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Post subject: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
 Posted: Oct 23, 2007 - 06:16 PM
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Joined: Dec 05, 2006
Posts: 39
Location: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are insects.
Status: Offline
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This is mostly out of criosity.
I remember that back in the old '386 days, some people ran 2 PCs in tandem, one for the X server, another for all the client apps. This was done for lack of power, with boxes side by side.
I happen to already run a "cromlech" made of a couple of old AGP x4 capable tower boxes, side by side, via KVM + a still older headless desktop box, CLI only & accessed by network, laid horizontally atop the other two.
Main: XP1800+/1.5GHz, 1GB/266MHz FSB, PATA 133Mb/s.
Testing: Piii/1000, 1GB/133MHz FSB, PATA 100Mb/s
headless server: Piii/500, 256MB/100MHz FSB, PATA 66Mb/s
I normally use the main machine, keep browser, VoIP, IM, WP, RSS reader, DT search, a media player, 3-4 shells, and a few other things running, all is fine, 'cept all apps tend to be a bit laggy.
If I move X out of this machine and onto the testing one,
can I expect apps to be more responsive?
For this kind of work, is it a good idea to put X on the slower comp?
And for modest graphic games, eg BZflag, Tux Racer..?
And last: suspecting that pure-Xserver is not the same as thin client, are there any specialized X server distros???
I hope this will be an interesting thread.  |
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Post subject: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 23, 2007 - 07:27 PM
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Joined: Nov 25, 2006
Posts: 2571
Status: Offline
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| Forget it for games, roundtrip times and even raw performance aren't sufficient for that (gl acceleration needs to be on the server, not the client (X11 server/ client definition)). Besides that XDMCP works well, but isn't as useful as you make it - basically it makes only sense with a very powerful application server and very dumb X terminal attached to it. |
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Post subject: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 23, 2007 - 08:45 PM
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Joined: Dec 04, 2006
Posts: 640
Status: Offline
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| I agree. The connection between the machines will just kill graphics performance. It's useful to run a CPU/memory intensive task on a server and visualize the results on a client machine. For other applications that require performance (graphics bandwidth and responsiveness), it will not do. |
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Post subject: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 23, 2007 - 10:35 PM
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Joined: Dec 05, 2006
Posts: 39
Location: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are insects.
Status: Offline
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Thank you shl! Thank you crust! I understand the point.
In my list of apps it seems to me that only browser and media player are graphic intensive,
and I notice lags in many different apps also when
- those two apps are not busy decoding and rendering
- CPU utilization is low.
On one hand it looks like not much graphical is going on,
OTOH not much is churning in the CPU either.
Would it be fair to say that the lag happens due to some I/O, as opposed to being in either GPU or CPU?
If so, it stands to reason that splitting the load
can but make matters worse
even on the non-graphic side of things.
OK, then...
the serch for the new new new
harebrained idea continues!  |
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Post subject: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 24, 2007 - 12:06 AM
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Joined: Dec 04, 2006
Posts: 640
Status: Offline
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I can't explain the lag without seeing it myself. By lag, do you mean a lag in bringing up the program or a lag during running? A lag in responsiveness?
Some guesses:
1. Slow hard drive
2. Aggressive graphics settings for your DE (probably KDE) - Too much eye candy
I would dial down all the effects for KDE (or whatever DE you're using) and see how slow/fast your hard drive is. |
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Post subject: Re: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 24, 2007 - 06:15 AM
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Joined: Nov 27, 2006
Posts: 524
Location: Griffith NSW Australia
Status: Offline
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spamhog wrote:
...
In my list of apps it seems to me that only browser and media player are graphic intensive,
and I notice lags in many different apps also when
- those two apps are not busy decoding and rendering
- CPU utilization is low.
On one hand it looks like not much graphical is going on,
OTOH not much is churning in the CPU either.
Would it be fair to say that the lag happens due to some I/O, as opposed to being in either GPU or CPU?
...
Try upgrading your kernel to 2.6.23.1* - some documentation I was reading on it's new scheduler talks about improving the feeling of "desktop response" which has apparently been a problem for past kernel scheduling algorithms |
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Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Old Boxes: Remote X for Fun and Profit
Posted: Oct 24, 2007 - 10:52 PM
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Joined: Dec 01, 2006
Posts: 751
Status: Offline
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| Not necesarrily desktop response, it gives all applications a fair time for processing. Process timeslices are smooth, not chunky as was the case with the old scheduler. This gives a huge boost in perceived performance in 3d games. |
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