Grand Slam 3/Grand Slam 3.iso/026/idig54.arj/IDIG54.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1995-03-26 | 73KB

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 00:02 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2125] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Jens Puchert wrote:

> I don't agree with that at all.  I have a reasonably new HD (last Nov or
> so) that has 8.5 ms average seek time and 2.2 MB/s sustained transfer
> rate.  Still, I think smartdrv makes a hell of a difference.  Without it,
> the drive is constantly accessing, launching an application takes longer,
> and general performance is greatly degraded.  Also, the writeback cache
> improves performance a lot.  For instance when unpacking a song in
> Mod4Win, it writes it to the cache and starts playing right away.  I also
> don't remember ever having had crashes that must be contributed to
> smartdrv.  Especially with CD-ROM drives, smartdrv is the greatest
> invention since sliced bread, I think so anyways.  If you must only have
> one TSR running on your system it should be smartdrv.

Anyone have any benchmark test on Disk Caches?  If not, does anyone have
some way of measuring actual disk performance?  I would like to see if
different disk caches make a significant performance differences.
Multimedia Cloaking is supposed to have a 32-bit disk cache, but I don't
know if it is really good or not.  If it is better or comparable to WWG
32-bit file access, I could kill that, and have caching of CD-ROM's under
Windows.  I don't want to run two caches, or kill 32BFA if I don't have
to.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 00:15 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2127] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> Don't Believe so. I have three working systems with two different flavors
> of motherboards with an AMD DX/4-100, Intel DX/2-66 and a Cyrix DX/2-66.
> But I have also serviced many many different systems with configurations
> as different from one another as they can be. My comments were not to say
> that expanded memory managers and smartdrv will not work all the time but
> to caution anyone who cares to listen that smartdrv *can* and *does*
> create problems on *some* otherwise healthy systems. Expanded memory
> managers give you a nice fat free memory number when you run mem (or mft
> with QEMM) but they *do* significantly slow down your system.

What's the deal with real mode vs. protected mode vs. virtual 86 mode?
That was one thing that I thought I understood, but I don't think I do
anymore.  BTw, I can't run Cubic Player unless I have QEMM running.  For
some reason it always crashes after starting to load up the module, if I
only have Himem loaded.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 00:09 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2126] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Lewis A J wrote:

> I run QEMM 7.0x, with a 4Mb smartdrv cache, I have EIDE drivers and Screen
> drivers..... the works!  I have filled all the MASSIVE amount of UMB's
> obtained from QEMM and no base ram... I have EMS and XMS enabled and I can
> run things like DOOM etc from inside my command shell (Norton Commander)

YES!  HAIL QUARTERDECK!  =)

> 2.  AWE32 support? I have seen no updates to AWEMOD and I think that it's
>     a shame to waste the potential of such a card... (If this is done it
>     would be good to have the on board effects supported... ie reverb etc..

How bout Maui support?


-----------------

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 95 18:24 EET
From: Cory Koski <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2122] Just completely screwed up...  arghhh!!

Hey gurus, just a little question...

    I got the beta of Win95, and I'm trying to get my SB16ASP to even
work right, therefore, my computer won't boot with it in, and I can't even
play MODs on Iplay...   what do I do????  Here's the symptoms if anyone
cares...

Problem:

     Win95 recognizes SB16ASP and assigns it the SB16/AWE-32
drivers...  yipppeeee...  now it asks you if you want to reboot the
machine, and you say yes....
    Upon rebooting, it boots up fine and dandy, but when it plays the
"tada" sound, it crashes right in the middle of the sample, and locks up
my machine...  What is my solution???  What can I do???   Has anyone ever
had these problems as well???

thanks for the airwaves....

Cory


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 00:47 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2128] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> I learned the hard way to avoid QEMM whenver possible. I also try not to
> use EMM386 if I don't really have to. QEMM while it may give you gobs of
> memory, it makes any given system less stable and slower. Another piece of
> software to avoid is smartdrv. I had a couple of instances on one machine
> where I would get unexplainable crashes in Windows, especially if I was
> doing big .wav recordings. The resulting mess that resulted in my FAT and
> directory structure required a reformat of the hard disk and a restore
> from tape backup. These problems went away as soon as I dumped smartdrv.
> I've also solved many problems of unstable Windows installations in
> friend's machines by keeping things simple. No expanded memory manager of
> any kind but if one was absolutely necessary (such as would be the case
> with CD-ROM drivers), use only EMM386 and under no condition use smartdrv.
> The results were amazing. Crash prone systems all of the sudden became
> bullet proof.

