Day 11
Daniel Berry
RAM
A+
Answers
Soft
memory errors are caused by____
a)
Bad Simm
b)
Short in circuit
*c)
Random events
"Parity"
errors usually indicate bad memory.
*a)
True
b)
False
A parity error usually indicates a problem with:
*a) memory
b) hard drive
c) hard drive controller
d) i/o controller
e) power supply
What
action will enable more applications to run simultaneously?
a)
Add larger hard drive
b)
Increase size of Pagefile
c)
Upgrade CPU
*d)
Add RAM
Which
provides the fastest data access time?
*a)
RAM
b)
ROM
c)
CD-ROM
d)
Hard disk
e)
Floppy disk
What
component would most likely cause a "parity error"?
a)
Hard disk
b)
Controller
*c)
Bad RAM
d)
Software
Which
provides the fastest data access time?
*a)
RAM
b)
ROM
c)
CD-ROM
d)
Hard disk
e) SCSI
hard drive
What
component is most likely to cause a "parity error"?
a)
Hard disk
b)
controller
*c)
Bad RAM
d)
Software
Windows 3.X and Window
Terms
A look at graphic cards
Plus a compare and contrast view to the XBOX and a PC in terms of hardware
This lesson is about Windows 3.1 and 3.11, their features, settings, and configurations.
Later Windows 3.1 was released in 1992 by Microsoft and was one of the first major PC GUI operating systems widely used. Windows 3.1 allowed users to utilize several features previously not available in MS-DOS. Some of these new features were the use of a mouse which allowed the user to navigate and manipulate data on the computer with one hand simply and easily and now did not have to memorize MS-DOS commands. Windows 3.1 offers a GUI, graphical user interface with pull down menus, icons, and a desktop. It includes a program manager to launch program. It is able to handle more than 640 KB of memory. Carries the same capabilities as DOS. It allows multitasking. It has built-in display and device drivers. But it is limited to single users and has no built in networking capabilities. Windows 3.11 and Win 95, on the other hand does.
The components of Win 3.X include:
Other Win 3.X components:
To see which version of Windows 3.X, you are using, just select the Help menu option and click on “About Program Manager.” The dialogue box that shows up will also show memory and system usage.
Multitasking allows for more than one program to share CPU resources by having the CPU switch between the running programs in such a way as to give the effect that both program are running at the same time. Here are a few terms that go with multitasking; Task switching, Cooperative multitasking, and Pre-emptive multitasking.
Task switching- this is where the CPU switches to work only on the programs that are in the foreground, all background applications are suspended.
Cooperative multitasking- this is where both foreground and background programs are active. Programs that need more CPU usage receive it.
Pre-emptive multitasking- CPU usage is divided into time slices. High priority applications receive more CPU time.
Windows 3.X uses these multitasking techniques depending on which mode Windows are running under.
Enhanced mode= Pre-emptive multitasking
Real mode= Task switching
In 386 Enhanced mode, which is made for faster CPUs (386 33MHz and faster with more than 4 megs), Virtual memory is supported, Virtual machine is supported for older DOS programs, EMS emulation (emulates EMS memory for certain programs), and allows full multitasking of both DOS and Window programs.
Windows uses HIMEM.SYS to manage the systems memory. As programs are loaded windows uses more and more of the systems memory with virtual memory. If conflicts occur, windows will tell the user by displaying errors. A General Protection Fault error is when a more than one program writes to the same address in memory. Windows normally prevents this by protecting those addresses. Other errors include, “Out of memory,” which are caused when many programs are opened and the size of the GDI grows beyond 64KB. Remember the GDI heap is limited to the size of 64KB. Adding RAM will not solve this problem. To fix this problem, upgrade to Win95, which does not use a GDI heap. An “Insufficient Memory to Complete this Operation” error happens when an application needs a block of memory, which is larger than what is available. To solve this, close other window applications to free up space. If this happens running a DOS program, you can relocate device drivers and TSRs to reside in the UMBs. When ever you see errors like these, save any unsaved work, close those programs , take any actions mentioned here and restart the system.
