Re: Help me analyze my configuration

[Willem Riede <wrcygwin at riede dot org>]

On 2003.05.25 17:20, Harold L Hunt II wrote:
> Willem,
> 
> Actually, you are in perfect luck, as I have tested an almost identical 
> hardware configuration to what you have above!  Unfortunately, you 
> probably aren't going to like what I have to tell you.
> 
> The quick answer is that you do have a performance problem.  One thing 
> you can do to restore the performance of Cygwin/XFree86 (without fixing 
> the underlying problem) is to use the Shadow GDI-based engine, rather 
> than the default Shadow DirectDraw engine.  You do this by passing 
> XWin.exe the "-engine 1" flag:
> 
> XWin.exe -engine 1 -query my_remote_hostname_or_ip

This I tried immediately, and it worked like a charm -- the cygwin-xfree
performance is now very good.

> The real solution, or lack thereof, lies below.
> 
> I have an Iwill KA266 with an Athlon 1.2 GHz chip, which was running 
> Windows 2000 at the time.  I purchased an ATI All In Wonder 8500DV... 
> hey, wait a minute, I gave a very good writeup of this in the archives:
> 
> http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin-xfree/2002-12/msg00049.html
> 
> So, I suspect that if you run any video playback software or anything 
> else that uses DiretDraw, you will see very jerky and slow redrawing, 
> indicating that this a problem with your video layer, not just with 
> Cygwin/XFree86.  Try playing back a DVD or (if you have the All In 
> Wonder) recording some TV and playing it back later.

I re-installed the ATI video drivers and the media-center, and you're
right, DVD playing is awful. I had actually not done that before -- I own
a regular DVD player too so I watch them on my TV -- I used the 8500DV to
watch TV while working on the PC, and that, as before, works just fine.
 
> You have to upgrade to the ATI drivers, which took me about 4 hours to 
> do properly until the jerkiness went away.  You have to follow their 
> instructions VERY carefully and you have to constantly check to see if 
> Windows now thinks that the new drivers are installed.  

How _did_ you get rid of the jerkiness? I have the latest drivers from the
ATI website installed, and the device manager shows the correct properties,
but as I said, the resuling jerkiness is horrible.

>                                                        In the end, you 
> might end up with a freezing problem like I had.  

What I found earlier, is that you do not want to install the ALI (not ATI)
chipset 4-in-1 driver on this combination. Totally unstable. The microsoft
drivers for the chipset seem to do a fine job though. While a couple of
hours is hardly enough to declare something stable, so far so good.

>                                                     I ended up having to 
> get rid of my ATI All In Wonder 8500DV, which was really a great card 
> other than the fact that it froze my motherboard.

I may have to do that too, if I decide I care about DVDs (probably not) or
time-shifted video (PVR - which I do want to be able to do). Given that you 
were not able to get it right, I don't give myself much chance :-(

But at least for now I'm enjoying the remote xfree access to the other PC.

Thanks for your help. Willem Riede.