The problem with this, is that most of the stuff I run is under DOS, not
Windows.  I have been a faithful user of QEMM for about two or three
years, and I know about all of its benefits and pitfalls.  You really
have to know your stuff, if you want QEMM to run very well.  I have spent
a lot of time running things like the ANalysis procedure, to make
sure I get every bit of memory possible, as well as excluding
anything that is potentially dangerous.  From my personal experience I
have never had QEMM give me any problems that were not already present.
Although I really never had any major software incompatibilities to begin
with.

> I can't give you a good explanation for this other than to conjecture
> that since smartdrv is a funneling routine grabbing control of all the
> system interrupts, it has to "walk on water" not to get fouled up.

I used SmartDrv for about two years before I switched to Speedrive.  I've
never had either one give me any problems.  If anything they greatly
improved the performance of my system.

> The point of all this is to say that if you can eliminate enough TSRs to
> not need QEMM, 386MAX, Netroom or EMM386, your system will be more stable
> and probably run faster. Frequent running of a good disk defragmenter /
> organizer will nearly offset the loss of smartdrv's benefits if you have
> a reasonably new (<15ms/>1MB/s) hard disk. Additionally, the freed memory
> is now available for applications to use directly potentially enhancing
> their performance.

I happen to be a faithful user of Stacker also, and when you run,
Stacker, Speedrive, CD-ROM Drives, Doskey, Norton Anti-Virus, Vesa
Drivers, MSCDEX, a Video Card intialization utility, files, etc. You see
where UMBs are at a premium.  Even though I have a fairly new Western
Digital 428 MB HD that is listed at 13ms, Any cache will increase its
performance.  I used to run caches even when I only had 4 MB of RAM.  If
more games would be written without the need for things like EMS maybe
we wouldn't need Memory Managers, but that is still a distant point on
the horizon.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 01:03 EET
From: [e-mail] (Neil Gardner)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2129] Re: memory issues

>I learned the hard way to avoid QEMM whenver possible. I also try not to
>use EMM386 if I don't really have to. QEMM while it may give you gobs of
>memory, it makes any given system less stable and slower. Another piece of
>software to avoid is smartdrv. I had a couple of instances on one machine

[stuff deleted]

>with CD-ROM drivers), use only EMM386 and under no condition use smartdrv.
>The results were amazing. Crash prone systems all of the sudden became
>bullet proof.

Any unbalanced view deserves counterbalancing.

I use Qemm all the time and I stuff as much stuff into it as I can. (Tech
speak huh :-) I have never had a system crash due to Qemm, I have never
lost data on any machine due to Qemm. It doesn't seem to slow my system
down and I do have gobs of memory left when I use it.

Also, I screwed with windows to give me 32mb of virtual mem with only 8mb
physical and still all is stable. I use smartdrv all the time and nothing
has ever gone wrong with it.

>The point of all this is to say that if you can eliminate enough TSRs to
>not need QEMM, 386MAX, Netroom or EMM386, your system will be more stable
>and probably run faster. Frequent running of a good disk defragmenter /
>organizer will nearly offset the loss of smartdrv's benefits if you have
>a reasonably new (<15ms/>1MB/s) hard disk. Additionally, the freed memory
>is now available for applications to use directly potentially enhancing
>their performance.

Your point is taken about the defragging. It's a _very_ good idea - but it
will not nearly offset the benefits of smartdrv. Your drive will only be
fast in loading big chunks of data, a lot of the dir caching etc that
_really_ makes smartdrv worthwhile won't happen.

>A word to the wise .....

Some more words to the wise :-)

>========================
>Sam
>[e-mail]
>========================

Jordie LaForge "Impossible!..... wait.. maybe not!"

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

no carrier



-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 02:07 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2131] RE: When the Heavens Fall

>(the best demo ever).
>
>=)

Now come on. aCMe produces some nice sh!t as well ....
BUt I gess you're right about 2nd reality being the best demo ever...
Anyone want to set up a poll about this? &*)

Joost.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 02:14 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2132] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>
> > I learned the hard way to avoid QEMM whenver possible. I also try not to
> > use EMM386 if I don't really have to. QEMM while it may give you gobs of
> > memory, it makes any given system less stable and slower. Another piece of
> > software to avoid is smartdrv. I had a couple of instances on one machine
> > where I would get unexplainable crashes in Windows, especially if I was
> > doing big .wav recordings. The resulting mess that resulted in my FAT and
> > directory structure required a reformat of the hard disk and a restore
> > from tape backup. These problems went away as soon as I dumped smartdrv.
> > I've also solved many problems of unstable Windows installations in
> > friend's machines by keeping things simple. No expanded memory manager of
> > any kind but if one was absolutely necessary (such as would be the case
> > with CD-ROM drivers), use only EMM386 and under no condition use smartdrv.
> > The results were amazing. Crash prone systems all of the sudden became
> > bullet proof.
>
> The problem with this, is that most of the stuff I run is under DOS, not
> Windows.......

