, y'know. No amount of
dead-chicken-waving, glorified AMD benchmarking, ultra-freezer cooling nor
anything else would overcome the issues Steve had with his system (the
aforementioned person; this was his setup).

As far as the "...more compatible with what exactly?", The X86 instruction
set that Intel *created*. I would hope that their own CPUs are compatible
with the instruction sets programmed into them. Sorta circular logic if
they're not. (No pun intended).

Again, this is high-end stuff; perhaps much of the software was Intel
optimized. That said, I've been bitten by the "just as good as Intel!" bug
before: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

I see all kinds of comments posted on Usenet regarding a myriad of topics
with no proof to substantiate them; I'm sure you've seen others. If the
system in question were still in use, I'd post a screenshot (or, at least a
snapshot taken with a digital camera) of the various crashes that occurred
on the above setup. Same setup, save dual P-II Xeon 450, runs stably for
months and months now. Sorry, that's just the way it is. I reckon you'll
come back with arguments like "Well, the system was crap, then." or "It
must've been a bad CPU or Motherboard." Trust me, the system was swapped
out twice.

Ultimately, given that I'm not going to convince you of the above situation
or of my own desire/need to run an Intel system and since you're certainly
not going to convince me to buy an AMD, let us just agree to disagree and
enjoy the flight sims (or auto-sims, as the case may be).

--
Heretic #2 of 3e D&D. - ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!
Remove the X's in my email address to respond.

by **Eldre** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:45:29

>> Cons:
>> AMD: -can't think of any

>Compatibility. See earlier post of mine.

I just got an Athlon 1.3G. Haven't had any compatibility issues yet. Do you
have any specific problems?

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +25.37...F2 +151.26...

Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

by **Eldre** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:45:30

>I know plenty of people who only buy Intel CPUs simply because they know the
>name. The Celeron is currently demonstrably inferior to the Duron (both in
>terms of price and performance), although this doesn't stop people from
>buying them. At the same time, there is no reason why the offerings from
>Intel won't get the upper hand over AMD's in the future. Sticking with one
>brand over the other through thick and thin is stupidity, though. I'll buy
>whatever is best at the time.

Some people buy things that do the job for THEM. Different people also have
different criterium. Price, speed, compatibility(both with software and
existing hardware). Sometimes, you can't get all of those in the same product.
Putting down someone for making a personal choice seems close-minded...

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +25.37...F2 +151.26...

Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:14:25

>Am I missing something or is this as stupid as it sounds? The
>built in ability to throttle back when overheating is a very GOOD
>thing. The question is, does it regularly overheat while operating
>the programs <games> we want to run under otherwise nominal
>conditions? If the answer is yes, then there's a problem. If the
>answer is no, then this is a total non-issue.

>Regards, JD

Did you not read the article at the beginning of this thread? If not
then stop posting uninformed comments and read it. It has been shown
to be a major problem in Quake.

--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:15:45

Once again, read the artical. It's fact, not inuendo. You're the one
opening your mouth without knowing the facts. Stupid or what?

--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:16:33

GPL is capped at 36fps you moron.

--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 14:18:04

On Sat, 19 May 2001 02:12:53 GMT, "William Silvey"

>Compatibility. See earlier post of mine.

Name the programs that it isn't compatible with. Please, let's see
your hard facts.
--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 08:00:39

On Fri, 18 May 2001 22:49:42 GMT, "E. J. Akely"

>I do not get it. As I'm about to buy a new CPU I would like to hear the
>pros/cons of AMD/Intel.

>TIA,
>MadMan

Read the article that was posted at the beginning of this thread.
Basically, clock for clock the T-Bird is faster. The T-bird 1.33c I
use beats and/or equals a P4 1.5ghz. The P4 throttles back the cycles
when it gets a bit hot, that means it operates at about 30% less of
it's speed when the kitchen gets hot. AMD cpu's don't do that and you
don't want a cpu that does that either.

