HP Vectra XW Optimization Manual
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HP Vectra XW Optimization Manual

HP Vectra XW Optimization Manual

Personal workstation guide to optimizing performance
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Guide to Optimizing
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HP Vectra XW

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  • Page 1 Guide to Optimizing Performance HP Vectra XW...
  • Page 2 Notice The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Hewlett-Packard makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Hewlett-Packard shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
  • Page 3 Guide to Optimizing Performance A guide to the performance benefits of your HP Vectra XW Personal Workstation.
  • Page 4 This guide describes the high-performance features of your Personal Workstation and how you can obtain maximum benefit from them. This will help you to optimize the performance of your HP Vectra XW for your specific use. This guide is presented in two chapters: Your Personal Workstation’s performance features...

  • Page 5: Table Of Contents

    Your System’s Audio Resources ......40 HP PCI Integrated 10/100BT LAN Interface ....41 Performance Topic/Configuration Cross-Reference.
  • Page 6 2 Technical Reference Architectural Overview ........The Intel Pentium Pro Processor .

  • Page 7: Your Personal Workstation's Performance Features

    Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features This chapter describes the new features of your HP Vectra XW Personal Workstation and how these features can bring optimized performance to your 3D graphics or animation application.

  • Page 8: Overview

    1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Overview Overview Your HP Vectra XW Personal Workstation provides a number of features that bring unprecedented levels of performance to your desktop applications. Some of these features offer you their full performance benefits immediately, without needing to be adjusted in any way.

  • Page 9: Your Personal Workstation's Configuration

    Your Personal Workstation’s Configuration The configuration of your Personal Workstation has been optimized by HP for general use. However, the performance of your system can be further improved by changing this configuration to match the requirements of your applications. You can change the configuration of your Personal Workstation in three...

  • Page 10: Your System's Processor

    1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Your System’s Processor Your System’s Processor The key to the power of your HP Vectra XW is the high-performance processor its uses: the Intel Pentium Pro. The capabilities of this processor are sufficient to handle any 3D-graphic or multi-media application you may use.
  • Page 11 NOTE The Pentium Pro processor installed in your system provides the best performance when used with Windows NT and 32-bit applications. Inside the Processor Internally, your system’s processor performs tasks by breaking them down into sub tasks. Each of these sub tasks requires a number of clock cycles to complete.

  • Page 12: Advantages Of Dual Processor Configurations

    System board for installing a second 200 MHz Pentium Pro processor. Two Processors Are Your HP Vectra XW Personal Workstation is fully compliant with the Intel Multiprocessor Specification (MPS) for dual processing. This Better Than One standard defines how multiple processors work with a single set of system memory and I/O resources.
  • Page 13 Multithreaded Any operating system consists of a number of functions, each of which controls some small part of the system’s operation. Application software Operating Systems uses these functions as building blocks to create specific, more powerful tools for the user. Under a single-threaded operating system no individual function is independent.
  • Page 14 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Advantages of Dual Processor Configurations MPS-Ready Windows NT is an MPS-ready operating system. An MPS-ready operating system is multithreaded and also guarantees the integrity of Operating Systems any data shared between the different processors. Data integrity is essential in any environment where multiple copies of the same data can —...
  • Page 15 The Advantages of Dual Your HP Vectra XW is able to bring the advantages of multiprocessing to your desktop. With two processors installed, the power of your Processing Personal Workstation is significantly increased. However, this does not mean that your system can process individual commands and instructions more quickly.
  • Page 16 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Advantages of Dual Processor Configurations One single-threaded application Multiple single-threaded applications or one multithreaded application NOTE This distinction is important. If you use multithreaded applications or multiple single-threaded applications, a second Pentium Pro processor will significantly improve the performance of your system.
  • Page 17 Additional Advantages HP has proven experience in the successful design of dual processing platforms. Previous HP Vectra systems have used the Pentium of Dual Processing with...
  • Page 18 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Advantages of Dual Processor Configurations The Pentium Pro integrates level-two cache memory into the same package as the processor and is able to access this memory without using the local bus. This feature leads to these additional performance advantages when the Pentium Pro processor is used in dual processing configurations: Because the level-two cache memory is integrated inside the...

