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Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

Title:DECWINDOWS 26-JAN-89 to 29-NOV-90
Notice:See 1639.0 for VMS V5.3 kit; 2043.0 for 5.4 IFT kit
Moderator:STAR::VATNE
Created:Mon Oct 30 1989
Last Modified:Mon Dec 31 1990
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:3726
Total number of notes:19516

109.0. "DECwindows specific system tuning" by KOBAL::HOCHULI () Thu Feb 02 1989 11:09

    We have field test customers who are having trouble running DECwindows
    on 4MB workstations.  Where is DECwindows specific tuning information
    available on the recommended settings for key parameters (either
    documented or some form of customer support)?   Tuning is going to be
    important in customer acceptance of DECwindows performance.  

T.RTitleUserPersonal
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109.1Good luck!A6INTR::SOCHAOut in the FieldThu Feb 02 1989 11:358
	You are going to have a tough time getting any decent performance.
The minimum recommended memory for stand alone systems is 6MB and it is 8MB
for clustered workstations.  We tried getting DECwindows up on a 4MB VS2000
in a cluster and gave up!  Your only hope is to run everything possible
on remote nodes and just use the workstation as a window server.

Kevin

109.2DECWIN::FISHERBurns Fisher 381-1466, ZKO3-4/W23Thu Feb 02 1989 13:465
Please read the Sales Update article on performance around note 11 (topic label
is something like "official documents".

Burns

109.3Will ELN help?DELNI::MHARRISMark Jay Harris, Term Srvr Mktg MgrMon Feb 06 1989 21:548
    Seems to me there was a discussion about en ELN DECwindows
    implementation. If it exists, you could run the 4MB VAXstation
    as a standalone DISPLAY SERVER... all applications could then
    point to it.
    
    Check the directory over the past few weeks.
    

109.4Swap 'em!DSM::CRAIGNice computers don't go down :-)Wed Feb 08 1989 21:2947
    F.W.I.W. - I found that I greatly improved performance (i.e,
    responsiveness) on my 6 MB clustered MV2000 by forcing swapping,
    rather than letting the system page.  It seemed kinda counter-intuitive
    at first, but I discovered that I actually decreased paging
    significantly, and got more USER-mode CPU, and that the jobs which
    were getting swapper were generally jobs I didn't care about much.
    
    Here's the pertinent parts of my MODPARAMS.DAT file:

    maxprocesscnt = 37
    balsetcnt = 16

    And this is what the system looks like with a session manager and
    3 DECterm windows running:
    
VAX/VMS V5.0-2D1  on node POLIO  8-FEB-1989 21:25:59.80   Uptime    5 06:57:03
  Pid    Process Name    State  Pri      I/O       CPU       Page flts Ph.Mem
2CE00041 SWAPPER         HIB     16        0   0 00:01:20.89         0      0   
2CE00046 ERRFMT          HIB      8     4052   0 00:01:09.09        76     97   
2CE00047 CACHE_SERVER    HIBO    16       --  swapped  out  --             94   
2CE00048 CLUSTER_SERVER  HIB      9       88   0 00:00:21.41       138    207   
2CE00049 OPCOM           HIB      8     1337   0 00:01:25.16       449    171   
2CE0004A JOB_CONTROL     HIBO    10       --  swapped  out  --            401   
2CE0004B CONFIGURE       HIB     10       62   0 00:00:00.71       112    154   
2CE0004C SMISERVER       LEF      8      198   0 00:00:04.21       591    421   
2CE0004D SYMBIONT_0001   HIBO     9       --  swapped  out  --             48   
2CE0008E DSM_DEMON_320   HIB     14       97   0 00:00:02.69       568    256   
2CE0008F DSM_GARCOL_320  HIB      4        7   0 00:00:03.86       414    256   
2CE00090 DSM_LOCKMAN_320 HIBO    14       --  swapped  out  --            207   
2CE00091 CRAIG           LEF      5      959   0 02:13:12.35     11996    967   
2CE00052 NETACP          HIB     10      311   0 00:12:11.95     65743    350   
2CE00053 EVL             HIB      6      220   0 00:00:44.79    119094     43  N
2CE00057 REMACP          HIBO    13       --  swapped  out  --             48   
2CE00058 DECW$SERVER_0   HIB      7    13485   0 01:20:16.46     35407   1360   
2CE00099 DECW$WM_1       LEF      7       51   0 00:01:01.97      4155    650   
2CE0009B DECW$TE_1       LEF      5    89506   0 00:32:17.83      6010   1432   
2CE0009C CRAIG_TWA9      LEF      4    35108   0 00:07:35.66     25437    150   
2CE0009D CRAIG_TWA10     LEFO     4       --  swapped  out  --            131   
2CE000DE CRAIG_1         CUR      7       13   0 00:00:00.89       277    263  S
2CE000A1 CRAIG_TWA11     LEF      4    51007   0 00:10:06.11     43862    279   

    I've been running this way for about 6 months now, very satisfactorily.
    
    						Hope this helps,
    						Bob
    

109.5help! with performanceSSDEVO::PFROMEREd Pfromer, HSC S/W Development, dtn 522-6331Sun Mar 19 1989 14:4512
	I have a 16 meg uVAX II running VMS 5.1 and DECWINDOWs and the 
	performance is less than spectacular.  Unfortunately, I have
	minimal system management experience and very little time to 
	learn.  Can someone please send me (SSDEVO::PFROMER) their 
	optimized MODPARAMS.DAT and any other relevant information?

	Some more information:	1 RD54 (system disk)
				1 RD53 (user disk)
				page file = 40K blocks
				swap file = 7K blocks

109.6What's the display device ?AUNTB::WARNOCKTodd Warnock @CBOSun Mar 19 1989 17:5712
    A 16MB MicroVAX II running DECwindows doesn't mean much unless you
    huave a display device somewhere.  Is the microVAX II a boot node
    for an LAVC, or just a remote DECwindows server ?  More information
    about your display device would help.
    
    In general, running AUTOGEN should give you pretty good performance.
    A MODPARAMS.DAT won't help unless the configuration is *exactly*
    like yours - it's dependent on the hardware configuration and load
    of the machine.
        
    Todd

109.7slow scrolling affected by window position?WYNTON::BMCWILLIAMSImprovise if you have to ...Fri Oct 27 1989 17:0117
I'd like to re-open the topic of DECwindows tuning ...

My biggest gripe with DECwindows is the slowness with which the screen scrolls. 
Is there anything (besides acquiring more memory) I can tweak to speed up
scrolling?  (I tried the UAF settings suggested in the Sales Update article
posted in 281 to no effect.)

When I was running VWS, scrolling was always slower if windows overlapped at
all or if you placed things like icons or the banner in a "bad" place.  I
haven't noticed that scrolling under DECwindows speeds up any if I change the
placement of items on the screen.  Is there some such quick fix I'm missing?

I've got a standalone, networked VAXstation II with 9 Mbytes RAM running VMS
5.1 and DECwindows v1. My primary application is TPU.

Brian

109.8QUARK::LIONELFree advice is worth every centFri Oct 27 1989 17:5110
Re: .7

Try setting the Batch Scroll value to 5 or 10 in the Display dialog
box of the DECterm Customize pulldown.

I've run with this for a while and have no complaints about the speed of
scrolling on my VS_II.

			Steve

109.9FK::FREDSo sue me.Fri Oct 27 1989 20:4236
    A large "batch scroll" is the only way that you will EVER get a
    monochrome VSII to work for crap running DECwindows.  Heres the
    problem:
    
    The QVSS has a "scanline map", each scanline (the full width of
    the screen) is mapped to memory with mapping registers which
    determine the start of the bits for each line.  If you notice,
    all of the screen backgrounds on VWS for the VSII are such that
    the pattern bits are identical in each vertical column.  Thus if
    there are NO windows on either side of your window VWS will scroll
    by twiddling the scanline map.  But, if there IS an overlap, the
    scroll must be done by MOVC/INSV instructions of the bitmap and
    is bandwidth limited by the Q-Bus.
    
    Now (you see where this is going) X11 allows the root to be arbitrary.
    In addition, the VSII was dying technology when DECwindows started
    development (the VS2000 has no scanline map).  So... ALL scrolls on
    DECwindows on a monochrome system are block moves.
    
    Now, even better.  If you can manage to align the window on a byte
    boundry.  And even better if you can make the inside width a multiple
    of 8, then it's just MOVC's.  Otherwise you must do INSV's at the
    start and tail of the bitmap copy.
    
    Also, on a VSII/GPX there "may" be a speed advantage to aligning on
    a 4-bit boundry because of weirdness in the design of the dragon.
    
    But in BOTH cases, you will NEVER get quite the hit that you get on
    VWS for backing store when you have overlapping windows... though on
    a dragon the X code "may" be drawing everything and letting the dragon
    clip which could give you a performance loss in that case.
    
    In short, get a VS3100.
    
    Good Luck.