Thanks very much indeed for that excellent explanation!
From what you say then, I would be better off with a 128Mb ATI Radeon
based card than a 64MB nVidia for my money?
--- In
EverQuest@yahoogroups.com, "Wulfric Rennison" <wulftech@e...>
wrote:
> Think about it this way. A video card has memory for a purpose.
The video card's job is to draw, redraw, and crunch the numbers that
adds texture to graphics. EQ being a constantly changing 3D
environment needs a card with the ability to render the graphics. In
layman's terms, the better the video card, the better graphics
performance you'll get. So why memory on a video card? Well the
memory is a localized storage for functions and information that the
graphics processor on the card will perform before sending the
information to the CPU via the graphics bus. The more memory your
video card has, the more information it can store and retrieve to
complete its tasks before it gets sent to the processor. The less
distance it has to travel, the faster it will be. Therefore, having
memory on a video card makes sense. It doesn't have to travel far.
>
> If you don't have enough memory on a video card to perform all the
functions the game requires of it, then these functions have to be
performed SOMEWHERE. Where then does this happen? You guessed it!
Virtual Memory. Where is virtual memory stored? You guessed it. On
the hard drive. The hard drive is miles away from the video card.
Think about what the video card has to do to process that
information. First, it has to send that information via the graphics
bus to the processor saying it needs to assign this information to
virtual memory, then the processor says, "Okay, I'll get to it as
soon as I can finish these other functions." Then the processor
looks up in its memory mapping to see where information from the
video card can be stored and then sends the information to the IDE
BUS and says "Put these here". So then the IDE bus kicks in and
sends the information to the appropriate spots. So the hard drive
kicks in and says "Wait! I need to locate those spots." So the hard
drive spins and spins and spins until it's managed to store all that
information that could be handled elsewhere. Once all this is done,
the information is stored and everyone is happy, until the video card
says "I need this information." Then the hard drive gets upset and
says "Can't you see I'm busy here??? CPU can't you do anything about
this?" And the CPU grumbles and says "Don't look at me man, it's the
video card's problem; I just do what everyone else tells me to."
Then the hard drive gets aggitated and says "Well if the video card
would upgrade its stupid memory, it wouldn't have to utilize my
resources to do its work. I got my own problems!"
>
> Then the video card said "God, I wish my user would upgrade my
memory cause it's such a pain in the ass having to deal with all
these unnecessary steps!"
>
> The repetitive act of accessing the hard drive unnecessarily for
virtual memory is called Disk Thrashing, and over a period of time
can cause undue wear and tear that could have otherwise been
prevented. Upgrade your video card. Let it do the tasks so the hard
drive doesn't have to. Your hard drive won't be accessed as often
thus giving it another few good years of life, and you'll get better
graphics performance in the game.
>
>
>
> Wulfric
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: apcooper
> To: EverQuest@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:32 PM
> Subject: [EverQuest] Re: Slow load and zoning
>
>
> Thanks again for all of the suggestions! Really appreciate it.
>
> I already have the VM set to max - no problem with all of the
> available disk space.
>
> It seems most of you are pointing to the Video controller as the
> likely solution. Could well be - the existing one is only 16MB.
But
> why would a slow video cause such a hit on the hard disk, which
seems
> to be viusally where the bottleneck is - i.e. on zoning, the hard
> disk is very active until it zones are goes back to the server
> screen. The hard disk is performing extremely well and is very
fast,
> so that is not the problemin itself - could the slwo graphics
card
> cause EQ to go to the hard disk more to compensate?
>
> I am not sure I could go to a 128MB graphics card - would 64Mb do?
>
> Thanks once again.
>
> Regards.