|
I fixed a bug in the Mac Game/Video Card Performance database where searches for certain Powerbook models with graphics chips in parenthesis [i.e. 'PowerBook G3 2000 (Rage128 Mobility)'] would not be found. I've corrected this and added a general 'Powerbook' category to find all PB entries in the database regardless of model. (You can still search on specific models however.)
Barney Buoy sent a list of additions to the other net news, TILs and Software Updates section below.
= 12:45 PM Update Follows =
Bottom Line sent a note on a sale on PowerForce G4/350 CPU cards:
"Powerlogix Powerforce G4/350 2:1 Processor Card
Part Number : PL350G4
Old Price : $599.99
New Price : $469.99*
http://www.bldistribution.com/bld_desc.t?edp=24540
"
I reviewed the PF G4/350 a few months back. They have a since release an updated version of their Altivec Enabler extension. You can also search the Rate Your CPU Upgrade database for Powerlogix G4 reports (leave mac model blank to see all reports for the card regardless of the owner's Mac model).
= 11:30 AM Update Follows =
Reply Regarding Bottom Line Cinema Display Pricing: David Goldman (president) of Bottom Line replied to my question about the price increase ($3999.99 to $4299.99) yesterday by saying that the
$3999.99 price would be honored for my readers for 10 days, but due to slim margins they could not accept credit cards at the $3999.99 price. Bottom Line's toll free number is 800-347-0052 in case any readers want to order. For owner comments on the display, see the recent Cinema Display reader review.
David also sent a note about a reader special on the Turbomax PCI IDE controller:
"Promax Systems TurboMAX ATA/33 PCI Card Host Adapt
Part Number : 1299
Price : $149.99
Xlr8yourmac : $99.99
http://www.bldistribution.com/bld_desc.t?edp=24140
please have your readers comment the order and put $99.99 xlr8yourmac special
Thanks
David"
The storage topics page and sidebar here have a review of the Turbomax and tests comparing it to the ATA/66 Acard controller.
More Info on Cinema Display Dealer Sales: A reader replied to the post in yesterday's news regarding Bottom Line selling the Cinema Display separately:
"Hi there Mike,
I'm yet another frequent visitor of your most excellent home page (which I
use as mine also). I noticed you have seen that another Mac reseller offers
the 22" Apple Cinema Display. I work for *********** and Apple
emailed us with the offer that they are now allowing resellers to order UP
TO 25 of these displays per month per reseller. Apple has said that all
quantities may NOT be filled, and the reseller must also order a G4 at the
time the Cinema display is ordered (and only at a "one-to-one" ratio with
the G4's ordered). Just thought I would clear the waters for you a little.
Anonymous"
As noted in the update to yesterday's news, the BLOL price was originally $3999.99 but was raised to $4299.99 later in the day. (See above for BLOL statement on pricing.)
Adaptec 2906 V1.2 Software fixes G4 Sleep Issues: A reader sent a mail and posted in the forum the new software update solved his G4 system sleep problems:
"
I have a 450Mhz G4 with a Adaptec 2906 SCSI card. I have been having
trouble coming out of sleep. The system would freeze or the mouse
would stop working. I updated my software to V1.2 today and now
everything works great. I can now go into full power down sleep and
come out of sleep fine. I also updated the control panel to V5.1.
Thank you Adaptec for correcting the problem.
Ron Postma
"
Adaptec SlimSCSI 1480 in Pismo Report: The first report of Adaptec's new PCCard SCSI controller with a Powerbook Firewire:
"I just wanted to email my experiences with the Adaptec PowerDomain SlimSCSI
1480 cardbus card (cardbus to SCSI converter), and my 500 MHz Pismo. I tried
the card with a hard drive, a Yamaha CDR 400, and my Emu ESI-4000 sampler.
The hard drive and the CD burner worked fine with the card, although the
card did seem a little more temperamental about SCSI termination, and cable
lengths than my PowerMac 9600.
After fiddling with cables and termination I was able to get the hard drive, and the burner working when all devices were daisy chained together. I couldn't get the sampler to work with the card, and Recycle. Recycle would find the ESI-4000, and would begin a transfer,
but then Recycle would get stuck in the middle of the transfer, and the
sampler would display a timeout error.
I don't know what the root cause of the problem is, it could be the sampler, the card or Recycle. I'm hoping that some update will fix the problem. I tried having just the sampler
attached to the card, but still no luck.