  • Page 19: Matching Memory Capacity To Your Requirements

    Matching Memory Capacity to Your Requirements The HP Vectra XW is supplied with 64 MB or 128 MB of memory installed. This memory is sufficient to run any standard 3D-graphics or multi-media application. However, under certain conditions, the performance of your system will be improved by installing additional memory.
  • Page 20 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Matching Memory Capacity to Your Requirements If You Do Not Have If you do not have sufficient memory for the applications you are running, your system will compensate by using hard disk space as virtual Enough Memory memory.
  • Page 21 What Else is Memory Windows NT also uses memory to accelerate data transfers with the system’s hard disks. To do this, an area of memory is dedicated to a disk Used For? cache, which stores copies of the latest data read from or written to the hard disks.
  • Page 22 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Matching Memory Capacity to Your Requirements Installing More Memory If your Personal Workstation has less memory installed than your operating system and applications require, then installing more memory will significantly improve your system’s performance. Performance Memory Capacity English...
  • Page 23 Does Installing More Once you have sufficient memory, any extra memory you install will have no effect on performance. Indeed, surplus memory will probably Memory Always not be used. Improve Performance? Performance 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Matching Memory Capacity to Your Requirements Memory Capacity English...

  • Page 24: Benefits Of 32-Bit Applications

    1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Benefits of 32-bit Applications Benefits of 32-bit Applications Your HP Vectra XW has been designed to offer optimized performance. The benefit that you can gain from your Personal Workstation’s features will be determined by the software that you use.
  • Page 25 The Pentium Pro The Pentium Pro processor in your HP Vectra XW is a 32-bit processor. This means that it has been specifically designed to execute 32-bit Processor instructions, and has 32-bit registers for storing data and addresses. Your system will give optimized performance when running 32-bit applications.
  • Page 26 Next instruction waiting to enter the pipeline NOTE For the reasons explained above, HP does not recommend using your Personal Workstation to run 16-bit applications. Best performance can only be obtained when running 32-bit applications. English Only one 16-bit instruction can be in the pipeline at once...

  • Page 27: Installing Fast Peripherals On The Pci Bus

    Installing Fast Peripherals on the PCI Bus The HP Vectra XW provides six slots for accessory boards. Two of these slots are already occupied by your advanced graphics controller and LAN controller. The remaining four slots are available for installing accessory boards and can be used to add extra peripheral devices to your Personal Workstation.
  • Page 28 Low Power Migration The PCI bus in your HP Vectra XW supports PCI accessory boards that use two different power sources, 3.3 volts or 5 volts. Most currently available PCI accessory boards use the 5 volt power source. Accessory boards that use the 3.3 volt power source use less power, which helps...

  • Page 29: Increasing The Speed Limit With Ultra Scsi

    Standards highest level of peripheral connectivity available to a Personal Workstation. The SCSI channel in your HP Vectra XW can connect up to seven mass storage devices, both internally and externally. Up to five of these devices can be installed internally.
  • Page 30 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Increasing the Speed Limit With Ultra SCSI Multithreaded The PCI SCSI controller in your system offers additional performance advantages under Windows NT. Your Personal Workstation’s integrated Operating System SCSI controller is capable of receiving and processing the multiple Support commands issued by multithreaded operating systems, such as Windows NT.
  • Page 31 Automatic Your Personal Workstation is able to configure many SCSI mass storage devices automatically through a new feature, SCSI Configured Configuration Automatically (SCAM). When installing SCSI devices, refer to the documentation supplied with the device to see if it supports this feature.
  • Page 32 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Increasing the Speed Limit With Ultra SCSI The External SCSI The external SCSI connector on the rear panel can be used to connect external SCSI devices like tape drives. Use of the external connector will Connection be detected automatically by your system at power-on.

