GPU Gems article here (pdf)
Well, as a user of AROS, Windows XP/Vista, OSX, I have to wonder sometimes what Windows and OSX are doing sometimes.
You guys can laugh at that guy and make jokes all you want, but I think most everybody has the same experience on Windows/MacOS sometimes. The experience where by you don't really have any of 'your' apps open, other than standard stuff running in the background, and you go to launch an app and while it's loading 'for whatever reason' the computer slows down. Or you are just browsing the web and you go to launch another app and in Windows you go to the Start button, but it won't click, screens "freeze" i.e. where the shape of the windows is there, but the image is a partial of the last window that was behind/infront of it.
I use Maya on OSX and while Maya is a fairly large program I often have to wait a "while" for firefox to start when I'm not even doing anything in Maya.
There's no argument, I mean I've been around computers a few days. Everyone experiences, certainly in Windows case, the randomness of the computer slowing/freezing for a few seconds when you are seemingly doing nothing.
It obviously not that hardware. I kind doubt it just sort of bottle necks it self for 10 seconds every now and then. ;-)
But I've never seen any explanation for it.
Sort of off topic, it's funny how we have delay built into things and we don't even realize it. For example I got a new stereo for my car a month or so ago. A Sony, nothing fancy, just a CD unit, plays MP3 discs, etc. The tuner has 6 buttons for Radio presets, pretty standard. But what is strange is when you hit the button, the next station plays instantly. No 1/2 second silence then the next station. It's just, push the button and there the next channel. Kind of interesting, I never really thought about it. Car stereo in our other car, home receiver, etc, all have a slight delay.