--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **driedge** » Sun, 20 May 2001 15:28:57

I'm pretty sure that the Athlon 4 is going to be throttling back as well.
One of the things that has me interested in the Athlon 4 is its thermal
management subsystem, protects my investment a bit.

>-0400, as he held forth on "Re: Don't buy that P4 just yet! :)"

>>That doesn't change the fact that the P4 throttles back when it gets
>>hot. Also AMD is working on a better SSE instruction set so the P4
>>should have no advantage in any benchmarks.

by **Jagg** » Sun, 20 May 2001 15:49:49

On Fri, 18 May 2001 23:28:57 -0700, "driedger"

>I'm pretty sure that the Athlon 4 is going to be throttling back as well.
>One of the things that has me interested in the Athlon 4 is its thermal
>management subsystem, protects my investment a bit.

Oh yea, your playing a game and suddenly you lose 30% in frame rate
because the cpu is too hot. How can that be a good thing?
--
eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **Yousuf Kha** » Sun, 20 May 2001 16:51:44

I saw your other post, how you came to blame the processor or system on the
problems you had, I don't know. You had some problems with instability -- so
what? Welcome to the world of x86, I've had the exact same sort of
problems/crashes if not worse, under various Intel processors. In the x86
world, you go and find out what's causing the instability, I've had to
diagnose tons of similar problems with systems running Intel processors,
from 386's on upto P2's and up. Most fall into the category of bad
peripherals or bad RAM.

You want stability? Go run a Sun Solaris system or something. You can get
well-tested, and certified systems with every component individually passed
by the manufacturer. You pay for it, of course.

by **RenderedBri** » Sun, 20 May 2001 16:52:14

> On Fri, 18 May 2001 23:28:57 -0700, "driedger"

>>I'm pretty sure that the Athlon 4 is going to be throttling back as well.
>>One of the things that has me interested in the Athlon 4 is its thermal
>>management subsystem, protects my investment a bit.

> Oh yea, your playing a game and suddenly you lose 30% in frame rate
> because the cpu is too hot. How can that be a good thing?

Use proper cooling? and don't overclock?

Throttling back when the cpu overheats *IS* a good thing. If i had spent
several hundred pouds on a cpu, I do not want it to die!

--
brian
- Turn up the heat to reply -

by **E. J. Akel** » Sun, 20 May 2001 21:01:58

Thought so. Thanks for the effort. This sounds just like back in 96(?) when
I bought a 100% Intel comatible Cyrix.

Thanks for the "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.". It
made me remeber the Cyrix. Argh!

MadMan

> > > Compatibility. See earlier post of mine.

> > Explain to me how an Intel CPU based system is more compatible please.
> And
> > more compatible with what exactly? Intel made benchmark software
perhaps?

> Nope. 3dStudio Max + miro video capture card + WinNT + Adaptec 2940UW +
> 9.1gb 10k/RPM drive + 256mb RAM on an Athlon 800 + latest drivers etc ad
> nauseam = KABOOM. Sorry. It might be a fine system for ***, but I've
> seen it die on the above system. It's not a question of speed, it's a
> matter of stability as well as speed. I ran a different 3d package on it
> (VistaPro 4.01, a terrain generator) and hey, 9000 frame animations that
> took 72-128hrs to render on my PII-300 were returned with estimated render
> times of 8-12 hours on the Athlon. Unfortunately, the system wasn't mine
to
> use and VistaPro wasn't the only 3d package being run on it. Further,
> losing hours of work because of the instability like that is unacceptable
> for a professional. Not quite like a CTD in Falcon 4, y'know. No amount
of
> dead-chicken-waving, glorified AMD benchmarking, ultra-freezer cooling nor
> anything else would overcome the issues Steve had with his system (the
> aforementioned person; this was his setup).

> As far as the "...more compatible with what exactly?", The X86
instruction
> set that Intel *created*. I would hope that their own CPUs are compatible
> with the instruction sets programmed into them. Sorta circular logic if
> they're not. (No pun intended).

