Text 55796, 67 rader
Skriven 2009-07-12 16:54:22 av Jeff Guerdat (1:124/311)
     Kommentar till en text av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE
Ärende: Re: BCC and BC.
=======================
On 07/12/2009 03:59 PM, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote:

>   JG>  AGP by itself doesn't use system memory for video.  It does, however,
>   JG>  _potentially_ use system memory to store overlays, texture maps, etc.
>   JG>  Many BIOSes can be set to minimize the "AGP aperture" as low as 16MB.
>   JG>  I'm not at all sure that it actually gets held in reserve unless
>   JG>  there's something to store, just that it can do so...
>
> Hmm, good point.
> ISTR there is a setting for that in the BIOS.
> Think it was set at, or loaded only 4 meg when Win 98 was on the machine.
> Linux seems to want it ALL.
> Hope it doesn't ignore the BIOS here, crossing fingers.
>
> I'll take it down by half to 32 meg and see if that helps.
>
> I was right on the edge quite often running Mplayer on my previous machine
> and it had an independent AGP video card with onboard RAM.

I played around with my desktop system to try to maximize free RAM when 
I went to 4GB.  Adjusting the AGP aperture got me up to 3.5GB available 
RAM but the I/O mappings on a 32 bit system prevent a full 4GB being 
available.

Since you mention a separate card with RAM on another machine, it may 
well be that the (apparently) built-in video on this machine DOES use 
system memory, which is independent of the AGP aperture.  In this case 
yer stuck.  Disable the built-in video and use an add-on card would be 
the only way around it.

> CPU usage and real memory I've seen hit the ceiling with ksysmonitor
> on this machine.
>
> My former machine usually only spiked briefly there then settled down with
> 35 percent margin on the CPU and about the same on memory.

You need to determine what's eating the CPU and RAM to attack this.  The 
system should settle down even without enough RAM - it would just go 
nuts every time you tried to do something, not when idle.  I prefer 
using top from a command prompt to the graphical tool - I can much more 
easily see what's consuming CPU and RAM than from the system monitor 
(the monitor itself seems to eat CPU so it shows at the top of the 
display instead of what I'm after).  Just open a command shell and type:

top

The display defaults to that which is eating CPU (the %CPU column) but 
also shows memory utilization (%MEM, VIRT (virtual or maximum memory) 
and RES (resident memory or what is currently in use)).  Stretch the 
window vertically to see more processes although it's usually only the 
top 2 or 3 lines that are important.

> Any tips or idea on what file I might have to alter in Linux if it ignores
> the BIOS setting?

Based on what I've seen on the desktop, I don't think Linux can ignore 
that BIOS settings.  If it does, you'd have to investigate the video 
driver for any settings possible or files to edit.  I'd think that a 
kernel line entry in GRUB would be sufficient.

-- 
Jeff Guerdat

Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a
 * Origin: FidoTel & QWK on the Web! www.fidotel.com (1:124/311)