Summary: Sunpci II 600Mhz Max Res

Thanks to Larry Parkins for the good info. Hopefully the rules that
apply to his 733Mhz Sunpci II Pro cards apply to the 600Mhz Sunpci II cards.

Summary below:

I don't know if IE 5 for unix supports java, but javascript support
seems pretty good, and it runs fine on solaris. See the 600Mhz model
might have a different bios than the 733, which might or might not allow
the same amount of vr allocation for graphics. We'll see though. I'll
post the summary, thanks for the info.

> 1) The SunPCi2 doesn't use any of the Sparc memory, just its own.
> I have
> 256MB of SODIMM, and haven't had any problems running most
> programs, even
> some image analysis programs. The PCi2 comes with 128MB, but you
> can get
> standard SODIMM for cheap from Crucial.com that is an exact match,
> max 2
> 512MB chips. The SunPCi2 gives you choices of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and
> 64MB for
> Shared Memory in the Integrated Peripherals setup. There is also
> AGP memory
> allocation, the effect of which I haven't tried to experiement with,
> although I did allocate a bunch to it, as well.
>
> 2) I haven't tried MPEGs or windows media stuff on the external
> monitor. My
> wife runs a quilt-design program that uses a tiled background fill
> fromscanned fabric images, which made me nostalgic for the good old
> days when a
> '286 was a fast machine, on which you could redraw a complex
> graphic in less
> than five minutes, because it wasn't happening on the emulated
> display in X.
> A trip to the monitor store was in order to keep harmony in the
> household,and the images now paint instantly, though we now have
> three monitors on our
> home office desk.
>
> 3) Haven't had any problems with the separate ethernet: it runs
> through a
> 100Mbit hub, talks to everything else just fine. Don't forget to
> write down
> the MAC address from the yellow tag on top of the chip before you
> installthe card: you'll need to tell Windows what it is in the
> TCP/IP properties:
> Sun uses soft MAC addresses in everything.
>
> 4) My cards are 733MHz Celerons, at $600 direct from Sun's web
> sales a year
> ago: was there an early version of the SunPCi2 with a slower card?
>
> 5) Well, the reason to use the internal card was conservation of
> desk real
> estate, but with a separate monitor and the grumbling I hear about
> the mouse
> freezing up when it wanders out of the parent window on the CDE
> displaythreatening to prompt a trip to the store soon for a USB
> mouse, I'm not so
> sure it was a good investment for home use, especially since Tiger
> Directwas selling bare bones systems for under $200 last week, and
> the fact we
> already popped for an extra monitor. At work, the only Windows
> apps I run
> are Outlook so I can suffer with my coworkers and Internet Exploder
> so I can
> interact with lame web sites that don't bother to make their
> Javascript and
> Java applets Netscape-friendly (like the timecard software). So,
> at work I
> use the internal X-window, which is just fine for stuff that does
> videothrough the Windows API instead of writing direct to video
> RAM. I also have
> a Mac (OS/X) on my desk, and there is definitely not room for three
> monitorsand keyboards in my humble space.
>
> --
> Larye D. Parkins
> Systems Administrator, RML - NIAID
> 903 S. 4th St., Hamilton, MT 59840
> (406) 363-9433

> > The sunpci I only allows you to allocate 4M of virtual video
> > ram, how much will the Sunpci II allow? I've 896M to work
> > with on the sun side, so i'm not worried about running out.
> > How does direct draw perform under that? Also, how does
> > windows media player perform, watching say 600/700M mpg
> > movies? Is the seperate ethernet pretty stable? (I just need
> > to know all these things so I can make a sound decision of
> > whether or not to invest in it at $325, or whether i should
> > just build a seperate 600Mhz celeron box at the same price).
> >
> > - Josh -

> > > The SunPCi2 comes defaulted to 2MB video RAM: you have to
> change it
> > > in the
> > > BIOS setup screens to get higher resolution/color depth
> > > combinations. I
> > > don't know if the original PCi card has this feature.
> > >
> > > I am running 1024x768 Hi-color (16-bit) on mine at home (external
> > > monitorneeded for certain graphics programs), with 8MB, I think
> the
> > > selection went
> > > up to 1280x1024 on that (not supported by my monitor), plus
> some of
> > > the odd
> > > Sun monitor combos in between (1152x900,etc), maybe higher with
> > > more video
> > > RAM: will do 32-bit color if you have enough RAM allocated.
> > >
> > > The video memory setting is a bit hard to find, but worth looking
> > > for. See
> > > docs.sun.com for the user manuals for both cards, the settings
> are
> > > in the
> > > "external video and games" section near the back.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Larye D. Parkins
> > > Systems Administrator, RML - NIAID
> > > 903 S. 4th St., Hamilton, MT 59840
> > > (406) 363-9433

> > > > Would anyone happen to know the max res and performance value
> > > > of the sunpci II _external_ video 600Mhz celeron model.
> > > > Curious to know before i trot off and buy one for no good
> > > > reason. My sunpci I 400Mhz leaves something to be desired for
> > > > sure (max res 1024x768@16 in ext video mode).
> > > >
> > > > - Josh -
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