VMD-L Mailing List

From: Fred Salsbury (salsbufr_at_wfu.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 27 2003 - 17:52:47 CST

Hello --

I have what is probably a naive set of questions, which probably have more
to do with my lack of knowledge about graphics programs in general.

 I am running vmd on a remote server -- where all my data resides -- so
I am popping the display up on my local machine. I would like to improve
the performance of VMD, and so I suspect improving the video card would
be the appropriate thing to do.
[ Locally, I have RedHat Linux 9.0, an IBM 2.4 GHz P4, and the generic
video card that come with it [ Intel Extreme Graphics I believe]. On
the server, there is Redhat Linux 7.3, dual IBM 2.4 GHz xenon, and a generic
video card. I have 10.0Mbps connection, which will be 100.0Mbps
eventually]
  So my questions are:

1) Does vmd work by sending commands from the server to my local machine,
and then using the resources locally to display the image?

This would seem to be the case from ifconfig which didn't show much
increase in network traffice while vmd was running, and rotating a large
molecule seems to impact my machine and not the server.

2) As such do I need to improve the video card only locally? Or on the
server as well?

3) If I improved the video card, would there be much advantage to getting
a local machine with a second processor?

thanks for any assistance,

cheers
Fred