OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Hardware

Observations on intel vs AMD

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Dariusz Piatkowski:
Hi Doug,


--- Quote from: Doug Clark on November 09, 2024, 06:18:33 am ---I have attached Sysbench results - it seems not much of my hardware was recognized so I edited some of the descriptions in the results.

My 2 top priorities for a machine are a big screen and a good keyboard.

For graphics I am running a Radeon X600 because SNAP supports the chipset and therefore I can run dual monitors - as shown in the attached picture desktop_2.jpg  Which gets me a big screen for a very reasonable amount of money. 27" 1920x1080 LCD monitors run about $100 each nowdays.
...
This combination has a great feel - both screen and input wise. But installing an older card like the X600, or the X850, can be a challenge on a new machine, because of hardware issues and the installer for AOS 5.1...
--- End quote ---

Excellent, thank you for sharing.

Yeah, so it would seem that my focus and priority on having not just a usable but also 'fitting' OS/2 experience matches yours pretty closely. The extensive summary & feedback you are providing here is GOLDEN!!! I appreciate the time you have put into this...


--- Quote from: Doug Clark on November 09, 2024, 06:18:33 am ---...
1) AOS 5.1 installer will not run unless the graphics card/chipset supports GOP (graphics output protocol), which apparently came along with UEFI.  The Radeon X600, and probably the X850 do not support GOP and therefor the AOS installer will not run with those cards.  I may be stating this incorrectly but that essentially is the issue.

2) I could not find a single Ryzen 5 processor (when I purchased) that had an on-board graphics processor and supported a PICe gen 4 sockets.  Apparently the chips had a limited number of gen 4 lanes and dedicated them to the on-board graphics chip.  I wanted at least one gen 4 socket so I could get a faster NVMe SSD.  I might have been able to get a Ryzen 7 that had the graphics processor and at least one gen4 NVMe socket but those generate more heat and didn't come with a cooler so you pay more intial costs and operating costs for probably not much if any performance gain.

3) I purchased a graphics card that would support GOP so the AOS installer would run, then took the card out and replaced with the Radeon X600 to get SNAP support and dual monitors. The cheapest I could  find was a Radoen HD 5450 put out by VisonTek that cost about $70.

4) This means I needed a maintenance partition on a hard drive because I would not be able to boot from the install USB stick when problems arose unless I switched video cards .
...
--- End quote ---

So this has been quite a concern of mine: how the heck to transition to the new hardware while not having to give up most of the functionality I enjoy today. Great insights right there...especially the stuff dealing with the GPU swap as I wouldn't have known about it and as best as I can tell this isn't called out anywhere else (albeit I migth have of course missed it, if it was).

My son has left me his "old" Ryzen hardware for an upgrade consideration: Asus Prime X470-PRO, AMD Ryzen7 motherboard, Ryzen7 2700X CPU, GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 16G RAM and a Samsung 970 Pro, M.2 NVMe PCI-E 512GB drive. I keep on trying to carve out the time to take on that projects, but all too often it is just sooo much easier to plug away on the stuff that's working for me right now! lol


--- Quote from: Doug Clark on November 09, 2024, 06:18:33 am ---...BTW - I have an old Radeon X800 in the basement and might drag it out to see what it does for the graphics benchmarks.  I switched to the X600 because the X800 took up two slots, had a loud fan, and was a power piggy.  This new machine is essentially silent - I have to get my head right next the fans in the case to hear anything at all.  It is uses about 60 watts at the desktop at idle (without a screen saver) 90 watts when the screen saver kicks in.  At boot-up it hits about 120 watts briefly...
--- End quote ---

I am thinking that the X600=>X800 move will just about close out whatever gaps you may be seeing right now.

The SNAP drivers could be made a tad better by providing additional controls for the GPU, but maybe architectually this wasn't quite fully completed even when the SNAP development was ongoing. Case in point, my X850XT PE is actually the R480 chip with 540 MHz core frequency and 590 MHz memory frequency, but SNAP only runs it at 400/400:


--- Code: ---Graphics device configuration:
  Manufacturer......... ATI
  Chipset.............. Radeon X850 Series
  Bus Type............. PCI Express
  Memory............... 24576 KB
  DAC.................. ATI Internal 24 bit DAC
  Clock................ ATI Internal Clock
  Memory Clock......... 400 MHz
  Default Memory Clock. 400 MHz
  Maximum Memory Clock. 400 MHz
  Driver Revision...... 3.2, Build 29
  Driver Build......... May  2 2017
  Certified Version.... Not Certified

--- End code ---

So a while back I wrote a little util to manipulate those settings thinking that if the SNAP drivers are detecting these and the SDK API is described as being able to SET these...I might as well maximize my hardware!

No-go, while the util runs and no errors are returned, the SysBench results do not change.

Anyways, no biggie, especially in light of the as-is doing exactly what I need it to do so far.

Doug Clark:
Roderick,

The MSI motherboard/BIOS will switch from UEFI/CMS mode to CMS/UEFI mode during boot if it does not detect GOP support in the graphics card, which pretty much insures that you see SOMETHING - at least with this motherboard/BIOS combination.  But the installer won't get the screen where you select system maintenance or install.  I submitted a ticket and some data to AOS to see it they would support the card in the installer and the answer was no - which I completely understand.

