The Atom effect finally hit me! (it's slow-as)

[OrphanBoy]

A number of months ago I bought an Atom 330 (dual core + HT @ 1.6GHz) on the generic Intel board it comes with to use as a file server. I stuck Ubuntu 9.10 on it. So far it's done fantastically in this role and I'm very pleased with it. Hard disks could be quieter though

Anyway for the last couple of days I'd try it as a casual desktop / web browsing machine just to see how well it performs and - although I already knew this - it's a total dog! It's behavior as a file server is very different to that of a desktop. Even sites like OcUK are sluggish... Flash is also so slow.

I guess I was kidding myself believing that my box was not the same as netbook but I guess it's almost the same thing.
So: how do people get by using netbooks when the performance is like this? And often these netbooks are single core with no HT too!

 

[DireEmblem]

When you tried it as a casual desktop/web browser, were you still running server tasks in teh background?

 

[alex24]

That doesn't sound right...

My netbook with an Atom N270 browses the net no problem, especially OcUK. Flash is slow but I think there may be a way of offloading that to the GPU perhaps?

 

[OrphanBoy]

Snip

Oh OcUK was one of the more responsive pages but it was definitely lacking "teh snappy" vs what I was used to I think I'd also been spoiled by the new Opera which has much faster JavaScript performance than the most recent version which is available on Linux.

That Flash offload stuff sounds interesting. At the very least, making a video go full-screen shouldn't be any slower than in a window if all but the most basic acceleration wasn't working!

Running at 1900x1200 FYI with GMA 950.

Snip

The only thing it should have been up to that is server-y is the software RAID-1 going on in the background.

 

[bledd]

Flash is pretty cpu intensive, so no surprise there really.

Once Flash is fully accelerated by ION graphics, these systems will really rock.

 

[daz]

What browser are you using? Try something like Chrome for much faster javascript execution and general page rendering. It beats the pants of Firefox.

 

[Tute]

You could try the Flash Beta that has GPU acceleration and see if that makes a difference?

 

[dangerstat]

All I can say the the OP is that you must have configured your system horrendously

I've been using an Atom 330 based machine for that last 5 months and it's absolutely fine browsing the web and playing flash. Right at this moment I'm watching "Final Score" streamed live, I have 11 Chrome windows open and Eclipse running and the performance is great

The only problem I really feel on a day to day basis is autocomplete in eclipse (to be honest this can be very slow for all sorts of reasons).

I think you might want to review how you have configured your system.

 

[Rroff]

My fileserver is based on an Atom 230 @ 1.6gig and while I'd hardly say it flies its deffinatly not been sluggish the odd time I've done web browsing from it - I have even done web browsing on it while viewing it in remote desktop.

 

[OrphanBoy]

@dangerstat, what OS do you use on the machine? Flash runs like a total dog on mine. Do you have the NV ION chipset?

Disk performance is pretty good on the machine, CPU is exactly where I expect it (did a Cinebench and compared with reviews and it's right) - so maybe it IS a graphics related problem? It's also only got 1GB of RAM (2GB swap split across the drives) which should be adequate for the task it was bought for.

I'm gonna have a look to see if in fact there's some kind of driver install trouble with the X set-up I think

 

[Blackbadger]

I run a single core atom n270 in the kitchen, It runs all flash.. iplayer/all web video etc no problems, full screen or windowed. I can only assume if your having issues it's the way it's setup. I use xp, 1gb ram, the intel gfx, and have turned off all the useless services, for a media system.

 

[dangerstat]

@dangerstat, what OS do you use on the machine? Flash runs like a total dog on mine. Do you have the NV ION chipset?

Disk performance is pretty good on the machine, CPU is exactly where I expect it (did a Cinebench and compared with reviews and it's right) - so maybe it IS a graphics related problem? It's also only got 1GB of RAM (2GB swap split across the drives) which should be adequate for the task it was bought for.

I'm gonna have a look to see if in fact there's some kind of driver install trouble with the X set-up I think

It's running Ubuntu 9.04 and yes it is ION based, and I've got 2GB of RAM in my machine.

 

[craptakular]

I'm posting on my Toshiba NB100 512mb ram. Web surfing is smooth, small flash files are smooth, but some of the larger ones are laggy.

I can't see how any websurfing flash or not would be laggy with an atom dual core and ION.


EDIT: oh my running ubuntu netbook remix 9.10

 

[OrphanBoy]

I don't have an ION-based board, this is GMA lovin'
I'm gonna see if I've got some kinda graphics setup problem although to be fair really this machine is just designed to be a file server!

 

[Methanoid]

Thats why its laggy.. D945GCLF2 isnt a ball of fire... the Ion 330 would be better but only if you used the enhanced flash. The Asrock Ion also supports overclock to stable 2ghz which also helps.