> Again, this is high-end stuff; perhaps much of the software was Intel
> optimized. That said, I've been bitten by the "just as good as Intel!"
bug
> before: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

> > I see comments like this posted all the time on the Usenet but I have
yet
> to
> > see any kind of attempt at providing any proof.

> I see all kinds of comments posted on Usenet regarding a myriad of topics
> with no proof to substantiate them; I'm sure you've seen others. If the
> system in question were still in use, I'd post a screenshot (or, at least
a
> snapshot taken with a digital camera) of the various crashes that occurred
> on the above setup. Same setup, save dual P-II Xeon 450, runs stably for
> months and months now. Sorry, that's just the way it is. I reckon you'll
> come back with arguments like "Well, the system was crap, then." or "It
> must've been a bad CPU or Motherboard." Trust me, the system was swapped
> out twice.

> Ultimately, given that I'm not going to convince you of the above
situation
> or of my own desire/need to run an Intel system and since you're certainly
> not going to convince me to buy an AMD, let us just agree to disagree and
> enjoy the flight sims (or auto-sims, as the case may be).

> --
> Heretic #2 of 3e D&D. - ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!
> Remove the X's in my email address to respond.
> > I don't think anything short of no-boot would put Macists off Mac.
> > The last stable OS was System 6.0.8. So long as system messages
> > are phrased as if a patronising aunt were addressing a retarded
> > 4-year-old, they will continue to love it. - Patrick Ford

by **E. J. Akel** » Sun, 20 May 2001 21:20:07

Ehh. I once had a CPU frying on me. That was not a good thing. But I agree
that there are other ways to notice CPU overheating. Todays temperature
watchers is one thing. Hell: many of these OFFER CPU throttling as a way to
SAVE the CPU from braking.

The question is how the throttling is implemented (if you get told) and how
often it occurs. I, for one, will not cast my judgement on this until i
learn about this. Do anyone out there KNOW this?

Regards,
MadMan

> On Fri, 18 May 2001 23:28:57 -0700, "driedger"

> >I'm pretty sure that the Athlon 4 is going to be throttling back as well.
> >One of the things that has me interested in the Athlon 4 is its thermal
> >management subsystem, protects my investment a bit.

> Oh yea, your playing a game and suddenly you lose 30% in frame rate
> because the cpu is too hot. How can that be a good thing?
> --
> eFalcon keyboard chart in PDF format
> http://storm.prohosting.com/~nos146/ef4_keys.zip

by **E. J. Akel** » Sun, 20 May 2001 21:14:41

You don't need to cash out a lot for stability Yousuf. I have stability. On
a P3 Windows 2000 system with SCSI, video capture gear and so on. Oh, it got
Linux to. Perfectly stable.

Maybee the problems William are referring to are not 100% due to the fact of
the CPU. Maybee as high as 50% (just an example) is due to the fact that
some peripheral (SCSI card???) are not compatible with the CPU. The easiest
way would still be to get a Intel. Running around searching for compatible
hardware is a drag. I know, I had a Cyrix once.

It sounds like the AMD have more bang for the buck. It sounds like Intel is
more reliable for a professional user. Maybee I'll keep this 'puter and buy
a new toy (*** PC).

Regards,
MadMan

> > Compatibility. See earlier post of mine.

> I saw your other post, how you came to blame the processor or system on
the
> problems you had, I don't know. You had some problems with instability --
so
> what? Welcome to the world of x86, I've had the exact same sort of
> problems/crashes if not worse, under various Intel processors. In the x86
> world, you go and find out what's causing the instability, I've had to
> diagnose tons of similar problems with systems running Intel processors,
> from 386's on upto P2's and up. Most fall into the category of bad
> peripherals or bad RAM.

> You want stability? Go run a Sun Solaris system or something. You can get
> well-tested, and certified systems with every component individually
passed
> by the manufacturer. You pay for it, of course.