You manage the system’s virtual memory within Win 3.1 by opening the main group icon, clicking on the Control Panel, and then on the 386 Enhanced icon. Within this new window, you can select “permanent swap file” which are swap files that are faster because they do not have to be recreated every time more memory is needed. Files that go along a permanent swap file are 386SPART.PAR and SPART.PAR. These files manage the swap file. You can create a “temporary swap file” This is a swap file that windows deletes when it is not in use. The swap file created is normally called WIN386.SWP. A temporary swap file is more flexible than a permanent swap file, but slower than a permanent swap file. The SYSTEM.INI file sets the limits for these files. Network swap files are used when systems share a single copy of MS Windows with many users. To reduce problems use a temporary swap file that is located within a user’s folder. Allow read-write access to that folder for that user and set the MaxPagingFileSize= at least 1024 (found in the [386enh] section of system.ini. Try not to disable virtual memory.
STARTING WINDOWS
When starting windows, you can add switches to force windows to run in different modes.
|
WIN/R |
Forces Windows to start in Real Mode (Win 3.0 only) |
|
WIN/S |
Starts Windows in Standard mode. |
|
WIN/3 |
Starts Windows in Enhanced mode. (386 and above only) |
|
WIN : |
Turns off the Windows logo at start-up |
|
WIN + path + filename (win c:\word\winword.exe) |
Starts windows plus the application named. |
Windows runs DOS programs by using a PIF file. PIF is short for Program Information File. PIFs can be created using the PIF editor. Do not run FDISK,RECOVER,SELECT, and FORMAT (except on floppies) while in windows, Disk cache programs, undelete utilities, or fast backup programs. These can interfere with multitasking applications, while in windows. Try not to use APPEND, ASSIGN, JOIN, and SUBST DOS commands, which redefine drives on the system while in windows. Share can be used, but must be loaded before windows loads. Some programs, such as Oracle for DOS, must remain in the foreground to avoid crashing.
Windows has five default groups. These are Accessories, Applications, Startup, and Games. Program groups (Folders) can be created by following these steps: Display the Program Manager Window, select New in the File menu. Then click on “program Group.” Now key in the name of the new group. To create a new item (icon), select New from the File menu. Click on Program Item, then key in the shortcut (path) in the command line.
Graphic Cards
Graphic cards have changed a great deal since the 1980's when a graphic card was basically a frame buffer. This lesson will go into the history and the detail of what makes a good graphic card. There are so many different graphic cards out there today that it can all be too confusing. I hope that this will clear some of that confusion up.
HISTORY
Early graphic cards were there just to send an image to the screen. The CPU did most of the work. This was because the programs of that time were not 3D graphic intensive. The programs were in basic 2D and many only had 2 colors! Graphic cards have changed because programs have changed. At one time a small screen with 2 colors was more than enough. Over time, the screen resolutions and color depth have increase.
DOS needs only 2 colors and a small screen to allow the user to work.
Here is a basic game that did not need much as for as graphic processor
resources - PONG!
"Break Out" used 16 colors and a screen size of 640 X 480 - Check
out the colors - dude!
"Wolfenstein 3D" Oh Yes! 256 colors of pure fun... In this game
sprites were used, these are 2D items that give the illusion of 3D. There
were only a few textures and a few surfaces to cover, so a graphic card
with at least 256 KB of memory was needed. Screen resolution was at 640
X 480. This game would run fast on a 286 PC with 640 KB of system memory!
Windows 3.1 supported 256 colors so graphic card makers had to as well.
Rise of Triad used the Wolfenstein 3D gaming engine with some added features
and required a 486 CPU to run.
Games normally push the graphic card makers to upgrade their designs.
Let's see some screen shots of the new Wolfenstein 3D, using screens resolutions of 1280 X 1024 and millions of colors (32 bit)
Each character is made up of millions of polygons, lighting effects, and
many textures.
Environments are made of thousands of different textures and look photo
realistic.
Here are three screen shots, showing early character development. The first
is from Bezerk! The second is from Wofenstein 3D. The last is from Doom.
All three of these characters are 2D sprites that moved like 3D characters
using basic animation.
.
.
Here are three screen shots, showing later character development. Notice
the use of reflective surfaces and shading! The first is from Tomb Raider
Gold , the second is from Tomb Raider Chronicles, and the last is from Return
to Castle Wolfenstein. All three of these characters are made up of poygons
that are then covered with the correct textures.