DOS is a much more forgiving environment than Windows. I've seen systems
(including the one I had trouble with) that work perfectly in DOS but get
flakey when you get into Windows.


> ..............I have been a faithful user of QEMM for about two or three
> years, and I know about all of its benefits and pitfalls.  You really
> have to know your stuff, if you want QEMM to run very well.  I have spent
> a lot of time running things like the ANalysis procedure, to make
> sure I get every bit of memory possible, as well as excluding
> anything that is potentially dangerous.  From my personal experience I
> have never had QEMM give me any problems that were not already present.
> Although I really never had any major software incompatibilities to begin
> with.

Many people are happy with it and it works fine. But I'll bet you a
12-pack of your favorite soda that your system is performing measureably
slower than if you just had himem.sys loaded :-)

>
> > I can't give you a good explanation for this other than to conjecture
> > that since smartdrv is a funneling routine grabbing control of all the
> > system interrupts, it has to "walk on water" not to get fouled up.
>
> I used SmartDrv for about two years before I switched to Speedrive.  I've
> never had either one give me any problems.  If anything they greatly
> improved the performance of my system.

Again, you are mostly in DOS. I never have problems with disk cache in
DOS. Windows is another story.

>
> > The point of all this is to say that if you can eliminate enough TSRs to
> > not need QEMM, 386MAX, Netroom or EMM386, your system will be more stable
> > and probably run faster. Frequent running of a good disk defragmenter /
> > organizer will nearly offset the loss of smartdrv's benefits if you have
> > a reasonably new (<15ms/>1MB/s) hard disk. Additionally, the freed memory
> > is now available for applications to use directly potentially enhancing
> > their performance.
>
> I happen to be a faithful user of Stacker also, and when you run,
> Stacker, .........

You like living dangerously don't you :-) Stacker is IMHO a very bad idea
unless you are using a laptop where hard drive upgrades are either not
available or very expensive. In an age where a 420 MB hard drive costs
$140US and a 1Gig goes for $370US it does not make sense to me to buy a $70
program to give you a 50% increase in disk size at the cost of severe
risk to your data, slowing down your hard drive performance and chewing
up CPU power to do compression/decompression of data.

> Speedrive,

Well, now you need Speedrive to recover the performance lost to Stacker!

> .......CD-ROM Drives, Doskey, Norton Anti-Virus,

Ahhhh we finally agree on a few things. But Doskey is a 2k totally
innocuous TSR and Norton Antivirus can be run as a stand alone
application (not a TSR) requiring no UMBs.

> Vesa Drivers,

Most video cards made in the last couple of years have Vesa support
built-in. No external TSRs needed ;-)

> .... MSCDEX,

Ok.

> a Video Card intialization utility, files, etc.

Wait a minute, these are not TSRs. They do their thing and crawl back
onto the hard disk.

> ....................................................You see
> where UMBs are at a premium.  Even though I have a fairly new Western
> Digital 428 MB HD that is listed at 13ms, Any cache will increase its
> performance.  I used to run caches even when I only had 4 MB of RAM.  If
> more games would be written without the need for things like EMS maybe
> we wouldn't need Memory Managers, but that is still a distant point on
> the horizon.
>

Windows games don't need EMS, DOS/4G games (doom, heretic, ROTT etc) even
Cubic Player don't even need himem.sys or emm386. You can boot clean and
they will work fine. In fact some of them encourage you not to have memory
managers loaded. The trend is to go away from EMS support and it is well
underway. Inertia Player on a non GUS sound card needs an EMS driver *and*
a page frame to load mods bigger than your free DOS memory minus the Iplay
executable. Same with DMP.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================



-----------------

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 95 23:51 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2124] Cubic Player + Off-Topic: Disk Caches, Netroom, DPMI

Can anyone explain exactly what is necessary to run DPMI programs?
Anyone out there able to explain why disk caches are potentially
dangerous?  Any have Netroom, and want to comment on it?  I am running
QEMM, and I've heard that Stealth is supposed to slow your system down to
a ridiculous extent, but I haven't really run any benchmark tests on it.
I know this is off-topic, but I figure mos tpeople on this list will have
similar system configurations and will be able to tell me what I need to
know.  BTW, does anyone know if DOS4GW.EXE is interchangable across
different version?  I have about 10 copies of DOS4GW.EXE on my HD, from
different programs, and I wonder if I can replace all of them with the
newest version.  I tried replacing the one that came Cubic with the one
that came from a game.  From 1.95 to 1.97, so far I haven't had any
problems.  Anyone know who I could ask about this, if they don't know?


