Subject: Re: DUMMY_NOPS
To: Todd Vierling <tv@pobox.com>
From: Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com <michaelv@MindBender.serv.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 10/18/1997 11:43:15
>Since it's not really explained out there that I can see, will portmeister
>or someone using DUMMY_NOPS please tell me what this "recommended speed
>hack" is, and why it isn't configured in by default?  Are there particular
>setups where I _wouldn't_ want it?

You can figure this out for yourself if you read the source.

Without DUMMY_NOPS, operations that go out to the CPU's I/O ports are
padded with NOPS, so that slower motherboards can keep up.  With
DUMMY_NOPS, the NOPS are removed, making I/O operations faster (or
actually, normal speed -- not slower).

Hopefully, no motherboards that require these NOPS have been made for
years.  Certainly, all the motherboards I have owned over the last
five years have worked with DUMMY_NOPS.

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  Michael L. VanLoon                           michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
      Contract software development for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Unix.
             Windows NT and Unix server development in C++ and C.

        --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
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