A topic for the discussion of microprocessors that execute
x86 and perhaps AMD64 instructions.

23 responses total.

Do Intel Core and Core 2 microprocessors have a 64-bit
interface to memory, or 128-bit?

 i think it is 64 max fir core but fir core 2 it is 128

This response has been erased.

Things on my shopping list include a Socket939 mATX main-
board for a 1.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 (Winchester) and perhaps
also a Socket478 mainboard for a 2 GHz Celeron (Northwood).

I've been awfully tempted to find a Socket370 mainboard and
a Pentium III-S Tualatin, but the money would be better put
towards one of the other boards.

A colleague has a machine with a Coppermine Celeron. We plan
to upgrade his RAM, but I'm also considering a brain
transplant.  I have yet to see the machine, so I'm not sure
whether it can take a Tualatin.  Is there any truth to the
rumour that the Tualatin-S (or Pentium III-S chips
generally) require special "server" motherboards?

    I find myself having to upgrade some PCs again.  Mrs.
ball wants something faster than her two-year-old PC just
because Adobe Flash slows everything to a crawl.  I'm
leaning towards an Asus E35M1-M Pro board, which has an AMD
E-350 'Zacate' chip soldered to it. I'm told Adobe Flash can
use the GPU on a Windows machine so hopefully her new PC
will /feel/ faster, even if it isn't.

    I already have a new case, PSU and hard disk so the
projected cost of the upgrade is US$ 120 for the mainboard
(with soldered APU) + $40 for a single 4 Gbyte DIMM.

We use Adobe Flash on 10 year old computers with no problem.  What is she
trying to do with it?  Has she tried linux?

    Facebook mostly, including Facebook games. I don't think
Adobe Flash is able to benefit from a computer's GPU on a
Linux computer.  It might be an interesting experiment to
have her try Linux but historically she is very resistant to
change where her computer is concerned.

Try running Puppy Linux from a live CD.  You need to specify US keyboard, time
zone, and probably choose Xorg and screen resolution each time unless you can
save this info to the WIndows hard drive.  If she ONLY uses it online, first
get her using Firefox in Windows then Firefox in linux.  The main difference
is you single- instead of double- click the icon.  
Why do you think Linux does not use the GPU?
What sort of games does Facebook have that require speed?  Maybe someone else
has found a workaround for using them with a 2 year old computer.

    She already uses Firefox and has experimented recently
with Google Chrome which is quirky but does feel a little
less sluggish than Firefox.  For graphics work she uses the
GIMP and I've been trying to wean her from WordPerfect for
Windows and get her on to LibreOffice.

    My guess is that Adobe recognized that Flash was
becoming very slow and decided to use the GPU for
computation rather than just for graphics. This is practical
today thanks to libraries such as CUDA from Nvidia and Open
-CL from ATI.  I have been told that ATI include OpenCL
support with their Windows and Macintosh drivers but not yet
with those for Linux.  It may also be that Adobe Flash does
not look for OpenCL on Linux.

So does Flash work properly on linux?  What game is the problem - I can try
to check it on one of our ten year old computers, in linux.  

I just gave a computer to someone and she quickly figured out how to use the
shareware Jarte wordprocessor (based on Wordpad) which is a 3MB download and
does all the basics.  Does your wife need something special for
wordprocessing?  Most people would be fine with a text editor.  

    Adobe Flash limps along on my daughter's (Linux Qimo)
computer but doesn't really keep up even with the simple 2D
animation and video of pbskids.org. That's on a machine with
limited power: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom 230 (single core) with
Intel GMA 950 built into the N. bridge chip.  If I build
something more powerful for my daughter, I will happily re-
claim her old computer, which used to run NetBSD quite
happily.

    I just ran some tests on my wife's PC.  As I suspected,
the ATI 3100 graphics built into the mainboard do not
support OpenCL so Adobe Flash isn't able to benefit from it.
This would impact any Flash game (so all of the things she
plays through FaceBook).

    For some jobs a simple text editor is sufficient. I find
that for non-trivial documents (anything beyond a couple of
pages) a word-processor is preferable.  Style tags for
example help ensure consistent formatting which can lend
credibility to a document or at least minimize the
distraction of unintended font/layout changes.

I use the same font throughout.  Name one game for me to try out on an older
computer with linux.  

    If you're on Facebook you could try "Words With
Friends", which is a variation on Scrabble.

That needs speed?  I need to switch operating systems to use Flash.....

It seems I'm not the only person seeing performance issues
with Adobe Flash...

   "We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile
    devices to new browser, OS version or device
    configurations..."
                                        http://zd.net/tVIEP6

I don't see the connection.  I went to pbskids.org and the games there were
relatively undemanding of speed.  A cartoon character moving its head.  The
one at facebook wanted permission to access photos and personal info so I
skipped it as it was not even my account.  Looks more like crosswords than
scrabble.  I can use flash at Youtube on a 600Mhz machine but 1GHz is less
jerky and works at 36o instead of 240.

    It's not inconceivable that our Internet connection
might be part of the issue, though 2Mbits/S should suffice.
I'll try upgrading the processor in my wife's PC and if that
doesn't fix it I'll add an entry-level graphics card.

We have 3 MBps but crossword puzzles should not care.  

    You're right.  The fact that I can stream video smoothly
on our media player suggests the problem is in the PCs (or
the software running on them).  I've been putting off the
processor upgrade because its an awkward, messy job. I think
it needs to be done though.

I don't understand why a fast processor is needed for crossword puzzles.
Is something else set wrong?

    Something is set wrong in the I.T. industry and I think
Adobe Flash is a symptom of that.  More news after I've done
some testing.

    I upgraded the processor from a single-core AMD Athlon
64 LE-1640 "Orleans" chip to a quad-core Phenom II X4 925
"Deneb".  Sure enough Adobe Flash now runs noticeably faster
as does everything else.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss