Subject: Re: performace of console display
To: Mattias Sandstrom <mattias@beauty.se>
From: Michael G. Schabert <mikeride@mac.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 11/06/2002 13:08:45
At 3:25 PM +0100 11/6/02, Mattias Sandstrom wrote:
>hi,
>
>i've noticed that the console on my classic II is really slow when
>scrolling, deleting lines, and pretty much all the time. i've come to
>the point where i actually run x on it (i really laughed when i saw "row
>bytes: 64" for the first time), with the tiny matchbox wm and a full
>screen xterm, since it feels so much faster and more responsive even
>though i only have 10 megs of ram and no fpu.
>
>anyway, to the point: i'd like to know if anybody has any idea why this
>might be? is it the frame buffer code, the font handling, the terminal
>emulation, or something else? i have a dark past in games programming,
>so i know a lot about graphics performance and asm optimizations of
>graphics code, and i'd really like to help out doing something about this.

Yes, this is a known issue on a few NetBSD platforms. Basically, the 
platforms that have graphics-only framebuffers (Alpha, mac68k, macppc 
that I use) suck cheese performance-wise, while platforms that have 
text-mode ability (i386) have decent performance. As you noted, X 
performs just fine, but has a hefty memory footprint for just 
improving console speed. A better solution is to install "dt". That 
will give you virtual consoles (something else that is only supported 
on platforms with a text-mode console), as well as the ability to 
switch to reversed video easily. You can find dt in /usr/pkgsrc/misc.

HTH
Mike
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