[DMDX] Re: Cheap PCs At 03:40 PM 7/14/99 +0100, you wrote:
>I'm planning to buy some new PCs dedicated for testing using DMDX and was
>wondering just how much I need to spend.
>
>So I was wondering whether anyone has tried using DMDX with Celeron or
>AMD-based PCs? I notice there's a warning about Cyrix chips on the DMDX
>page, because they don't have a high performance counter.

  My development systems are all celerons and the test machine is an AMD K6
so it works well on those processors.  I don't recommend wasting money on
P2s or P3s, it's almost impossible to measure the performance benefit with
DMDX.  If fact the AMD processors are likely to be faster clock for clock
than the Intel devices.  The element that makes the largest difference to
DMDX is the video card and even here you have to want refresh rates in the
order of >150Hz before you can justify the latest video cards (and you'd
have to buy a wickedly expensive monitor for even >85Hz).  Basically a TNT
based video card with 16megs of ram for around $100US represents the top of
the usually used hardware requirements (especially if you plan on using
full color photographic stuff), otherwise a Riva128 based card with 4megs
of video ram for around $50US will suffice.  If you want tic durations
lower than 11.5ms and are prepared to pay for a monitor to display them
then a TNT2 or Matrox G400 could possibly be justified but even then the
TNT specs have 200Hz in there.

-jonathan (j.c.f.)

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