malcom@gritki.UUCP (Matthias Grund) (05/29/90)
In-reply-to: dmb@wam.umd.edu's message of 21 May 90 21:37:36 GMT > I don't think there is any way to just simply upgrade from a >8Mhz clock speed to and 16Mhz clock speed without having to change >just about everything in the machine. I'm sure the factory installed >memory won't be fast enough and there is whole host of other things >that would need to change. It is possible to improve performance by >putting more into a single time frame with parallelism by adding >things like a math or graphics coprocessor; It MAKES a difference using a 16MHz Card! Most of the 16MHz(at least all cards that I know) use a cache between 8 and 16KB of static rams. That makes the perfomance grow up, because the CPU needs no or less "slow-downs" for the internal (slow)-ram. [...] >I believe the blitter chip >is a graphics coprocessor, but have never seen one in use, so I don't >know how much of a difference it makes. I've heard it makes a big difference if you use a colour monitor. I can't realize a big difference between using the blitter or working without it - I use a SM124. >My personal opinion on trying to boost the performance of an >ST is that it is not worth the expense and possible problems. The ST >is a very fast machine as it is, and I've found very few instances >where more performance is needed. "I've" is the word that matters. Everybody has to decide on his own how much performance he needs. If you want to calculate the whole day fractals then of course you REALLY need a coprocessor. :-) cu, Matthias -- Matthias Grund | malcom@tpki.de malcom@gritki root@gritki Ulmenstr.63 | ..!unido!tpki!malcom ...!mcshh!tpki!gritki!(malcom|root) FRG - 2320 Ploen| A time-traveller seminar will be held two weeks ago.