[NTLUG:Discuss] XMMS DGA fixed it, now what.

[jeremyb@univista.com]

   Since building this system a couple years ago it's had wierd issues
running 
  any graphics intensive applications. For instance running any mame rom of
a game 
  from about 1984 or newer is very very slow and taxes the CPU quite a bit.
I 
  generally have to run the game in a very small window to make it playable.
Now, 
  I just started the spectrum analyzer plugin for XMMS and found that it too

  runs very very slowly.  In the plugin options I found the enable DGA
option. 
  This option allows xmms plugins to write directly to video card memory. 
  But, you have to run XMMS as root to use it....   I chose to enable DGA
and 
  then restarted XMMS as root.  WOW!  what a difference; the analyzer plugin
actually keeps 
  up with the music now. 
  Now for my question.  What exactly did I bypass that was slowing things
down 
  so much and how can I make such a difference in other graphics intensive
applications? 

  The core system: 
    Intel 440BX chip set on the main board/PII 300/320 MB RAM 
    RedHat 7.1 2.4.2-2 

  The video card: (PCI probing from Xconfiguration) 
    PCI Entry    : nVidia Corporation|Vanta [NV6]           ? 
                ? X Server     
               : XF86_SVGA                                ? 
                ? XFree4 driver: nv 
    32 MB video memory 

  The monitor: 
    17" Pixie monitor at 1024x768 HF: 48.3 VF 59.9 

    
   thanks, 
    Jeremy