[ydl-gen] YDL 6 on a ibook G4 800 Mhz

[Derick Centeno]

Hi Warren:

I thought I recalled past exchanges with you!  I'm glad to learn you  
got a PS3 it appears to be a very technically challenging system to  
work with.
For me however, I always thought that control of the video output via  
linux was always important for anyone wishing to do research or other  
analysis taking advantage of the Cell and explore various results via  
charts etc.  Without YDL being allowed to do this at a sufficiently  
acceptable pace it wasn't clear to me that investing in the PS3 was a  
good deal.

I'm tempted by the PowerStation but that's a matter of a cash issue  
for me.  I like the fact that I can modify it's internals to my own  
interests.  Perhaps the PowerStation would interest you as anything  
regarding the Mac is pretty much a dead end.  I never bought that  
Apple's marriage to Intel was a great or smart idea scientifically  
speaking - that's my own view of course.

I'm not selling the PowerStation; I do very much admire it's  
potential as a nearly infinitely malleable scientific tool though.   
You may be able to get a nice balance of return by giving up the PB  
17 and PS3 and put the funds to whatever PowerStation configuration  
available from Fixstars.  It comes with the ATI X1650 Pro graphics  
card.  You can read up on that card here:

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx1650/index.html

The Specs are mouth watering, from a tech standpoint of course.  That  
this potential is available from within YDL is very very appealing.   
3D analysis your way, what's not to like?  Of course, this being  
Linux - I'm sure that some amount of coding is necessary somewhere to  
do exactly what one wants in the manner one actually wants it, but  
hey we've hung out here this long.  A coding challenge which is  
actually feasible and implementable within a time frame acceptable in  
any interesting project is not really a problem.

A more technical analysis of the card is available here:

http://www.techspot.com/review/24-radeon-x1650pro-vs-geforce-7600gs/

As you've been pushing the video issue for awhile, maybe the option  
I'm recommending is something to consider.

All the best... Derick.

On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:43 AM, Warren Nagourney wrote:

> Thanks, Derick. I didn't see anything about video acceleration. It
> said that there are "no outstanding issues"; this means that video
> works, but is not necessarily accelerated. From my earlier posts over
> the last two years (first about my PB 17 and later about my PS3), you
> might have concluded that I am allergic to slow and "choppy" video.
>
> cheers,
>
> Warren Nagourney