Help needed, ASAP!

[aerides]

Hi there.

I really need help with understanding basic hardware/software data movment. I was given a take-home exam for an introductury computer course and I've been battling with some of the questions for days and days. The main question that's posing a problem is this:

Quote:

3. Computers often move data from one storage area to another. For example, the operating system often pages data between a hard drive and memory, copying the data into memory so that a program can be executed. We have also seen that the hardware (processor) moves data between memory and cache. Why is software (i.e. the operating system) in control of some of this data movement and the hardware in control of others? Is there a pattern in terms of how much data is moved, where it is moved from or moved to?

Does anyone think they can answer this, or at least give me some direction on where to look for an answer? Any help will be appreciated!!!!!!

[Andy]

first of all DO NOT come into a forum and post a question without even reading the fules.

second, this isnt even in the right forum, so once again, think before you type/click.

now as for your question. some operations abe built in the hardware to increase speed. the hardware can move blocks of raw memory between the cache to the ram alot faster than the OS moving from the ram to the hdd. however, these are very basic operations, and due to the complexity of some actions, we cannot build every operation into the hardware. the harddrive is slow enough so that having operations executed by the software will not compromise efficiency, but the L1 cache of a cpu is exteremly fast, and using software to operate on it will decrease the performance.

consider a video card, the vpu has built in operations like drawline, draw dot, colour this, fill this area, draw polygons, and blah blah. These are built into the hardware to increase speed. everyone of these operations can be done by the CPU through the OS, but that would be trememdously slow. that is why videocards that comes with more pixel/vertex shaders perform better than those who have less.

[codemage]

Break it down before answering the "why". Consider the tradeoffs of speed / what the hardware/software are aware of during various operations.

When / in what circumstances does hardware move the data?
What is the advantage / disadvantage of hardware moving data?

When / in what circumstances does software move the data/
What is the advantage / disadvantage of software moving data?

[djlenny_3000]

im pretty sure he will have trouble reading the "fules"

but search wiki

wiki is the only way

[[Gandalf]]

djlenny_3000 wrote:

im pretty sure he will have trouble reading the "fules"

Hmm? Why is that? The rules are the first topic in this forum.
As for the rest of your post... What? I don't get it.

*edit* Ah, danke sehr Tony.

[Tony]

btw, [The Rules] are also part of our wiki-style linking initiative, so you don't have to look up the URL every time to enlighten the newcomers