As you said, I can't detect a performance difference between Panorama and SNAP.

IVAN,
The resolution is 3840 x 1080 - exactly double the width of the standard 27 inch monitor's 1920 x 1080.  I wish I had more vertical resolution but it isn't worth the cost or hassle to switch - although in theory I could switch to the x800 and 34 inch monitors to get a 1600 vertical resolution.  The physical width (left to right) of the two 27 inch monitors is just under 49 inches.  For me that is about the maximum usable size, and that is with me sitting back a ways from the desk.

I didn't think Panorama would support a horizontal resolution of 3840 so I tried a 49 inch monitor with picture by picture in order to get rid of the black frame "bars" in the middle of the screen by switching to a single monitor.  The idea was I would drive each input of a 49"  monitor that supported picture by picture with a separate monitor output of SNAP.   It worked - but the result was a very large black area on the monitor between the left and right outputs, which was considerably wider that the physical frame that you can see between the left and right 27" monitors pushed together as I have them.  I had to use VGA to HDMI converters to get from the output of the X600 to the inputs of the Samsung 49 inch monitor, so I don't know if it was a monitor issue or convert issue.  But I found out that a 49" monitor is very heavy and wobbly on my desk.  So that experience made my happier with my two monitor setup.  Plus these two monitors are a LOT cheaper than a single 49 inch monitor.

I am using a IOGear 4-port DualView VGA KVMP switch and the monitors have VGA/HDMI inputs.  So I can switch both monitors at the same time. I have hooked up to the KVM  to OS/2, Win7 and a modified version of Win10 (Windows AME) that removes the telemetry and switches some of the built in Windows parts (like file explorer) to look and function like they did in Win7.  I am guessing that most OS/2 users who have a desktop PC also use some kind of KVM.

Martin,

The LPFK (lighted programmable function keyboard) and the 8 dial thing next to it are old products IBM sold mainly for use with RS600 machines running CAD software.  Each of the 8 dials has 256 positions as it rotates.  Each "key" in the LPFK emits a signal when pressed, and the LED for the key is separately addressable.  My plan for the LPFK is to have a WPS object/driver where you can drag and drop another object on the key to assign the key to some action for the object: Open, Run, Close etc.  The LED should be lit when the open is open or running, and off when the object closes or stops. I am waiting to finish up with a new version of my WinZombe program object because that can signal when an application closes or stops running - which means I would not have to poll the window list or active processes to find that out and turn off the light for a key.

I am also planning layers for the LPFK, which would function like layers in a normal programmable keyboard - each layer being a separate set of assignments for the keys and LEDs.  That way you could assign a layer to an application so the application could control the keys and LEDs in "its" layer either through a named pipe or by sending WPS setup strings to the LPFK.  A perfect application for that, in my opinion, is X10 home automation.  There is already an OS/2 X10 interface in the House/10 application and it has a Rexx interface.  The keys could then be assigned to separate devices in the house: lights, garage doors, sprinkler circuit switches, etc. and the dials could be assigned for sending dim/bright signals to a light.  In that case the LPFK would function like a desktop version of an X10 keypad - see attached pic.

You probably didn't notice the black Space Mouse on the desk.  This device essentially replaces the LPFK and the 6 of the dials on the IBM 6094-10 Dials device.

I am pretty much done with the WinZombe object except for the feature that Dariusz asked for a few years back - a folder containing recently opened documents.  The recently opened documents folder object is populated by the WinZombe object when it passes a document to an application - either by drag and drop or by association when a data file object is double clicked.  I have to finish building the part that deletes a shadow in the folder when the total exceeds a user specified number based on when the shadow was added to the folder.

Dariusz,

I am guessing the your son's "hand me up" system will work very well as an upgrade to what you are using today.  Good luck with that.

Remy:
note: I think https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 would be safer than AME for win10/11

JTA:
AME is a key component of my virtualization processes over in the virt sub-forum ... it makes for a perfect, stripped down HostOS, that then runs any other os in a VM, such as ArcaOS. Gets me x64 apps into ArcaOS.

  os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,3498.0.html

I've been running AME for nearly two years now, and there hasn't been any problems, security issues, or such that I can find. On the other hand, there also have not been any data leaks going the other way back to MS, nor have I had to put up with their crud (changes, advertising, etc.) coming my way.

I can report that AME is good stuff ... saves me *hours* of trying to strip out by hand all of MS' garbage in their os's ...

Roderick Klein:

--- Quote from: Doug Clark on November 09, 2024, 06:18:27 pm ---Roderick,

The MSI motherboard/BIOS will switch from UEFI/CMS mode to CMS/UEFI mode during boot if it does not detect GOP support in the graphics card, which pretty much insures that you see SOMETHING - at least with this motherboard/BIOS combination.  But the installer won't get the screen where you select system maintenance or install.  I submitted a ticket and some data to AOS to see it they would support the card in the installer and the answer was no - which I completely understand.

As you said, I can't detect a performance difference between Panorama and SNAP.

--- End quote ---

So the BIOS is displayed on the screen ? What about the ArcaOS boot menu when you install from install media ? Is the ArcaOS boot logo displayed ?
You saying that just the ArcaOS installer is never installed ? Do you have text output during boot or also not ?

Roderick

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