  • Page 33: Disk Striping

    Disk Striping Under Windows NT your Personal Workstation's integrated SCSI controller is able to improve the performance of your SCSI hard disk drives by using disk striping. This is a method of grouping multiple disk drives together so that they seem, to the user, as a single (logical) disk. Data is stored across these multiple disk drives in stripes of equal size;...
  • Page 34 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Increasing the Speed Limit With Ultra SCSI When your system writes data to a particular SCSI hard disk drive, that data passes from the integrated SCSI controller to a buffer on the disk drive. The drive then transfers the data from the buffer on to the disk. Before transferring more data to the disk drive buffer, the integrated SCSI controller must wait until the previous data has been transferred on to the disk.

  • Page 35: Making The Most Of Your System's Ide Channels

    Making the Most of Your System’s IDE Channels Your Personal Workstation integrates an advanced IDE controller for connecting internal mass storage devices. This controller can manage the operation of up to four IDE devices and supports both hard disk and CD-ROM drives. Your System’s IDE The integrated PCI IDE controller provides two Fast IDE channels for connecting IDE mass storage devices.
  • Page 36 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Making the Most of Your System’s IDE Channels The IDE controller transfers data to or from IDE devices in response to data transfers received or requested on your system's PCI bus. The technique used for a particular data transfer with an IDE device is chosen according to the type of transfer received or requested on the PCI bus.
  • Page 37 The integrated IDE controller can be configured as either a PCI master or a PCI slave. As a PCI master, the IDE controller will give a significantly improved performance for data transfers on the PCI bus. Typical PCI transfer rates are greater than 15 MB per second (with a maximum of 16.7 MB/s) when operating as a PCI master, compared with up to 5 MB per second as a PCI slave.
  • Page 38 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Making the Most of Your System’s IDE Channels Optimized Timings Different IDE devices have different data transfer capabilities. The latest IDE hard disk drives support PIO Mode 4 and DMA Mode 2 timings, but older hard disk drives and CD-ROM drives will typically support only lower transfer modes.

  • Page 39: More 3D Graphics Performance

    More 3D Graphics Performance Highest 3D Graphics Your HP Vectra XW is supplied with an AccelProT/2500 3D graphics adapter which provides optimized performance with 3D CAD/CAM and Performance animation applications. This graphics adapter takes advantage of the power of your system's Pentium Pro processors to accelerate any...
  • Page 40 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features More 3D Graphics Performance The Geometric Pipeline The geometric pipeline is run on the system's Pentium Pro processors, mainly by the floating point (arithmetical) units. This pipeline is created in software by the OpenGL Interface and performs the following operations: 1 The starting (input) object is first broken into component polygons (the geometric objects).
  • Page 41 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features More 3D Graphics Performance 3D Object to be displayed Geometric Pipeline Rendering Pipeline SETUP Displayed Image English...

  • Page 42: 3D Graphics Adapter Architecture

    Setup and Rendering operations. This means that the OpenGL Interface's performance is linked closely to the processing capability of your system. Because the Vectra XW uses the high-performance Intel Pentium Pro processor, your system's OpenGL Interface gives an optimized performance for geometric operations.
  • Page 43 Geometric data sent to processors by graphics controller Resulting data sent back to 3D graphics adapter via the PCI bus Pixel data sent to display 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features More 3D Graphics Performance 3D Object to be displayed is stored as software model on 3D graphics adapter Geometric pipeline run by...
  • Page 44 1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features More 3D Graphics Performance The two types of memory (Frame-Buffer and Z-Buffer) used by the graphics adapter allow the OpenGL interface to perform the complex Setup and Rendering operations with maximum efficiency. The data sent to the graphics adapter by the geometric pipeline is separated by the graphics controller into pixel data (which defines the 2D image displayed on the screen) and z-data (which defines the the third...

