MS SQL vs Informix Online Workgroup (7.12) on NT observations

We are trying to compare performance of SQL server vs Informix for our application, which mostly do querying rather than updating. Both SQL Server and Informix are on the same machine, dual P133 with 224 M. MS SQL Server has 80 M allocated to it, Informix's BUFFERS is set to 15000 (x4K per page = 60M). A query against the same table, using the same index according to the query plan (SET EXPLAIN ON/SET SHOWPLAN ON on Online/MSSQL) gives the following: (1st time means right after starting the server, i.e. nothing is cached) 1st time MSSQL - 117 sec Online - 10 sec 2nd time MSSQL - 3 sec Online - 8 sec Clearly Informix beats SQL Server first time around hands down, but the second time, when most (probably all - a reasonable guess based on the approximate size of the result) of the data is cached it is nearly 3 times slower. I am no guru on configuring Informix, but here is the Oncinfig file I use. (With MS SQL server you don't get too many options, basically you have one parameter - memory - and that's all). I'd apreciate any advice on what I should try changing: (This is a dual P133, 224M RAM, PCI, data is stored on a stripe set made of 2 SCSI 4G drives, striping accomplished using NT, OS is NT 4.0... can't think of anything else relevant) #************************************************************************** # Description: INFORMIX-OnLine Configuration Parameters #************************************************************************** # Root Dbspace Configuration ROOTNAME rootdbs # Root dbspace name ROOTPATH I:\\IFMXDATA\\mysrv_informix\\rootdbs_dat.000 ROOTOFFSET 0 # Offset of root dbspace into device (Kbytes) ROOTSIZE 20480 # Size of root dbspace (Kbytes) # Disk Mirroring Configuration Parameters MIRROR 1 # Mirroring flag (Yes = 1, No = 0) MIRRORPATH # Path for device containing mirrored root MIRROROFFSET 0 # Offset into mirrored device (Kbytes) # Physical Log Configuration PHYSDBS rootdbs # Location (dbspace) of physical log PHYSFILE 3000 # Physical log file size (Kbytes) # Logical Log Configuration LOGFILES 15 # Number of logical log files LOGSIZE 500 # Logical log size (Kbytes) # Diagnostics MSGPATH F:\\Informix\\online.log # System message log file path CONSOLE F:\\Informix\\console.log # System console message path ALARMPROGRAM # Alarm program path # System Archive Tape Device TAPEDEV NUL # Tape device path TAPEBLK 16 # Tape block size (Kbytes) TAPESIZE 1363148 # Maximum amount of data to put on tape (Kbytes) # Log Archive Tape Device LTAPEDEV F:\\IFMXBKUP\\IFMXBKLG.BAK # Log tape device path LTAPEBLK 16 # Log tape block size (Kbytes) LTAPESIZE 1686824 # Max amount of data to put on log tape (Kbytes) # Optical STAGEBLOB # INFORMIX-OnLine/Optical staging area # System Configuration SERVERNUM 0 # Unique id corresponding to a OnLine instance DBSERVERNAME mysrv_informix # Name of default database server DBSERVERALIASES # List of alternate dbservernames NETTYPE onsoctcp,1,50,NET # Override sqlhosts nettype parameters DEADLOCK_TIMEOUT 60 # Max time to wait of lock in distributed env. RESIDENT 1 # Forced residency flag (Yes = 1, No = 0) MULTIPROCESSOR 1 # 0 for single-processor, 1 formulti-processor NUMCPUVPS 2 # Number of user (cpu) vps SINGLE_CPU_VP 0 # If non-zero, limit number of cpu vpsto one NOAGE 0 # Process aging AFF_SPROC 0 # Affinity start processor AFF_NPROCS 0 # Affinity number of processors # Shared Memory Parameters LOCKS 2000 # Maximum number of locks BUFFERS 15000 # Maximum number of shared buffersTBLSPACES 200 # Maximum number of open tblspaces CHUNKS 8 # Maximum number of chunks NUMAIOVPS 3 # Number of IO vpsDBSPACES 8 # Maximum number of dbspaces PHYSBUFF 32 # Physical log buffer size (Kbytes) LOGBUFF 32 # Logical log buffer size (Kbytes)LOGSMAX 20 # Maximum number of logical log files CLEANERS 1 # Number of buffer cleaner processes SHMBASE 0xc000000L # Shared memory base address SHMVIRTSIZE 16348 # initial virtual shared memory segment size SHMADD 8192 # Size of new shared memory segments (Kbytes) SHMTOTAL 0 # Total shared memory (Kbytes). 0=>unlimited CKPTINTVL 300 # Check point interval (in sec) LRUS 4 # Number of LRU queues LRU_MAX_DIRTY 60 # LRU percent dirty begin cleaning limit LRU_MIN_DIRTY 50 # LRU percent dirty end cleaning limit LTXHWM 50 # Long transaction high water mark percentage LTXEHWM 60 # Long transaction high water mark (exclusive) TXTIMEOUT 300 # Transaction timeout (in sec) STACKSIZE 32 # Stack size (Kbytes) # System Page Size # BUFFSIZE - OnLine no longer supports this configuration parameter. # To determine the page size used by OnLine on your platform # see the last line of output from the command, 'onstat -b'. # Recovery Variables # OFF_RECVRY_THREADS: # Number of parallel worker threads during fast recovery or an offline restore. # ON_RECVRY_THREADS: # Number of parallel worker threads during an online restore. OFF_RECVRY_THREADS 10 # Default number of offline worker threads ON_RECVRY_THREADS 1 # Default number of online worker threads # Data Replication Variables # DRAUTO: 0 manual, 1 retain type, 2 reverse type DRAUTO 0 # DR automatic switchover DRINTERVAL 30 # DR max time between DR buffer flushes (in sec) DRTIMEOUT 30 # DR network timeout (in sec) DRLOSTFOUND \\tmp # DR lost+found file path # Backup/Restore variables BAR_ACT_LOG bar_act.log BAR_MAX_BACKUP 0 BAR_RETRY 1 BAR_NB_XPORT_COUNT 10 BAR_XFER_BUF_SIZE 31 # Read Ahead Variables RA_PAGES 10 # Number of pages to attempt to read ahead RA_THRESHOLD 4 # Number of pages left before next group # DBSPACETEMP: # OnLine equivalent of DBTEMP for SE. This is the list of dbspaces # that the OnLine SQL Engine will use to create temp tables etc. # If specified it must be a colon separated list of dbspaces that exist # when the OnLine system is brought online. If not specified, or if # all dbspaces specified are invalid, various ad hoc queries will create # temporary files in /tmp instead. DBSPACETEMP tempdb # Default temp dbspaces # DUMP*: # The following parameters control the type of diagnostics information which # is preserved when an unanticipated error condition (assertion failure) occurs # during OnLine operations. # For DUMPSHMEM, DUMPGCORE and DUMPCORE 1 means Yes, 0 means No. DUMPDIR \\tmp # Preserve diagnostics in this directory DUMPSHMEM 1 # Dump a copy of shared memory DUMPGCORE 0 # Dump a core image using 'gcore' DUMPCORE 0 # Dump a core image (Warning:this aborts OnLine) DUMPCNT 1 # Number of shared memory or gcore dumps for # a single user's session # ADT* # ADT* parameters moved to adtcfg file FILLFACTOR 90 # Fill factor for building indexes # method for OnLine to use when determining cu