[sldev] Why is Second-Life viewer so slow on Samsung Q1 uiltra?

Kamilion kamilion at gmail.com
Thu Jan 3 01:12:07 PST 2008


Replies inline.

On Jan 3, 2008 12:53 AM, Robin Cornelius <robin.cornelius at gmail.com> wrote:
> 김승현 wrote:
> > Hi~! Everyone, I'm wondering why is Second-Life viewer so slow on Samsung
> > Q1 ultra?
> >
> >
> How slow? how many frames per second do you get? and what are the
> graphics settings in settings/graphics and advanced graphics set to.
> Also draw distance what is this set to?

My assumption is around 2-5FPS or less, from the performance I see in
the aforementioned Fujitsu Lifebook in my last post.

>
> > Is it graphics driver problem?
> >
> > Let's check graphics accelerator driver Q1 has. It's Intel GMA 950
> > chipset. See the product specification
> > (http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/spec.do?group=computersperipheral
> > s&type=ultramobilepc&subtype=ultramobilepc&model_cd=NP-
> > Q1U/600/SEA&fullspec=F) Q1 supports DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.4. Current
> > graphics driver version that is installed on my Q1: 6.14.10.4833 and latest
> > version: 6.14.10.4864. It seems that's not key factor of our problem.
> >
> > Second-Life viewer self-problem?
> >
> >
> According to the spec that graphics card only has 128Mb of *shared*
> memory so it has to share bus time to get at the memory, for a processor
> intensive application that uses a lot of physical and graphics memory
> this could be a bad factor.
>
> Also how is the graphics chip connected into the system, on what bus?
> Moving graphics things around is a huge overhead, i see *enormous*
> difference if my graphics card is in my PCIex4 slot compared to my
> PCIex16 slot. If its only on a x4 then this is not the best possible
> situation.

The graphics chip is integrated in the system's northbridge, therefore
I'm not sure if it's even using PCI Express, or simply communicating
directly over the FSB.

The processor is an Intel A100 600Mhz Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) low power chip.

Since it's a UMPC, it lacks PCI Express *slots* entirely. Since PCIEx
is a serial protocol, chances are it's still exposed somewhere on the
mainboard, but slots are right out -- unless this specific UMPC has
some sort of a dock with PCIEx devices within it, which isn't out of
the question.

The intel GMA 950 is part of the northbridge, directly connected to
the CPU's FSB, so it's already handling addressing of the system
memory in the same chip, therefore I doubt the shared memory
architecture is causing a problem in itself.



Also, how the heck do you fit a PCI Express X16 card into an X4 slot?
It shouldn't be physically possible unless you file off the sliver of
plastic at the rear of the slot...
Unless it's a X16 slot with only 4 lanes connected, and you'd have to
have a very crappy motherboard for this, as most SLI boards will have
a full 16 lane X16 slot and a 8-lane X16 slot as the secondary, with
most boards switching both slots into 8-lane in SLI mode with one of
those little reversible cards or jumper blocks.

>
> You have 1GB of system ram which is normally acceptable (well is for me
> under linux, no idea of the footprint of windows tablet).
>

Actually, it should have 896MB of system ram, since 128MB of the
1024MB is being grabbed by the graphics accelerator.


> > Official viewer may have problem with GMA 950 series but I'm not sure what
> > the problem is exactly. SecondLife doesn't make good harmony with OpenGL
> > 1.4 ver.? If it's true of not, what is the critical problem point? As you
> > know, my point is not chipset level, but graphics API level!
> >
> >
>
> How does your processor compare to other processors? I have no idea
> about the processor, when you are running can you get a %cpu usage, this
> can indicate where the bottleneck is, for example my amd64 runs at about
> 75% CPU all the time with the viewer, its my graphics card that is my
> limiting factor.
>

For a 600Mhz CPU, it *better* be using 100%.

>
> Regards
>
> Robin
>

-- Kamilion Schnook


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