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Subject: Re: Palm m100 at 54MHz???

Author: Rafael Vasquez

Date: 02:42:05 03/14/02

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On March 14, 2002 at 04:46:28, Travers Waker wrote:

My M505 runs stable at 45mhz. I can put it to 54 but then the clock will not
coordinate. I read that the m500 is sligthly faster and that Handspring are the
fastest.

>The Palm m100 has a Dragonball EZ processor according to
>http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/hardware/compare.html .  I think it is very
>unlikely that your m100 is actually running at 54MHz (even if your overclocking
>utility is telling you that it is).  Only the Dragonball VZ Processors, as found
>in the m500 series, are cabaple of clock speeds like that.  You would be lucky
>to get your m100 running at even 30MHz.  My Palm Vx, which also has an EZ
>processor, can only reach 28MHz (which, together with the other speed-ups
>Afterburner provides, results in a Chess Tiger 14.7 speed index of 1.11).
>
>If you're interested in how to determine what the highest clock rate is that
>your palm reliably supports, read the email (appended below) that I got from
>Christophe when I asked him about this issue.
>
>Travers
>
><email from Christophe>
>
>> I'm running ChessTiger on my Palm Vx.  I'm also using Afterburner to
>overclock the Palm, but I seem to be experiencing a
>> problem:
>>
>> If I overclock to the maximum that Afternburner will allow (54Mhz),
>ChessTiger reports a Tiger Mark of 2.11.  I would be very
>> happy about this (considering I saw a post by you in ICD Forum saying you
>were getting a Tiger Mark of 1.35 on your M505
>> clocked at 54Mhz), except that I don't believe it.  The clock (the one
>that counts down the game time) in Tiger and Genius
>> also runs much slower than it should, which is probably why Tiger thinks
>it is getting much more work done in a set amount of
>> time than it really is.
>>
>> I remember seeing a post in ICD Forum about this aproximately a week ago,
>but it still wasn't clear to me what the
>> consequences of this slow clock were.  What is the best way to optimize
>the strength of Chess Tiger using Afterburner?
>>
>> Maybe this is a good topic for the FAQ.  The Afterburner documentation
>doesn't seem to address this clock slow-down.  Also,
>> if I'm running at 54Mhz without the Palm crashing, but with the clock
>running slow, is Tiger playing stronger than it would
>> at the highest possible Mhz at which the clock keeps time properly?  I
>imagine that it is, since it's taking longer than it
>> should on each move (since the clock is slow) and it's able to do more in
>that time because the CPU is at 54Mhz), but I want
>> to know if this is actualyl true.  Maybe my CPU just thinks it's running
>at 54Mhz, but is really not.
>>
>> Thanks for any help - and thanks for Chess Tiger.  I spend many hours
>every week playing with Tiger and Genius, and they're
>> very much responsible for my renewed interest in chess.
>
>
>Your analysis is correct.
>
>This is explained in AfterBurner's documentation.
>
>AfterBurner sets up the computer to overclock it to 54MHz, but the PLL (the
>electronic device in charge of the frequency generation) cannot reach the
>programmed frequency, and worse, it oscillate between LOWER frequencies.
>
>But AfterBurner does NOT know that there is a problem, and it keeps on
>correcting the time as if the computer was actually running at 54MHz.
>
>The result is that the system thinks that the time passes very slowly, and
>that's why Chess Tiger believes it can reach this high performance level.
>
>We do not know how to fix this at this time. The programmer of AfterBurner
>should try to do something for this. If he does not, and if there exists a
>technical solution to fix this (or at least to warn the user), we will
>implement it in Chess Tiger.
>
>So what should you do now?
>
>You should set AfterBurner to the highest frequency which still gives an
>accurate time measurement.
>
>1) set the frequency with AfterBurner
>2) start Chess Tiger and execute the "Speed test" (this not only displays a
>performance index, but also tries to adjust Chess Tiger's clock to the
>computer's speed)
>3) let the program think for approx. one minute (the position does not
>matter) and check Chess Tiger's clock with a stopwatch
>
>Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3 until Chess Tiger's clock matches your stopwatch.
>
>Step 2 is very important, don't forget to do it every time you change your
>Palm's speed.
>
>Most Palms cannot run higher than 29MHz. Maybe it's the case of your Palm
>Vx.
>
>
>    The Chess Tiger technical support
>    support@chesstiger.com
>    http://www.chesstiger.com



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