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 02:36 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2133] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> What's the deal with real mode vs. protected mode vs. virtual 86 mode?
> That was one thing that I thought I understood, but I don't think I do
> anymore.  BTw, I can't run Cubic Player unless I have QEMM running.  For
> some reason it always crashes after starting to load up the module, if I
> only have Himem loaded.
>

Try booting totally clean. BTW, are you implying that you are running
himem.sys *and* QEMM? I have no problem running Cubic V.96 booting clean,
with himem.sys only or himem and emm386. I can load a 1Meg mod and play it
fine under all of the three conditions. You are now discovering the joys of
protected mode and compatibility problems with certain hardware
combinations. That's the point I tried to make in my previous posts about
smartdrv :-)

P.S. I'm running PCDOS 6.3 not MSDOS.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================




-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 02:05 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2130] Re: Source s3m player

>(ra-style)?

RemoteAccess - style.

Joost.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 03:24 EET
From: DAVE MCCARTER <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2135] RE: Cubic Player + Off-Topic: Disk Caches, Netroom, DPMI

Hi,

I believe that Dos4gw.Exe 1.97 works fine for those programs that usually
use 1.95 or such.  I haven't had a problem using the newer version and toasting
the older ones.

If you really want to make sure there is a Watcom C++ newsgroup upon which you
could post this question.  I'm sorry, I don't have the address at hand.  You
might find the information you're looking for on Watcom's ftp site which is
ftp.watcom.com

Good luck.

____________________________________________________________________________
Jamie McCarter     [e-mail]     "Live long and Render"

Winner of `February Internation PoV Competition' with my image,
"JMWarmUp.Jpg" at ftp.povray.org/pub/competition/past_winners.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 03:13 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2134] Re: memory issues

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Neil Gardner wrote:

> >I learned the hard way to avoid QEMM whenver possible. I also try not to
> >use EMM386 if I don't really have to. QEMM while it may give you gobs of
> >memory, it makes any given system less stable and slower. Another piece of
> >software to avoid is smartdrv. I had a couple of instances on one machine
>
> [stuff deleted]
>
> >with CD-ROM drivers), use only EMM386 and under no condition use smartdrv.
> >The results were amazing. Crash prone systems all of the sudden became
> >bullet proof.
>
> Any unbalanced view deserves counterbalancing.

Never thought I was unbalanced %-)

>
> I use Qemm all the time and I stuff as much stuff into it as I can. (Tech
> speak huh :-) I have never had a system crash due to Qemm, I have never
> lost data on any machine due to Qemm. It doesn't seem to slow my system
> down and I do have gobs of memory left when I use it.
>
> Also, I screwed with windows to give me 32mb of virtual mem with only 8mb
> physical and still all is stable. I use smartdrv all the time and nothing
> has ever gone wrong with it.

Please don't take offense at what I'm about to say. Your statements are a
result of your experience with one system. Yours. I have built over a
hundred systems over the past couple of years as a hobby and had to make
each one work *reliably*. I built everything from Servers with mini RAIDs
of mixed IDE and fast SCSI-2 drives down to 386SX-33 systems. I've
installed everything from ATI mach-64 video cards down to straight 8-bit
VGA cards. I've played with about 30 makes of motherboards from AMI and
Micronics to no-name motherboards using chipsets from Opti, Unichip, UMC,
SIS and Forex to name a few. I've played with drives from Seagate,
Micropolis, Western Digital, Conner etc.

With each of these systems I made it a point to optimize performance and
reliability and to measure the performance. I did this for friends and
co-workers as a favor to them and as a learning experience for me.

The point of this is to say that I have no real biases. Just accumulated
experience on what generally works reliably and what requires special
tweeking. My comments were meant to be statistical in nature not specific
to any given system.

