On Wed, 2005-06-29 at 16:09 -0500, vinai wrote: > On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Rainer Gutkas wrote: > > > I'm thinking of upgrading my Powerbook Pismo (400Mhz) to a G4 (550Mhz) > > and wanted to know if it maces sense under linux. > > I run Gnome desktop and a CPU meter and it runs crazy when I open an > > App, display flash movies, or try to look at dvd's > > So probably the Altivec Engine could do a real good job? > > But is it supported and will tis bring a good amount of speed, because > > for a 150Mhz clockspeed increase this upgrade is too expensive for me! > > Oh and by the way if anybody has experience with such an upgrade, i'm > > interested.... > > Bottom line - if the software does not use Altivec optimizations, it's > not worth it. I got one of these upgrades, and I posted some benchmarks > of before and after results (under Mac OS X) of the performance of this > upgrade. If you look at the site: www.xlr8yourmac.com, and check under > the CPU upgrades database, my entry for the Powerbook 2000 upgrade is on > the 2nd or 3rd page of listings. > > I ran benchmarks using generic UNIX-ish software (LaTeX and gcc) and Mac > OS X software. The performance in the non OS X software (i.e. non G4 > optimized software) scaled with clock speed, while OS X software which > used Altivec showed a larger performance gain. If you plan to twiddle > and tweak software, and learn a little about vector programming, it may > be worth it for you. If you just want to install and go, this upgrade > probably won't be worth the price, unless the software you plan to use > has already been optimized for Altivec.
Which is the case of dvd playback ... (libmpeg2 is one of the first thing that was optimized for altivec in linux) Ben. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