Here is the time line showing when nVidia introduced their later video
cards
| Chip Name | RIVA128ZX | RIVA TNT | RIVA TNT2 | TNT2 Ultra | GeForce256 | GeForce2 | GeForce2 Ultra | GeForce3 | Titanium Geforce |
| Year of introduction | Spring, 1998 | Fall, 1998 | Spring 1999 | Summer 1999 | Fall, 1999 | Spring 2000 | Summer 2000 | Spring 2001 | Fall 2001 |
Let's look at the Titanium and see what it means to Geforce cards
| Name | Geforce 2 MX 200 | Geforce 2 MX | Geforce 2 MX 400 | Geforce 2 Pro | Geforce 2 Titanium | Geforce 2 Ultra | Geforce 3 Titanium 200 | Geforce 3 | Geforce3 Titanium 500 |
| GPU Clock Cycle | 175 MHz | 175 MHz | 200 MHz | 200 MHz | 250 MHz | 250 MHz | 175 MHz | 200 MHz | 240 MHz |
| DDR RAM Speed | 166MHz (64 bit) | 333MHz (64 bit) | 400MHz (64 bit) | 400MHz (128 bit) | 400MHz (128 bit) | 460MHz (128 bit) | 400 MHz (128 bit) | 460MHz (128 bit) | 500 MHz (128 bit) |
| Pixel Fill Rate | 350 MPixel/s | 350 MPixel/s | 400 MPixel/s | 800 Mpixel/s | 1000 Mpixel/s | 1000 Mpixel/s | 700 Mpixel/s | 800 Mpixel/s | 960 Mpixel/s |
| Texel Fill Rate | 700 MTexel/s | 700 MTexel/s | 800 MTexel/s | 1600 MTexel/s | 2000 MTexel/s | 2000 MTexel/s | 1400 MTexel/s | 1600 MTexel/s | 1920 MTexels |
| Quake III 1024 X 768, 16 bit | 70 fps | 83 fps | 93 fps | 135 fps | 141 fps | 156 fps | 190 fps | 206 fps | 233 fps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1300 MB/s | 2700 MB/s | 3000 MB/s | 6400 MB/s | 6400 MB/s | 7360 MB/s | 6400 MB/s | 7360 MB/s | 8000 MB/s |
| Process | .18 Micron | .18 Micron | .18 Micron | .18 Micron | .15 Micron | .18 Micron | .15 Micron | .18 Micron | .15 Micron |
nVidia is using the label Titanium to demonstrate that these new chips are made using a smaller fab process, .15 micron instead of .18 micron. What does that mean? It means that these chips will use less power to run, and cost less to build, but they will deliever the same performance, as the chart shows. The new 'Ti'-cards are also based on a new printed circuit board (PCB) with 8 layers and an improved power supply circuitry. Only the Ti-500 has boosted performnce and that is by 20%.
Now we know why graphics cards are made, so let's look at what makes a
graphic card.
Looking at this Geforce3- 3D accelerator, there are obviously many parts.
There are different chips as well as interfaces. What do these do? What's
the difference between different boards? What will work best for you? These
are a few of the questions that I will address in this lesson.
The Board
The card is designed on a printed circuit board (PCB), which has multiple
layers. There can be more than six of these layers, with each having small
electrical wires, called traces, that connect the different chips and memory
modules to each other. These traces allow the chips to share data and to
receive power
The Interconnect
To render a scene as complex as the Return to Wolfenstein Castle, a 3D accelerator
needs a great amount of data in a very short amount of time. This data is
normally sent to the 3D accelerator through a dedicated point-to-point interface.
In today's PCs, this is almost always the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP).
This AGP interface is found on the motherboard. With the card placed into
this slot, the board's electrical and signal traces connect to the matching
traces in the slot.
The Rendering
To create a 3D scene, geometry and texture data are needed. The geometry
data is the wires making polygons that give the structures shape and the
texture is the data that fills in the spaces. Add some light sources and
you have a realistic looking structure.
2D and 3D
2D rendering is done by the graphic card's 2D engine, which is a fundamental
unit. It accelerates and displays the OS desktop and 2D applications. 2D
operations also include video acceleration operations such as color space
conversion, stretch-blitting which scales and filters the video image, and
motion compensation in DVD decoding.
