Re[2]: PCI latency and VGA drivers

[Dave Haynie <dhaynie@jersey.net>]

On Wed, 11 Mar 1998 10:29:57 +1100, Graeme Gill <graeme@colorstar.com.au>
jammed all night, and by sunrise was overheard remarking:

> Kevin Normoyle wrote:

> > So I think PCI dug its own hole here. (by not being heavy-handed up 
> > front with retry-limit detection)

Probably to some degree, but I think this practice pretty clearly
circumvents the intent of PCI.

> If the intent of the retry mechanism was to allow backoff to
> resolve deadlock situations, then I guess a small retry
> limit would have been entirely appropriate. Can anyone
> relate the reasoning behind making retries effectively open
> ended ?

It's simple -- WinBench. You get better graphics benchmarks if you push
that graphics card as hard as physically possible. Which means, ideally 
(in the minds of the graphics card folks), you have the CPU locked to
the graphics card over PCI, to the exclusion, as much as possible, of
all else. This has to be the default in the graphics driver, because the
benchmarks are run from off-the-shelf cards. This should be a stictly-Windows
thing.

Dave Haynie  | V.P. Technology, PIOS Computer |  http://www.pios.de
Be Dev #2024 | DMX2000 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
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