Alphastation 255 question..

From: ajp166 <ajp166_at_bellatlantic.net>
Date: Thu Oct 12 21:01:51 2000

>> VMS isn't a memory pig. Alpha however was aimed at big apps and isn't
>> as byte efficient as VAX so it tends to consume 2x-4x the ram. The


>I think you know what I mean :^) The system in question is an Alpha,
and on


See the comment I left in? Yes, I do know what you mean.

>Alpha's OpenVMS is a memory pig! A quick (SHO CLUS) shows that my 24MB
>VAXstation 4000/VLC is sitting at 60% memory usage, the AlphaStation
500/333
>with 96MB that doesn't have DECwindows loaded on the system is sitting
at
>69%, unfortunatly I don't have either of the workstations with 112MB up
at
>the moment as but running DECwindows I believe they'll be at about 80%,
>IIRC. Of course my main system is only at 20% :^)


An Alpha with 96mb is running faster than the VAX however with 24mb
so you get what you pay for. However in the time frame when they were
both current that Alpha would likely have had 128mb minimum and likely
more and the vax would have been big at 32mb.

It's the difference between the byte oriented VAX and the Word orieneted
Alpha.

>I understand why OpenVMS on an Alpha uses so much memory as opposed to
on a
>VAX, however, the fact remains, it's a memory hog, and like I said based
on
>my very limited Tru64 experience it seems even worse on the exact same
>hardware.


Actually any os on Alpha will be bigger by 4x, it's the instruction
granularity
mostly and also the Alpha is actally less CISC than VAX. The payback is
the 64bit addressing and math.

Allison
Received on Thu Oct 12 2000 - 21:01:51 BST

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