3D rendering is done by the 3D engine, which is actually comprised of several
different engines to tend to 3D acceleration chores. The nVidia and ATI
chips now have accelerated transform and lighting (T&L), which offloads
these tasks from the CPU. A T&L unit takes a 3D scene's geometry and
transforms it into different coordinate spaces; it also performs lighting
calculations, again relieving the CPU from these math-intensive tasks. The
Triangle setup engine takes a scene's transformed geometry and prepares
it for the pixel engine that can then process the data and apply the assigned
texture values to each pixel. This then creates a 3D world that looks just
as the programers wanted. This all adds up to a faster graphic card and
to a faster computer overall.
Data Flow
Why should we use the AGP slot cards, won't the PCI slot cards be fast enough?
Here is a table to show maximum transfer of data for each bus type.
| Slot Type | Max Transfer Rate |
| PCI - 33 MHz | 66 MB/sec |
| PCI - 66 MHz | 133MB/sec |
| AGP 1X - 66MHz | 264MB/sec |
| AGP 2X - 66MHz | 528MB/sec |
| AGP 4X - 66MHz | 1056MB/sec. |
| AGP 8X - 66MHz | 2,112MB |
So how much is enough? Normally games can pump more than 7,000MB or 7 GB per second! So how is it possible to even play a game? Because cards have built in memory that can hold large textures and deliver them when needed. It just so happens that graphic cards with DDR memory can do this.
Memory Bandwidth
In order to get all that data processed in time, the graphic card must have
the very best in memory. 128 bit SDRAM memory is still used on many Geforce
2 MX boards because it has the same bandwidth as 64 bit DDR memory. But
to deliver the information on higher end boards 128 bit DDR memory should
be the only option.
AGP's added features
Sideband Addressing
This works by giving a separate channel for sending and receiving commands,
so that twice as much data can be transferred at the same time.
Fast Writes
For an AGP graphics card to get data, the CPU must first processes the data
and write it to the system memory. At this point the data is accessible
by the graphics card. By implementing Fast Writes, the data can be sent
directly from the CPU to the graphic card's memory without wasting time
writing it first to system memory.
Enter the Graphics Processor Unit
The GPU is a great leap forward in graphic cards. Calculations, which would
normally be left for the system's CPU to work with and then send to the
graphic card are now handled within the graphic card itself, speeding the
whole rendering process. The GPUs found in nVidia's Geforce 2 and 3 cards
have more transistors than a Pentium 3 CPU! With all of this high speed
processing and data transferring, a tremendous amount of heat is created.
This leads us to the next topic, heat control.
Heat Control
Try touching the GPU of a Geforce 3 card after a heavy game session and
you will likely loss some skin! Memory and GPU speeds are maxed out increase
performance as well as heat. To control this heat, nearly every shipping
3D card today has an active cooling system.
Energy Usage
How much electricity do 3D cards consume? The AGP slot now supplies 3.3
volts DC at 6 amps and dissipates 25 watts. Some cheaper motherboards supply
the AGP slot with a little less power, which can cause crashes and other
problems for GeForce2 cards that anticipate having the full six amps. An
AGP Pro slot, can deliver up to 110 watts.
What is next?
The race to ever faster graphics is nowhere near the end. Newer cards will
support an ever growing array of features at increasingly higher speeds.
Support of for all of the features found in DirectX 8.0 should be found
on the newest cards.
Which cards do I like for today?
Geforce 2 MX 400 with 64 MB for basic users.
Geforce 2 Pro with 64 MB for light gamers.
Geforce 2 Ultra with 64 MB for mid gamers.
Geforce 3 with 64 MB for hard core gamers.
Which cards did I like yesterday?
Radeon
Voodoo
Plus a compare and contrast view to the XBOX and a PC in terms of hardware
| Xbox Setup | PC Setup | |
| CPU | Intel P-III @ 733 | AMD XP @1.6 GHz |
| Memory | 64MB @200MHz | 64MB @250MHz + 512MB @ 266MHz |
| Storage | 8 GB | 80 GB |
| Graphics Chipset | nVidia NV2X @250MHz | nVidia NV2X @240MHz |
| Display | 648 X 486 on TV | 1280 X 1024 on PC MONITOR |
| Core -Logic | nVidia - 6.4GB/s | AMD 760 - 2.1GB/s |