> >The point of all this is to say that if you can eliminate enough TSRs to
> >not need QEMM, 386MAX, Netroom or EMM386, your system will be more stable
> >and probably run faster. Frequent running of a good disk defragmenter /
> >organizer will nearly offset the loss of smartdrv's benefits if you have
> >a reasonably new (<15ms/>1MB/s) hard disk. Additionally, the freed memory
> >is now available for applications to use directly potentially enhancing
> >their performance.
>
> Your point is taken about the defragging. It's a _very_ good idea - but it
> will not nearly offset the benefits of smartdrv. Your drive will only be
> fast in loading big chunks of data, a lot of the dir caching etc that
> _really_ makes smartdrv worthwhile won't happen.
>

You are exactly correct. And when really fast disk access is needed, I
recommend a caching controller such as those made by Adaptec for SCSIs and
Promise for EIDE. There, You have the best of both worlds: Disk caching
with no software overhead to the system CPU and no software drivers to
cause conflicts. I built a system like that for a work station running
AutoCad. The controller has 8 Meg of RAM. If you want to see real disk
performance, that's the way to go.


> >A word to the wise .....
>
> Some more words to the wise :-)
>

:-)

> Jordie LaForge "Impossible!..... wait.. maybe not!"
>
> [e-mail]
> [e-mail]
>
> no carrier
>
>
>

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 04:01 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2136] RE: When the Heavens Fall

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Joost Baaij wrote:

> >(the best demo ever).
> >
> >=)
>
> Now come on. aCMe produces some nice sh!t as well ....
> BUt I gess you're right about 2nd reality being the best demo ever...
> Anyone want to set up a poll about this? &*)

I don't think I've ever seen any of ACME's stuff with sound.  I believe
all there stuff is GUS only, but I'm not sure.  I remember downloading
some of their demos, and quickly tossing them, because A) they sucked B)
It didn't work.  In any case, we know what my vote is.  WHo's the
official vote taker here?  =)


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 04:16 EET
From: Cuthalion / Sliced Bread <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2139] RE: When the Heavens Fall


On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Joost Baaij wrote:

> >(the best demo ever).
> >
> >=)
>
> Now come on. aCMe produces some nice sh!t as well ....
> BUt I gess you're right about 2nd reality being the best demo ever...
> Anyone want to set up a poll about this? &*)

    No, we don't.  :)


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 04:07 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2137] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > What's the deal with real mode vs. protected mode vs. virtual 86 mode?
> > That was one thing that I thought I understood, but I don't think I do
> > anymore.  BTw, I can't run Cubic Player unless I have QEMM running.  For
> > some reason it always crashes after starting to load up the module, if I
> > only have Himem loaded.
> >
>
> Try booting totally clean. BTW, are you implying that you are running
> himem.sys *and* QEMM? I have no problem running Cubic V.96 booting clean,

Come on Hussam.  By now,you should know that I'm not an idiot.  Do you
really think I could run my system with no problems doing something as
dumb as that?  =)

> with himem.sys only or himem and emm386. I can load a 1Meg mod and play it
> fine under all of the three conditions. You are now discovering the joys of > protected mode and compatibility problems with certain hardware
> combinations. That's the point I tried to make in my previous posts about
> smartdrv :-)

If it makes any difference, I am using a Sound Blaster 16.  Can't afford
a third soundcard yet.  Besides, the one with the cache works.  The one
without a cache doesn't.

> P.S. I'm running PCDOS 6.3 not MSDOS.

MS-DOS 6.22.  Why aer you using PC-DOS 6.3?


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 04:14 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2138] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > The problem with this, is that most of the stuff I run is under DOS, not
> > Windows.......
>
> DOS is a much more forgiving environment than Windows. I've seen systems
> (including the one I had trouble with) that work perfectly in DOS but get
> flakey when you get into Windows.

Well, for me, Windows doesn't crash either.  =)

> Many people are happy with it and it works fine. But I'll bet you a
> 12-pack of your favorite soda that your system is performing measureably
> slower than if you just had himem.sys loaded :-)

You are of course assuming that I could even get Windows started with all
the TSR's I have from my QEMM config.  I don't have anywhere near as much
stuff loaded for the Himem Config.

> > I used SmartDrv for about two years before I switched to Speedrive.  I've
> > never had either one give me any problems.  If anything they greatly
> > improved the performance of my system.
>
> Again, you are mostly in DOS. I never have problems with disk cache in
> DOS. Windows is another story.

