DMA

[Alexander Jacob Tsykin]

On Wednesday 24 May 2006 18:41, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-05-24 at 15:35 +1000, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> > On Wednesday 24 May 2006 08:26, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > > DMA really is a more/less magic setting. Why burden the user with that
> > > choice?
> >
> > Because only rarely it seems, and certainly not in my case, the system
> > makes the correct choice
>
> Be sure not to confuse the correct choice with the choice you wanted.
>
>
> If DMA is not enabled by default on your machine (how did you find out
> whether it was or wasn't, btw?) then there's a reason for that -- it
> means either the hardware or drivers are not capable of providing
> reliable functionality with it enabled.
>
I found out when video playback was jerky. When I enabled it manually, 
everything worked fine.
> While as a power user you can fiddle with that, it's not something I'd
> like ordinary users to fiddle with.  "Don't worry Gran, this may crash
> your computer or even result in your data going missing, but it'll make
> that DVD of Matrix: Revolutions I bought you play SO MUCH FASTER."
>
Having DVDs play smoothely is critical functionality for a desktop machine. If 
it doesn't work, then there is a major problem.
> OTOH, DMA is enabled by default on every machine I have here, so I would
> be interested to know what chipsets you have[0].
>
nvidia nforce 3 250gb
> Scott

Sasha