rec.autos.simulators

                                John

Well it was quite a learning experience, after asking lots of probably
stupid questions, and pulling a little hair out, I managed to get my
homebuild up and running.

I would like to say thanks Eric T. Busch, George Lewis, Bill Blose, and
Don Wilshe, for taking the time to help me out. It seems that I recieved
a bad Motherboard, which really sent me into spastic mode, when I
couldn't get the thing to boot. But after recieving a replacement
everything went fine. Wheeew.

System:
ASUS P/IP5T2P4 (HX chipset 512 onboard cache)
P200MMX
64mb TI EDO Ram
Intense 3D video card
Creative Labs Pnp32
Hayes Accura 33.6 modem
17" monitor

I tested the dma performance:

In DOS box:

I/O: 20.1mb/sec.
DMA: 77.8 mb/sec

From DOS prompt:

I/O: 22.4 mb/sec.
DMA: 79.0 mb/sec.

This seems to be a little off of the 90mb/sec. that seems to be the
"optimal" performance. What could I do to
improve my dma test scores? How does this compare to other's with
similiar hardware? I flashed the bios on the Video card to 74. I am
thinking of overclocking it, but want to enjoy it a little before I
start tinkering.

I can run Nascar 1 at most tracks in traffic with the
cars,wall,horizon,skids/paint,smoke/dirt,object textures on, at 29fps. I
run a 29 car field with 15 drawn ahead 6 behind and 4 heard.At the
smaller tracks like Bristol
and Martinsville I turn the object textures off.Tracks like Dover seem
to run fine and Dega is Awesome.

Nascar2 runs GREAT especially from the dos prompt using renddma.

Mick in Tampa
--

Mike Schreiner
http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL      #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have an option in your BIOS for PCI Latency timer, try bumping
it up to a higher setting.  With the ASUS board, you really should try
running at 83x2.5 for about 208Mhz or 75x3 for 225Mhz.  Your slow EDO
may have some trouble with it, so you may need to tweak your memory
settings in your BIOS.  Despite what anyone says, your video card will
be fine running at these higher bus speeds.  The PCI bus runs at half
of the external clock speed (83/2 or 74/2), and as a PCI 2.1 compliant
card the Reactor is rated as stable up to 66Mhz.  So as long as your
not using a 133+Mhz bus speed, you'll be fine. =)

--

The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

To increase your DMA scores, reboot your machine and enter setup(F1).
Look around there (perhaps in "advanced chipset options") and find a
setting for PCI latency.  Try increasing this number (I moved up in
increments of 10 clocks) to increase your DMA scores.  Before doing
this, I was getting 83 MB/sec.  Afterward, I got 91MB/sec.  I went from
the original 66PCI latency clocks to 90.  This was done on my Packard
Bell P100.

Be aware though, that your performance may or may not increase after
doing this.  My DMA went up, but my benchmarks in Quake did not increase
at all.  The true real-world effect of this is questionable.  Congrats
on the new homebuild!
--
Matt Lewis

Thanks for the info though. I ran a winbech97 on it also:

WEIGHTED SUITE           Hymco P5-200      P200mmx with Asus T/I P5T2...        
UNITS

CPUMark16                  344                     409 [1]      
CPUmark32                  338                     389 [2]      
Business Disk WinMark 97   609 [4,5]               651
[2,3,4]K's/Bytes/Sec
High-End Disk WinMark 97   2120 [4,5]             2730 [2,3,4]K's
Bytes/Sec

NOTES

Legend: Best Score, Intermediate Score, Worst Score

 [1]  The following Windows tasks were running during this test and
could affect the test results: FMEDIA.EXE, RNAAPP.EXE, TAPIEXE.EXE
 [2]  The following Windows tasks were running during this test and
could affect the test results: FMEDIA.EXE
 [3]  Common test settings: Disk Drive=C:\ Report CPU Utilization=No
 [4]  The playback directory was C:\~wbdtmp
 [5]  Common test settings: Disk Drive=C:\ CDROM Drive=D:\ Report CPU
Utilization=No

Mick in Tampa
--

Mike Schreiner
http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL      #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!

Try: http://www.microsoft.com/mediadev/download/isdk.htm

--

The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars/index.html
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

: > >I tested the dma performance:
: > >In DOS box:
: > >I/O: 20.1mb/sec.
: > >DMA: 77.8 mb/sec
: > >From DOS prompt:
: > >I/O: 22.4 mb/sec.
: > >DMA: 79.0 mb/sec.
: > >This seems to be a little off of the 90mb/sec. that seems to be the
: > >"optimal" performance. What could I do to
: > >improve my dma test scores? How does this compare to other's with
: > >similiar hardware? I flashed the bios on the Video card to 74. I am
: > >thinking of overclocking it, but want to enjoy it a little before I
: > >start tinkering.

Can somebody tell me which program you are using to do these tests?
Where I can get it etc...

Neil

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USES Disclaimer;

{    The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the     }
{              University or me come to that. Alright!             }

Winbench97: http://www.zdnet.com/zdbop/winbench/winbench.html
Chris's 3D Bench: ftp://ftp.sysdoc.pair.com/pub/cbench.zip

Post or send me your results so I can do some comparisons, always lookin
for a way to get it running a little better.

btw- I upped the PCI latencey and now get a dma of: 102.7 mb/sec. If you
want the oc'ing results e-mail or post.

Mick in Tampa
--

Mike Schreiner
http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL      #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry you wanted the dma test..............

Get it here at Eric Busch's webpage:

on "utilities" page

http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Mick in Tampa
--

Mike Schreiner
http://pages.prodigy.com/CNSRL      #3 = #8 in '97!!!!!!!!!!!!