[Info-vax] VMS x86 performance ?

[clair.grant@vmssoftware.com]

On Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 11:11:33 PM UTC-4, Michael Moroney wrote:
> "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> writes:
> 
> >On 10/30/20 3:43 PM, IanD wrote:
> 
> >> The fact that it boots wickedly fast is also an indication is it
> >> not?
> 
> >It's good news, but it may not mean what you think it means.  I believe
> >they have done a lot of work on the boot path, so it's not necessarily
> >the same code that is running on other architectures.
> 
> One big reason for the fast boot is the memory disk used, so that (other) boot drivers 
> won't be needed.  Load a chunk of memory once very early and run the rest of the early
> boot stuff from it.

We understand the importance of performance comparisons but such testing is not even on our radar yet. We have many, many more important things to do in the next few months. As has been stated previously, it would be a complete waste of time anyway until we can turn on optimizing in the compilers.

The plan has always been - keep adding more functions as we progress through our V9.0 EAKs and eventually we will have V9.1, the complete operating environment for an expanded Field Test. Moving from 9.1 to 9.2 will be mostly performance and stability work. We now have 31 external users with access to the CrossTools Kit and the appliances with V9.0-A, B, C, D, E, so we are making good progress.

We had some nice breakthroughs in E. My KVM guest has now been up for 31 days running a series of tests, usually 60 jobs on a single CPU. Another more recent change regarding SMP now allows large batteries of tests to run in 2P and 4P without issues. Coming in F will be full SMP support, clustering and MSCP serving as well as other additions.