Message-ID:	<20000513152157.18445.qmail@nwcst293.netaddress.usa.net>
Date:	13 May 00 09:21:57 MDT
From:	Joseph Morris <b52g AT usa DOT net>
To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Optimising disk access in DRDOS
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"Matthias Paul" <PAUL-MA AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de> wrote:
> On 30 Apr 00 Joseph Morris wrote:

> A few more things to try: 

> - VERIFY OFF will dramatically speed up NWCACHE, as with VERIFY ON
>   NWCACHE cannot delay any writes.

Already done.
  
> - Using FILES and FCBS to leave them in conventional memory instead of 
>  using their HI- or - HIGH variants may  on some systems speed up 
>  things.  

Memory is comparatively tight at the moment.  I'll try it though.

> - Don t use deep directory structures for the files that you access
>   frequently and reduce the amount of files in a directory. Large
>   directories will dramatically slow down things.

That figures.  But there is no other sensible way to arrange the data.

> - Increase the BUFFERS or HIBUFFERS directive to the maximum that
>   fits into the HMA with the other HMA drivers in there.

It's at 60.  I can try more though..
  
> - In contrast to what I usually recommend, use FASTOPEN=512 or 
>  higher.

I tried 2048, but it made little difference.

> - Try DEBLOCK=FFFF in CONFIG.SYS. This also speeds up things
>  (if it is not the default already - which is detected on 
>  startup), but it may make your system unstable if you are
>  using old SCSI or ESDI drivers for harddisks (pre Virtual
>  DMA Specification (VDS) 1.0). However, I have yet to see
>  a system where it actually caused problems.

Isn't VDS for V86 mode?  I'm not running EMM386 because it doesn't
support VESA VBE 2.0 which I'm using in the program.

> As already mentioned, a RAMdisks is also a good solution.

But they're volatile.  I'm developing a program, and the cycle I'm using
is like:

run program
change datafiles
run program
change datafiles
....

By keeping the data on a VDISK I run the risk of losing the data
I'm trying to perfect by forgetting to copy it back.  Also the program
may crash (although this is very rare nowadays).

> > Having seen how fluidly the my program runs when compiled for Linux, 
> > or even the DOS version run in Windows 95, I'm a bit concerned 
> > about how slow it is running under DRDOS.
> Have you tried it under pure MS-DOS, or from within the GUI? 

Inside the GUI.  I did wonder if this is a result of the 32 bit hooks
into the DOS VM.


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