[Nottingham] Ubuntu + different backgrounds = slow ?

Martin martin at ml1.co.uk
Thu Jul 20 13:31:09 BST 2006


Andy Goldschmidt wrote:
[---]
> 
> Ive got a pentium 4 2Ghz with 1 gig ram. Onboard video (dell pc)
> 
> any ideas why the background change is hurting my pc soo much ?

Not answering your question but a general observation:

'Onboard' or 'Integrated' video steals a significant share of your
system RAM bandwidth. The CPU is forced to wait or even idle for its
restricted share of memory accesses.

P4 CPUs are desperately bandwidth-hungry for the memory. I've noticed
that those with less than 1MByte of L2 cache are especially crippled by
the Intel FSB bottleneck...


A cheapie graphics card may well double your system's performance.

Good luck,
Martin

-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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