Also with regard to the Motu Fastlane. A friend and I were unable to get the
FastLane to work with the Nord Micro Modular editor, and a Nord Micro
Modular. The MicroMod editor only works with OMS 2.0 or greater. We were
able to install the FastLane drivers under OMS, but we just couldn't get the
editor to work. We ended up returning the Fastlane.
-Shehryar"
I welcome other reports from SlimSCSI owners.
66GB Mac Tape Drive: Maczones has a Ecrix VXA-I 66GB internal tape drive for $849.95. However from the dimensions it appears to be a 5.25" drive, which means you'd have to replace the DVD/CDROM drive to use it. I found the Ecrix web site which has more info including a page that lists a Mac external model. Interfaces are listed at SCSI-II, U2/LVD SCSI and Firewire (coming Q3 2000). The VXA Tape web site that has details on the technology used.
More Extensions Performance Impact Comments: The latest reader comments in reply to the tips in yesterday's news:
"Mike,
Read with interest your notes about performance hogging extensions and
the like....certainly Control Strip is one of them, but using Peek-a-boo, its
obvious that using the Palm Instant Desktop and HotSync startup are even
bigger CPU cycle hogs. Turn those puppies off! This is probably why I
get faster frame rates with Unreal with my minimum "Quake 2" set of
extensions than with my day to day extensions.
regards,
Stephen Scharf"
Another reader sent results of Norton SI tests before/after trimming:
"Mike,
I utilized Peek-A-Boo today to see how much I could clean up my System Heap.
I was able to turn off about 5-6 extensions that just weren't doing me a
whole lot of good anymore. (Some of the ones that were
taking up CPU cycles were Folder Actions, FBC Indexing scheduler, software
center launcher, time synchronizer,...) Here's the Norton System Info scores, both before
and after. They're pretty revealing!
This is on a Powerbook G3/500 with 256M RAM running OS 9.0.2, with a pruned
extension set.
| Subset | Before/After |
| CPU | 1241/1278 |
| Video | 738/771 |
| Disk | 1309/1431 |
| FPU | 1148/1169 |
| Overall | 1132/1172 |
Now if I only understood how System Info measures performance, I'd know how
much of an improvement this is. All I know is that isn't just a point or two
in a direction, it's 20-40 points difference. There is approximately 150
points difference between two CPUs running 50mhz apart.
Just some information to pass on anyway. Do with it as you will.
Best wishes,
Jeff Melrose"
More Comments on OS 9/Peek-a-Boo/CPU Time/Extensions: (long post so font size reduced)
"Hi Mike,
With regards to Mac OS 9 performance, the extensions referred to by Tyler
Perkins are actually (mostly) faceless background applications on the
Mac. These don't have an icon in the application menu and generally
behave as though they were an integrated part of the OS rather than the
separate applications they really are. If you search for all files in the
system folder whose file type is 'appe', you'll see all those
pseudo-applications. It may give people an idea of what's running and
what they might want to disable if they're concerned about CPU usage
(which as far as these things go, they don't really need to be I think).
It may be useful to note that Peek-a-Boo only displays CPU time taken by
applications running in the Mac OS. There is an important distinction
here given the fact that since Mac OS 8.6, what we think of as the Mac OS
is a single large preemptively scheduled kernel thread. Anybody remember
the nanokernel that was talked about in 8.6?
Macintosh Multitasking has changed dramatically from what I can see ever
since 8.6. What we have now is actually a Copland-esque multitasking
model.
The Mac OS as we think of it is actually a single large process within
which all the UI using applications run. It's what we see and interact
with. Peek-a-boo only reports CPU time taken within that large task. The
percentages are what portion of the CPU time each of these get out of the
CPU time blue (the Mac OS task) gets. It does _not_ report the percentage
of _total_ CPU time.
This is what I've been able to figure out... I haven't actually seen all
of this spelled out anywhere. I could be mistaken on certain points.
The kernel schedules CPU time between the running kernel threads. These
threads are idle, blue (the Mac OS UI and all running applications), and
MP threads. Each thread has a weight which can be thought of as its
priority. The kernel gives CPU time to each thread based on two things.
1: it's priority (higher weight means it will get a higher percentage of
CPU time), and 2: whether it is eligible for execution.
This is simplifying things a bit, but when blue is waiting for events (ie
an application has called WaitNextEvent and there are no events pending),
it is blocked. Until an event comes along or until the specified sleep
time has expired, blue gets no CPU time and the next highest priority
thread that is eligible for execution gets CPU time. Most of the time
this is the idle thread.
Whenever an application is actually doing something like a long
calculation, rendering html or some such, blue is eligible for execution.