  • Page 45: Opengl Acceleration

    These offer a significantly increased performance with 3D graphics applications and video drivers. Your Vectra XW is supplied with device drivers that will enable you to obtain this performance advantage for your 3D graphics application. To gain maximum benefit from your AccelProT/2500 OpenGL Interface, you must ensure that your application is configured to use OpenGL.

  • Page 46: Your System's Audio Resources

    1 Your Personal Workstation’s Performance Features Your System’s Audio Resources Your System’s Audio Resources Your System’s Audio Your Personal Workstation provides stereo SoundBlaster audio capability integrated on the system board. The audio subsystem Capabilities provides a number of connections for use with external devices, including musical instruments, through a MIDI (Musical Instrument Direct Interface) connector.

  • Page 47: Hp Pci Integrated 10/100Bt Lan Interface

    No Data Collisions The HP PCI integrated 10/100BT LAN interface uses a protocol called Demand Priority Access to avoid network collisions. Under this protocol, data packets transmitted over the network are directed only to their destination port.

  • Page 48: Performance Topic/Configuration Cross-Reference

    Increasing the speed limit with Ultra SCSI (page 23) Making the most of your System’s IDE channels (page 29) More 3D graphics performance (page 33) Your System’s audio resources (page 40) HP PCI Integrated 10/100BT LAN Interface (page 41) English Adjusting Changing Your...

  • Page 49: Technical Reference

    Technical Reference This chapter describes the hardware architecture of your HP Vectra XW Personal Workstation and explains how the latest advances in component technology have been harnessed to bring extra power to your desktop application.

  • Page 50: Architectural Overview

    Architectural Overview Architectural Overview Bus architecture Your HP Vectra XW is based on a three-bus architecture. Each bus connects functional components of your system that have similar data handling requirements. By using this architecture, your system is able to distribute its data traffic more effectively. The three buses are: The (processor’s) local bus connects the Pentium™...
  • Page 51 Pentium Second Pentium Pro Processor Processor Processor’s Local Bus Local Integrated to PCI SCSI Bridge Controller PCI Bus Keyboard to ISA & Mouse Bridge Controller ISA Bus Parallel & BIOS Serial Port Controller 2 Technical Reference Architectural Overview Main Memory Memory Controller Graphics...

  • Page 52: The Intel Pentium Pro Processor

    2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor The Intel Pentium Pro Processor Your Personal Workstation uses the latest development in x86 family processors, the Intel Pentium Pro. This processor implements a number of new features, such as superpipelining and an integrated level-two cache.

  • Page 53: Superpipeline Architecture

    Superpipeline Architecture Three Pipelines The key to the Pentium Pro processor’s improved performance is its superpipelined architecture, which allows it to execute instructions more quickly. Each instruction is executed in a number of steps through a mechanism called a pipeline. In fact the Pentium Pro processor uses three pipelines, which allows it to execute more than one instruction simultaneously.
  • Page 54 2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor Out-of-order Execution When executing x86 family instructions, previous generations of processors had to be faithful to the order in which the instructions were received. This meant that if a particularly slow or complicated instruction was being executed, the processor was obliged to stall its pipeline until the instruction had completed.

  • Page 55: Integrated Cache Memory

    2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor Integrated Cache Memory Cache memories are used by processors to accelerate access times for frequently used data and instructions. A cache is located between the processor and main memory, and stores copies of the last data read or written by the processor.
  • Page 56 2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor Two levels of Integrated The Pentium Pro processor integrates three cache memories in the same package: an 8 KB level-one data cache; an 8 KB level-one Cache instruction cache; and a unified level-two cache of 256 KB or 512 KB (depending on model).
  • Page 57 Dedicated Level-Two The Pentium Pro increases the performance of its level-two cache by accessing it over a dedicated, 64-bit internal bus. This means that Cache Bus accesses to the cache will cause no contention with any operations on the local bus. It also ensures that the level-two cache is able to operate at the full internal clock speed of the processor.
  • Page 58 2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor If another device in your system requests this data from memory, the Pentium Pro processor must be able to intercept the request so that it can supply the correct version of the data. To meet this requirement, the Pentium Pro processor uses two cache coherency mechanisms: the MESI (Modified, Exclusive, Shared, Invalid) protocol;...

