rec.autos.simulators

Hard Disk Controllers
  Intel PIIX Bus Mastering PCI IDE Controller
  Primary IDE Controller(dual fifo)
  Secondary IDE Controller(dual fifo)

Would this give any insight into DMA performance?

No, it has nothing to do with your IDE controller.   Instead it is DMA
bus-mastering across the PCI bus that the Rendition cards utilize.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

Sorry to start  this thread again, but I decided to check my DMA
performance too, not to be behind others :) I remember seeing posts
where people had problems because their m/b had PCI 2.0 and v2.1 was
needed for the Intergraph. Also someone posted about the lack of
dos4gw in dmadiag.
Well, first Tyan did not answer my e-mail about whether my S1469VX
supported PCI 2.1, and the manual does not mention version numbers.
Second I downloaded dmadiag and there is positively _no_ dos4gw inside
:) A standalone dos4gw is not that easy to find these days, I tried
the big .exe's in ICR2 (regular) and Fragile Alliance to of course to
avail. An old ~200KB from a 2 years-old game makes my computer reboot.

So: any hints on how I can check my system for Rendition-readiness
without actually buying a non-returnable card (see my domain:)?

Karim

Sincerely, Karim

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Please double any reply with an e-mail.
My ISP loses them less often :(

The DMAdiag on my webpage had DOS4GW included.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

A lot of you seem to know quite a bit about the REactor board..I got
mine and look pretty good w/ ICR2 ans N2 and Quake...Duke Nukem looks
kinda shittty though..
my system is a Packard Bell...I know..:(....P-100...32 MB RAM...i had to
spend quite a bit of time on tech support with Intergraph..WHICH HAS THE
BEST TECH SUPPORT I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS!!!..finally got it configured
correctly w/ the new drivers / BIOS..
        I am not as impressed as I had thought I would be..that probably has to
do with my Packard Hell motherboard..
        I ran DMATEST and my results sounded low to intergraph.. "Nominal FIFO
performance 11.4 MB/sec and Nominal DMA performance is 22.4
MB/sec....are these numbers very low??? what would be descent values for
my system??
        In Vquake, i get ~35fps at 400x300 and ~25fps at 512x384...how can i
check my frame rate in ICR2 or N2??
        Please help me!!

newsgroup...thanks!
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Yes your DMA scores are low, a good value would be 50+.  Do you have an
option in your BIOS to adjust PCI Latency?  If not a BIOS upgrade may
improve performance.  Either way I wouldn't expect great performance,
as Packard Hell's are generally quite slow.   As far as Duke3D goes,
are you using one of the VESA modes or plain old VGA?  The Reactor is
extremely slow at VGA, but VESA modes fly.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/

: >No, it has nothing to do with your IDE controller.   Instead it is DMA
: >bus-mastering across the PCI bus that the Rendition cards utilize.
: >
: >> Would this give any insight into DMA performance?

: Sorry to start  this thread again, but I decided to check my DMA
: performance too, not to be behind others :) I remember seeing posts
: where people had problems because their m/b had PCI 2.0 and v2.1 was
: needed for the Intergraph. Also someone posted about the lack of
: dos4gw in dmadiag.
: Well, first Tyan did not answer my e-mail about whether my S1469VX
: supported PCI 2.1, and the manual does not mention version numbers.
: Second I downloaded dmadiag and there is positively _no_ dos4gw inside
: :) A standalone dos4gw is not that easy to find these days, I tried
: the big .exe's in ICR2 (regular) and Fragile Alliance to of course to
: avail. An old ~200KB from a 2 years-old game makes my computer reboot.

: So: any hints on how I can check my system for Rendition-readiness
: without actually buying a non-returnable card (see my domain:)?

If I am correct in what I recall the DMADIAG will only work if their is
a Rendition Card in your machine.  However there is a copy of DMATEST
that I think can be used without it.  Here is the URL for DMATEST and I
am pretty sure it has the dos4gw included:
        http://www.rendition.com/dmatest.zip

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

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Snip

I've wanted an answer to this for weeks, I wish someone would just
answer that question. I have seen numerous threads where someone
(including myself) wanted to know how to test DMA performance before
buying a rendition based card. Since NO ONE will answer I'll have to
assume that you can't run "dmatest" or "dmadiag" without actually
purchasing one of the cards, then installing it and testing to see how
well it works. I don't particularly like this, but I'm willing to accept
it if that's the way things are.
        Tommorrow I'm going to bite the bullet and order an Intergraph card. Of
course I'll be hangin' on to the paper work and shipping materials in
case I have to send it back.

Matt Howell

DMAtest requires a Rendition card, but I have no idea about DMAdiag
(I've never even used it).  I'm sure there is some utility out there
that can test your board's PCI bus-mastering performance, but I'm not
sure where you'd find it.  You might try asking in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips or one of the MB groups.

--

Emory University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
The IWCCCARS Project: Q & A Representative
Nascar Setups Page: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~ebusch/