Xi Graphics' LX Display Server Tops 26 Xmarks on Fujitsu Laptop w/Linux
Accelerated-X performance figures rival that of popular workstations

Denver -- Until recently, one had to sacrifice graphical performance to obtain the many benefits of portable computing with laptops. No longer. New hardware offerings from laptop manufacturers combined with the Laptop Accelerated-X Display Server (LX) from X_i Graphics, Inc. provide performance that seriously challenges that of powerful desktop computers.

Recent tests using a Fujitsu 990Tx2 laptop running Linux 2.0.33 and v4.1 Laptop Accelerated-X Display Server (LX) notched up 26.59 Xmarks, a surprisingly high number that puts the Fujitsu/LX combination in the same Xmarks league as desktop workstations such as IBM RS/6000 Model 43P-140, Digital Equipment Corporation's AlphaStation 600 5/333 PowerStorm 4D20, HP C160 VISUALIZE-48, Sun Ultra 2 Creator3D Model 1200 and more. (See Data Below)

Xmarks are widely agreed to be a superior metric for X server performance comparisons. While a current PC desktop system with a fast Pentium II processor and high-end graphics card may produce Xmarks in the high 30's, an Xmarks figure of10 or less was considered normal for some of the better laptops. New hardware offerings from laptop manufacturers seem to bolster the claims that laptop power is reaching a par with desktop power.

However, the full potential of laptops running Linux or UNIX^TM cannot be achieved without the correct X Window System server. In fact, a comparison to a "free" X server cannot be made in this case, because a freeware X server for the Fujitsu 990Tx2 does not exist. Yet, when comparisons are made between other popular laptops running LX versus "free" X Servers available on various Linux distributions or downloaded off the web, the hardware running LX outperformed the freeware/hardware combination by a factor of 2X or more.*

Another series of tests were run on the Fujitsu 990Tx2 comparing the Solaris/x86 v2.6 operating system with the Sun X server against the same operating system with Xi Graphics' LX Server. In each case, the ddx ("device dependent code" also sometimes referred to as the driver code) was the same; only the server body was different. In all three depths, the LX Server beat out the Sun server by about 8%.*

Three conclusions may be drawn from this data: 1) Laptop hardware has evolved to rival the power of desktop hardware; 2) X Window Software performance is highly dependent upon which X server is used; and 3) Xi Graphics? Laptop Accelerated-X Display Server should be used to obtain the best graphical performance of Laptop hardware running Linux and PC UNIX operating systems.

* Test data is available from Xi Graphics? ftp site (ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/benchmarks). Additionally, the x11Perf Test is included with the Laptop Accelerated-X Display Server.