uploaded comparing PCs with terminal commands.md

alifeee · Dec 12, 2024 · 8e3b7d1 · 8e3b7d1
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+---
+title: comparing PCs with terminal commands
+date: 2024-12-12
+tags:
+  - pc-building
+  - scripting
+  - visualisation
+---
+I was given an old computer. I'd quite like to make a computer to use in my studio, and take my tower PC home to play video games (mainly/only local coop games like [Wilmot's Warehouse](https://www.wilmotswarehouse.com/), [Towerfall Ascension](https://maddymakesgamesinc.itch.io/towerfall), or [Unrailed](https://unrailed-game.com/unrailed.html), and occasionally [Gloomhaven](https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/)).
+
+It's not the best, and I'd like to know what parts I would want to replace to make it suit my needs (which are vaguely "can use a modern web browser" without being slow).
+
+By searching the web, I found these commands to collect hardware information for a computer:
+
+```bash
+uname -a # vague computer information
+lscpu # cpu information
+df -h # hard drive information
+sudo dmidecode -t bios # bios information
+free -h # memory (RAM) info
+lspci -v | grep VGA -A11 # GPU info (1)
+sudo lshw -numeric -C display # GPU info (2)
+```
+
+I also found these commands to benchmark some things:
+
+```bash
+sudo apt install sysbench glmark2
+# benchmark CPU
+sysbench --test=cpu run
+# benchmark memory
+sysbench --test=memory run
+# benchmark graphics
+glmark2
+```
+
+I put the output of all of these commands into text files for each computer, into a directory that looks like:
+
+```text
+├── ./current
+│   ├── ./current/benchmarks
+│   │   ├── ./current/benchmarks/cpu
+│   │   ├── ./current/benchmarks/gpu
+│   │   └── ./current/benchmarks/memory
+│   ├── ./current/bios
+│   ├── ./current/cpu
+│   ├── ./current/disks
+│   ├── ./current/gpu
+│   ├── ./current/memory
+│   └── ./current/uname
+└── ./new
+    ├── ./new/benchmarks
+    │   ├── ./new/benchmarks/cpu
+    │   ├── ./new/benchmarks/gpu
+    │   └── ./new/benchmarks/memory
+    ├── ./new/bios
+    ├── ./new/cpu
+    ├── ./new/disks
+    ├── ./new/gpu
+    ├── ./new/memory
+    └── ./new/uname
+4 directories, 19 files
+```
+
+Then, I ran this command to generate a diff file to look at:
+
+```bash
+echo "<html><head><style>html {background: black;color: white;}del {text-decoration: none;color: red;}ins {color: green;text-decoration: none;}</style></head><body>" > compare.html
+while read file; do
+  f=$(echo "${file}" | sed 's/current\///')
+  git diff --no-index --word-diff "current/${f}" "new/${f}"
+    | sed 's/\[\-/<del>/g' | sed 's/-\]/<\/del>/g'
+    | sed -E 's/\{\+/<ins>/g' | sed -E 's/\+\}/<\/ins>/g'
+    | sed '1s/^/<pre>/' | sed '$a</pre>'
+done <<< $(find current/ -type f) >> compare.html
+echo "</body></html>" >> compare.html 
+```
+
+then I could open that html file and look very easily at the differences between the computers. Here is a snippet of the file as an example:
+
+<div id="comparing-pcs-diff-section">
+<style>
+#comparing-pcs-diff-section > pre {background: black;color: white;}
+#comparing-pcs-diff-section del {text-decoration: none;color: red;}
+#comparing-pcs-diff-section ins {color: green;text-decoration: none;}
+</style>
+<pre>CPU(s):                   <del>12</del><ins>6</ins>
+  On-line CPU(s) list:    <del>0-11</del><ins>0-5</ins>
+Vendor ID:                <del>AuthenticAMD</del><ins>GenuineIntel</ins>
+  Model name:             <del>AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core Processor</del><ins>Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz</ins>
+    CPU family:           <del>23</del><ins>6</ins>
+    Model:                <del>1</del><ins>158</ins>
+    Thread(s) per core:   <del>2</del><ins>1</ins>
+    Core(s) per socket:   6
+    Socket(s):            1
+</pre>
+<pre>Latency (ms):
+         min:                                    <del>0.55</del><ins>0.71</ins>
+         avg:                                    <del>0.57</del><ins>0.73</ins>
+         max:                                    <del>1.62</del><ins>1.77</ins>
+         95th percentile:                        <del>0.63</del><ins>0.74</ins>
+         sum:                                 <del>9997.51</del><ins>9998.07</ins>
+</pre>
+<pre>
+    glmark2 2021.02
+=======================================================
+    OpenGL Information
+    GL_VENDOR:     <del>AMD</del><ins>Mesa</ins>
+    GL_RENDERER:   <del>AMD Radeon RX 580 Series (radeonsi, polaris10, LLVM 15.0.7, DRM 3.57, 6.9.3-76060903-generic)</del><ins>NV106</ins>
+    GL_VERSION:    <del>4.6</del><ins>4.3</ins> (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.0.3-1pop1~1711635559~22.04~7a9f319
+...
+[loop] fragment-loop=false:fragment-steps=5:vertex-steps=5: FPS: <del>9303</del><ins>213</ins> FrameTime: <del>0.107</del><ins>4.695</ins> ms
+[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=false:vertex-steps=5: FPS: <del>8108</del><ins>144</ins> FrameTime: <del>0.123</del><ins>6.944</ins> ms
+[loop] fragment-steps=5:fragment-uniform=true:vertex-steps=5: FPS: <del>7987</del><ins>240</ins> FrameTime: <del>0.125</del><ins>4.167</ins> ms
+=======================================================
+                                  glmark2 Score: <del>7736</del><ins>203</ins>
+</pre>
+</div>
+
+It seems like the big limiting factor is the GPU. Everything else seems reasonable to leave in there.
+
+As ever, I find `git diff --no-index` a highly invaluable tool.