  • Page 59: Higher Clock Speeds

    2 Technical Reference The Intel Pentium Pro Processor Higher Clock Speeds The Pentium Pro processor operates at higher internal clock frequencies than any previous x86 family processor. The Pentium Pro processor(s) in your system use an internal clock that is three times faster than the clock used for the local bus.

  • Page 60: Main Memory

    (512 MB) is obtained by installing eight 64 MB DIMM modules. NOTE The DIMM modules used by your HP Vectra XW use a 5 volt power source. DIMM modules that use a 3.3 volt power source are not supported and must not be installed.
  • Page 61 2 Technical Reference Main Memory The processor’s local data bus is 64 bits wide. All data written to or read from the memory is transferred on this bus. The memory modules are accessed by the memory controller through two, parallel 64-bit data paths.

  • Page 62: Data Integrity

    ECC Code Your HP Vectra XW uses a different system to guarantee the integrity of your memory data. This system, called Error Correcting Code (ECC), enables the memory controller to detect and automatically correct any single-bit data error that occurs.

  • Page 63: Memory Upgrade Path

    Memory Upgrade Path The memory configuration of your HP Vectra XW is very flexible. Your system’s memory capacity can be increased by installing pairs of memory modules of 16 MB, 32 MB or 64 MB in any memory bank in any order.
  • Page 64 2 Technical Reference Main Memory Base memory Memory added configuration to bank 2 (bank 1) 128 MB — 128 MB All memory banks are 128-bits wide and provide interleaved access, irrespective of their capacity or of the capacity of other memory banks. English Memory added Memory added...

  • Page 65: Technical Characteristics

    Technical Characteristics The technical characteristics of the HP Vectra XW are summarized in the following tables. Type Intel Pentium Pro Clock speeds supported 200 MHz Architecture Three-way, superscaler 64-bit data, 36-bit address Five execution units Out-of-order and speculative execution Advanced dynamic branch prediction...
  • Page 66 Supply 3.3 volt or 5 volt Connected devices Integrated SCSI controller Integrated IDE controller 3D Graphics Adapter (accessory board) HP 10/100BT LAN interface (accessory board) Clock speed 8.75 MHz Bandwidth Up to 8 MB/s Accessory board slots Three, full-length 16-bit slots (one slot is combination ISA/PCI)
  • Page 67 Stereo amplifier output Two watts per channel into 4 ohm impedance MIDI interface SoundBlaster and MPU-401 mode compatible MIDI time-stamp for multimedia extension 64-byte FIFO input buffer HP 10/100BT LAN Interface Description EtherExpress Protocol 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet standard Demand Priority Access Data transfer rates 10 Mbit/s (IEEE 802.3)
  • Page 68 2 Technical Reference Technical Characteristics Memory Address Map Address 0 - 3FFh Interrupt Vector Table (0 to 1KB) 400h - 4FFh BIOS Data Area (1 KB to 1 KB + 256 bytes) 500h - 9FFFFh Base Memory (1 KB + 256 bytes to 640 KB) Used by operating systems and software applications A0000h - BFFFFh Video Memory...
  • Page 69 Address (hexadecimal) 170h - 177h Integrated IDE controller (secondary channel) 1F0h - 1F7h Integrated IDE controller (primary channel) ™ 220h - 22Fh SoundBlaster 16 audio subsystem (can be relocated) 278h - 27Fh Parallel port 2 2E8h - 2EFh Serial port 4 2F8h - 2FFh Serial port 2 300h - 301h...
  • Page 70 2 Technical Reference Technical Characteristics English...
  • Page 72 Part Number D4514-90021 Printed in USA - 08/96...

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