Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!bloom-beacon!HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU!jimf%saber
From: jimf%saber@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why do you need a 387 to run X11R3?
Message-ID: <9003131600.AA02580@lance>
Date: 13 Mar 90 16:00:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 24

|Who said you needed a 387??? [...] I
|have Interactive's 386/ix with the X11 distribution, VP/ix, etc, and mine
|runs plenty fast with a base 386/25MHz, and 8mb core ram. I still also 
|reserve opinions on whether tons on swap actually help. I have configured
|20mb of swap compared with 10mb with no performance difference.

I concur.  I used 386/ix for awhile without FPU with no performance
problems (except excessive swapping due to low onboard memory, but
that's my fault).

Tons of swap won't speed things up (more swap doesn't make swapping
faster, just more available) but it will keep the machine running if
you have to really overload it at some point.  I recommend no less
than 16mb if you're running X (especially if you also like emacs like
I like emacs).

If you're doing a lot of arcs then you really do want the FPU but I
found that for average use it wasn't too bad.  This was, of course,
X11R3.  I've never seen R4 on one of the machines so I have no
comment.

jim frost
saber software
jimf@saber.com