Performance Tweaks ?

Forum: Apps
Topic: Performance Tweaks ?
started by: Tectron1

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 11 2005,19:07

I have tried the hdparm tweaks, reduced the number of tty's and the noatime entry in the fstab file. Are there any tweaks that I can do to try and get a little more speed.
Some programs like firefox and limewire are slow operating. I am running a Ver1.4 HD install on a 233mmx laptop with 80 megs of ram.Would installing the complete xserver help any? Or am I just limited by my laptop?

Posted by mstrhelix on Aug. 11 2005,19:55

You could try making a swap partition and turning swap on thats what I do...

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 11 2005,21:28

Ive done that, so far the system hasnt tapped into it yet.

Posted by adssse on Aug. 12 2005,04:42

Some basic things you could do are use the 'Minimal' theme, dont load any dock apps at startup that you dont use and use the .uci extensions when you can as I believe they use less ram. I know there are better suggestions but I cant think of any right now.

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 16 2005,19:11

Could removing some of the tty's cause some programs not to work? I downloaded mplayer but when I double click the Icon the cpu usage goes up for several seconds then back to zero and thats all it does??

Posted by I went to bed very late on Aug. 16 2005,22:28

Have you tried to startup mplayer out of the therminal?
This can give you a particular error message.

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 17 2005,00:06

Removing tty's won't affect the performance of individual programs. I don't even think it would affact overall performance of your system.

The bed's idea should help.
If you are trying the mplayer-xfree86 extension you'll need XFree86 installed in order to use it.

Posted by adraker on Aug. 17 2005,00:30

Too true!
I have similar machine, mplayer will not start without the
extensions Mikshaw mentioned.
My XFree config file is for a Neomagic card.
Launching from icon is too much of a strain on resources.
I open a terminal and enter
/opt/mplayer/mplayer -framedrop /path/to/moviefile

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 17 2005,16:50

I am pretty sure I got the normal extenion,I will try opening it from a shell.
I have tried to install xfree86 a few times unsucsessfully. I have a neomagic 128 xx but the neomagic config file supplied in xfree 86 didnt seem to work. most likely Im just doing something wrong though. I was getting my info from here < xfeedsllink >
Im sure I'll figure it out eventually, there just doesnt seem to be a wealth of info about it.

Posted by mstrhelix on Aug. 17 2005,18:06

I don't know why your swap is not being recognized because I just made a swap and rebooted and DSL picks it up and mounts it every time i boot.

Posted by adraker on Aug. 17 2005,19:44

Tectron1,
here is a link to a XF86Config that I found.
< http://www.acota.de/docs/comp/acer/XF86Config >
This works on my IBM t'pad 380XD- I can't recall the exact Neomagic model.
This gives basic 800x600 operation, the most this card can do.
In practice, with XFree running, at best you'll be able to play 384x288
size streams, with 80 to 90 % cpu.But you can go fullscreen when you've
got the cards acceleration happening under XFree.

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 18 2005,02:06

Quote (mstrhelix @ Aug. 17 2005,14:06)

I don't know why your swap is not being recognized because I just made a swap and rebooted and DSL picks it up and mounts it every time i boot.

My swap is being recognized but it remains unused for the most part. I have tapped into it a little by starting several programs at once and got it to about 89%.

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 18 2005,02:16

Quote (adraker @ Aug. 17 2005,15:44)

Cool thanks, I have to find out what specific neo chip I have, mine will do 1024x768 at 16million collors.Its actually running 1024x768 in dsl right now. Can I edit the config file to say 1024x768 in all of the places where it says 800x600? Or will I zap my screen?

Im looking forward to the increase in video performance. :cool:

Edit:
After some searching I discoverd I have a NeoMagic Magicgraph 128xd (NM2160)

Posted by adraker on Aug. 18 2005,04:41

Hmm.. thats the card I'm "supposed" to have-
I always thought it could only do 1024x768 for external monitor.
Anyway, just see if that config file works for you as is, then see
if it will do better.
Hope it gets you further than no XFree at all.

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 18 2005,12:51

Thats a good point, Something is better than nothing.I sometimes dont think of the obvious. lol

It may be that your lcd will only support 800x600.

Posted by Tectron1 on Aug. 20 2005,23:55

It Worked

I have a real xserver now. the 800x600 was difficult to use because the bottom of my screen was cut off, so I booted knoppix std and copied the default vesa xconfig file and put it in dsl(the dsl one wouldnt work for some reason), and now I have 1024x768. There is a noticable differance between the speedof the neomagic config and the vesa config, But until i figure out how to manually edit xconfig files it will have to do.

Thanks for your help.

:cool:

Posted by gunnix on Aug. 21 2005,13:54

Another thing I want to add:
When using pagedown/pageup in firefox it's much more usable on old computers then when you scroll. Scrolling uses much more cpu then pageup/pagedown. It's not exactly a tweak, but it makes firefox quite "enjoyable" on my p1. Although I use elinks as primary browser.