Intel Application Accelerator - do I want this or not?

Ran Zif Davis WinBench 99 V2.0 before and after installing Intel
Application accelerator (IAA). Winbench results are generally WORSE
after installing IAA.

Bisiness Disk WinMark 99 (thousand bytes/sec):
Before IAA: 8140
After IAA: 6140
(same results for Disk Playback/Busverall)

Other tests (Front page, Microstation, photoshop, premiere, etc) also
worse after IAA. Only 1 test (Sick Playback/HE:AVS/Express 3.4) was
slightly better after IAA. Frontpage 98 was a lot worse (36,500 vs
106,000). Visual C++5.0 was also a lot worse (7,660 vs 27,900)

So what's the deal with IAA?
It doesn't seem to have added any programs in the RUN section of the
registry.

Does it change system settings? Does it load any driver at startup?

Does it really improve performance - or should I un-install it?

Details:

Motherboard = Soyo SY-P4I 845PE ISA
CPU = Intel Celeron 2.6 Ghz
Intel 82801DB Ultra ATA controller
512 MB ram / Win-98se
Intel Application Accelerator version 2.3.0.2160

Excellent question and observation...
I have the same motherboard as you except I'm running
a 3.04Ghz P4 on mine and XPHome...
I'll be following this to see what the consenus is..

On 16 Oct 2004 19:46:06 -0700, (Joe) wrote:

Ran Zif Davis WinBench 99 V2.0 before and after installing Intel
Application accelerator (IAA). Winbench results are generally WORSE
after installing IAA.

Bisiness Disk WinMark 99 (thousand bytes/sec):
Before IAA: 8140
After IAA: 6140
(same results for Disk Playback/Busverall)

Other tests (Front page, Microstation, photoshop, premiere, etc) also
worse after IAA. Only 1 test (Sick Playback/HE:AVS/Express 3.4) was
slightly better after IAA. Frontpage 98 was a lot worse (36,500 vs
106,000). Visual C++5.0 was also a lot worse (7,660 vs 27,900)

So what's the deal with IAA?
It doesn't seem to have added any programs in the RUN section of the
registry.

Does it change system settings? Does it load any driver at startup?

Does it really improve performance - or should I un-install it?

Details:

Motherboard = Soyo SY-P4I 845PE ISA
CPU = Intel Celeron 2.6 Ghz
Intel 82801DB Ultra ATA controller
512 MB ram / Win-98se
Intel Application Accelerator version 2.3.0.2160

Joe wrote:
Ran Zif Davis WinBench 99 V2.0 before and after installing Intel
Application accelerator (IAA). Winbench results are generally WORSE
after installing IAA.

I believe that the IAA is just Intel's brand name for a set of optimized
drivers for its chipsets under Windows. Just because it says "accelerator"
in the name, doesn't actually mean it's doing anything to increase
performance. It's probably sort of like the same thing as a car manufacturer
adding the letters "GT" to the end of a car's model name, it's just a
marketing term -- it doesn't actually guarantee you greater performance.

Yousuf Khan

Until Intel regulars adds more info about the Intel Application
Accelerator (IAA), I'll post what I've found.

IAA replaces VMM32.VXD
- file date march 16/04
- file size 928,319
- no file info tabs

with intelvsd.vxd and intelata.mpd
- file dates 10/01/2002 and 09/11/2002
- file version 2.3.0.2160

With the original VMM32.VXD:
- I can turn DMA on or off for each drive
- my hard drive shows as "Gemeric IDE disk type47"
in device manager

With IAA (intelvsd.vxd/intelata.mpd):
- no dma switch is available
- hard drive is identified by name in device manager

As far as benchmarks go (specifically the Media PC Benchmark from
winbench 99) I'm looking at 7 test runs (4 without IAA, 3 with).
There are 11 test catagories.

Looking at all 7 runs, in 10 of the catagories the best score came
with IAA installed. However, in 4 catagories the lowest score also
was achieved with IAA installed.

What seems to be happening here is that IAA gives good results IF the
drive is de-fragged. And, there is some difference between
de-fragging with Windows own defragger vs Norton System Works 2002.

If the drive has even a little fragmentation (say, 1 or 2 weeks worth)
then IAA performance isin't that good.

Basically the system (without IAA) consistently achieves 90% of the
best IAA scores regardless of de-frag status. IAA only does better
with a pretty clean drive - otherwise it can only achieve 85% of the
best scores without IAA.

Details:

Motherboard = Soyo SY-P4I 845PE ISA
CPU = Intel Celeron 2.6 Ghz
Intel 82801DB Ultra ATA controller
512 MB ram / Win-98se
Intel Application Accelerator version 2.3.0.2160