Since it has a much higher priority than idle, it gets a lot more of the
CPU time. Whenever that calculation stops and applications just sit
around calling WaitNextEvent immediately after they get control, blue
goes back to spending more time being blocked and therefore getting
little CPU time.
The idle thread is where the CPU can be put into low power mode. This is
where most of the power savings can take place. So long as applications
in blue aren't doing anything, the processor sits around sleeping or
dozing rather than running full throttle.
Whenever the user is at idle, or is just doing something like typing or
mousing around (so long as nothing complicated happens as a result of
clicking or whatnot), the CPU spends more than 90% of its time in the
idle thread.
The Multiprocessing 2.1 SDK is available at:
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/index.html
It explains a lot about how the very low level Mac OS works now. There is
a sample application called "CPU Meter" which shows the CPU time given to
the various running kernel threads.
Ryan Tokarek
Mac Sysadmin
"
Other comments on this topic are welcome.
The Owner's CPU Upgrade Reviews, Mac Game Reviews and Mac Game/Video card Performance searchable databases were updated last night with new reader reports.
For a blast from the past, see what was on the main news page one year ago today and two years ago.
Other Net News/TIL Updates:
The recent features page also lists articles posted (most recent first) as does the sidebar links here. The site topics pages (systems, cpu upgrades, etc. - see top and sidebar links on this page) also are places to check as well as the FAQ.
Thursday's News Summary
- Bottom Line selling Cinema Displays separately
- More USB Midi Adapter/Apps Reports
- OS 9 Performance Tips
- New Pismo Comments page includes benchmarks
- Cinema Display review updated with another owners
comments on bad pixels
- Ram Prices Still Rising (Korea reader's comments)
- OS 9.0.2 solves reader's USB/SCSI adapter problem
- DVD Player 2.1 Comments
- Better Palm Serial Port Monitor Tip
- About USB/Midi Adapter Apps Support
- Owner's CPU Upgrade Reviews and Mac Game/Video card Performance searchable databases were updated last night with new reader reports.
- Other Net News/TIL Updates/Software Updates
Wednesday's News Summary
- 3dfx Online Store
- Ram Prices Rising
- More Pismo owner comments
- OWC 4X SCSI CDR sale
- IDE ORB in G4 Tip
- Pismo Hard Drive Noise
- Game News page updated for Q2 Zoom tip, Game Launcher
- Intech Promises Cure for all B&W Rev 1 HD Data Corruption
- More B&W G3 Rev 1 Drive Reports
- Beige G3/IBM HD Report
- Acer 10X DVD Drive Report
- Screenshot Comparing Voodoo5 AA vs GeForce
- Palm Serial Port Monitor/PB G3 Issues & Workaround
- Midiman 2x2 Sales
- TIL Updates/Other Net News/Software Updates
Tuesday's News Summary
- Parsec 3D Space Game Demo Released
- Newer Tech Partners with Tri-M
- More B&W G3 rev 1 IDE Drive Reports
- $65 USB/Midi 2x2 Adapter
- Reader reports low-cost DSL from Cox Cable in Texas
- Cinema Display review updated
with another owner's comments
- Apple 15" Digital Displays - no Composite/S-Video Inputs
- Sonnet L2G3/500 Solves Video Card Issues
- Midisport 2x2 USB/Midi
- B&W G3 Rev 1 & IBM Deskstar 22GB Data Corruption report
- Norton Crashguard/Metrowerks Conflict
- Owner's CPU Upgrade Reviews was updated w/new reports including iMac/iMaxPowr 466 & Sonnet L2G3/500Mhz.
- Other Net News/Software Updates
For links to older news pages see the Archives page. The recent features page has a lists reviews/articles you may have missed.
For a guide to finding answers to questions - see my Site Guide page.
Considering a CPU Upgrade? Search the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. The current database has more than 3,300+ reports and growing.
Make a Difference: Be the Difference
Randy Mita, Brad Lau and I came up with a new slogan and theme for Mac advocacy - "Make a Difference: Be the Difference". We're asking that all Mac owners take advantage of every opportunity to let others know the Mac advantage. It's a grass-roots approach that will surely help. You might save someone from a lifetime of Windows in the bargain.
Thanks to my wife Kay, the ultimate computer widow
for putting up with all the time I spend with the site work, tests and email.= Top of Page =
Copyright © Mike ,1997-2000. All Rights Reserved
Brand/product names mentioned here
are properties of their respective companies.
Legal: Users of this web site must read
& are bound by the terms & conditions of use.
Site Logo Design by Jamie Bakum
(AccelerateYourMac! and the running Mac logo are registered ServiceMarks.)
| 
Answers!