Intel Atom N270 Still Sees Some Gains On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Atom N270 Still Sees Some Gains On Linux

While the N270, Intel's first-generation Atom processor for netbooks, is over four years old, the performance of this low-power CPU that wound up being found in a lot of netbook/nettops continues to improve under Linux -- well, sans a few regressions. Here are some benchmarks highlighting the performance changes when going from Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and then lastly a development snapshot of the forthcoming Ubuntu 12.10.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=17569

[AlbertP]

You should test Gallium3D as well on this netbook given the recent improvements in i915g.

[Gusar]

You should test Gallium3D as well on this netbook given the recent improvements in i915g.

Yeah, that'll definitely be the most interesting. It's probably part of the "There are some other more interesting results to share once further into July" mentioned at the end of the article.

I've just started a mesa-git compile to get i915g. But since the Atom N270 is not exactly fast (understatement of the century ), it'll take a while.

[curaga]

I've just started a mesa-git compile to get i915g. But since the Atom N270 is not exactly fast (understatement of the century ), it'll take a while.

I recall my E-350 built mesa in about ~15min. Translating that to an older single core atom, maybe 5 days

[Gusar]

I recall my E-350 built mesa in about ~15min. Translating that to an older single core atom, maybe 5 days

LOL! Sounds about right though . After compilation hung there at "running /usr/bin/makedepend" for like half an hour, I terminated it. Didn't bother to investigate what went wrong, if something really hung or if the processor was just taking it's sweet time. I now compiled on a laptop, Pentium-M 1.73GHz, took a bit more than 15 minutes.

Before:

OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME x86/MMX/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 1.4 Mesa 8.0.3

After:

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on i915 (chipset: 945GME)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.1-devel
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

To see if it works, I started EDuke32 with the Polymost HRP, launched a game and just stood there. Classic driver 48-49fps, gallium driver 44-45fps. So the gallium driver is indeed a bit slower. Of course what I'm doing here is not a proper test, but it's something.

Next step, Need for Speed 4 in wine. Didn't even start with the gallium driver, just threw an error. So I guess I'll be sticking with the classic driver, no matter how cool "OpenGL version string: 2.1" looks


ZootNerper: You have a CedarView machine with PowerVR graphics, while what's being tested here is Diamondville, with Intel graphics. Your issues have nothing to do with the Atom processor, it's all about graphics. And the next architecture, ValleyView, won't have PowerVR graphics anymore.

[randomizer]

Amazing improvements in C-Ray. Maybe I should recommission my netbook as a rendering node It's not like it does anything else other than gather dust...

[Veerappan]

LOL! Sounds about right though . After compilation hung there at "running /usr/bin/makedepend" for like half an hour, I terminated it. Didn't bother to investigate what went wrong, if something really hung or if the processor was just taking it's sweet time. I now compiled on a laptop, Pentium-M 1.73GHz, took a bit more than 15 minutes.

If it was stuck in what looked like an infinite loop, you might want to check that you have flex/bison installed on your system. I ran into that a few weeks ago on a fairly new Mint install. Mesa didn't say that it was required, and got itself stuck in an infinite loop as it silently swallowed the failures (redirected the output of the failing command to /dev/null).

[Michael]

You should test Gallium3D as well on this netbook given the recent improvements in i915g.

Yeah it's already been tested and saved for a future article... i915 classic is still faster though.

[ZootNerper]

Hi,

I have one of these crappy little Atoms in an ASUS 1101HA. Even running XP it couldn't do video. I can install Ubuntu 12.04 if I put up with half the screen missing and then it won't boot. Back to 10.10 for me till 12.10. (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/944929)

I use it as a server/downloading machine and that's it. Naff all use to man nor beast.

Except I'll never buy an Atom again whatever the future brings.

-- Zoot

[atcl]

How about a comparison of the 330 and N570 ? It would be nice to see how they do...