Sorry.  Never had cache problems in Windows either.  =)

> > > The point of all this is to say that if you can eliminate enough TSRs to
> > > not need QEMM, 386MAX, Netroom or EMM386, your system will be more stable
> > > and probably run faster. Frequent running of a good disk defragmenter /
> > > organizer will nearly offset the loss of smartdrv's benefits if you have
> > > a reasonably new (<15ms/>1MB/s) hard disk. Additionally, the freed memory
> > > is now available for applications to use directly potentially enhancing
> > > their performance.
> >
> > I happen to be a faithful user of Stacker also, and when you run,
> > Stacker, .........
>
> You like living dangerously don't you :-) Stacker is IMHO a very bad idea
> unless you are using a laptop where hard drive upgrades are either not
> available or very expensive. In an age where a 420 MB hard drive costs
> $140US and a 1Gig goes for $370US it does not make sense to me to buy a $70
> program to give you a 50% increase in disk size at the cost of severe
> risk to your data, slowing down your hard drive performance and chewing
> up CPU power to do compression/decompression of data.

If you've ever actually used Stacker, with it set to maximum speed, and
do occasional defrags with maximum compression, you'll barely notice any
speed difference.  I read an article in PC-Magazine on data compression
once, that said Stacker reads at maximum compression are not even 10%
slower than regular DOS reads.  As far as severe risk to your data, I
have read many articles in major magazines(PC Magazine, Byte, Computer
Shooper), that agreed with the fact that they put your data in no more
danger than DOS does.  Provided you don't do stupid things like turn your
computer off, in the middle of a write, you won't have any problems.
Keep in mind that the the same things that would cause damage to Stacker
drives, would still cause major damage to DOS drives.

> > Speedrive,
>
> Well, now you need Speedrive to recover the performance lost to Stacker!

Humph.

> > .......CD-ROM Drives, Doskey, Norton Anti-Virus,
>
> Ahhhh we finally agree on a few things. But Doskey is a 2k totally
> innocuous TSR and Norton Antivirus can be run as a stand alone
> application (not a TSR) requiring no UMBs.

True, but it can't scan executables as they are running, and provide
protection against "stealth" viruses if you don't load the big(read 47K)
TSR.  Which is kind of strange.  In my configuration with Stealth
Disabled, it only takes 4K as it loads itself into EMS.  However, my
Stealth config tries to load it into UMB's only.  I tried forcing EMS,
but then it just loads into low memory.

> > Vesa Drivers,
>
> Most video cards made in the last couple of years have Vesa support
> built-in. No external TSRs needed ;-)

Mine was purchased about 3 or 4 years ago.  Diamond SpeedStar 24x.  I
sure as hell am not upgrading that thing, while I still own an ISA
system.  Still a great board for DOS.

> > .... MSCDEX,
>
> Ok.
>
> > a Video Card intialization utility, files, etc.
>
> Wait a minute, these are not TSRs. They do their thing and crawl back
> onto the hard disk.

No.  MY Video Card Initializer is one that makes sure your screen is
centered etc, in all of the video modes.  Only takes like 1K.

> > ....................................................You see
> > where UMBs are at a premium.  Even though I have a fairly new Western
> > Digital 428 MB HD that is listed at 13ms, Any cache will increase its
> > performance.  I used to run caches even when I only had 4 MB of RAM.  If
> > more games would be written without the need for things like EMS maybe
> > we wouldn't need Memory Managers, but that is still a distant point on
> > the horizon.
> >
>
> Windows games don't need EMS, DOS/4G games (doom, heretic, ROTT etc) even
> Cubic Player don't even need himem.sys or emm386. You can boot clean and
> they will work fine. In fact some of them encourage you not to have memory
> managers loaded. The trend is to go away from EMS support and it is well
> underway. Inertia Player on a non GUS sound card needs an EMS driver *and*
> a page frame to load mods bigger than your free DOS memory minus the Iplay
> executable. Same with DMP.

Really?  I thought just about everything required an XMS manager at the
least.  Hmm...


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 05:36 EET
From: Jessup Ferris <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2140] Re: When the Heavens Fall



On Thu, 23 Mar 1995, Schitzo wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 19 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have When the Heavens Fall?  It was Purple Motion's
> > contribution to Assembly '94.  I can't find it anywhere.  I can't even
> > find it at Starport.
>
> i have it and if you want it i could uuencode/email it to you or if
> anyone else wants i'll ftp it somewhere.
>
>
I'd like a copy, so could you ftp it somewhere, and post the location.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 06:03 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2141] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
> >
> > > What's the deal with real mode vs. protected mode vs. virtual 86 mode?
> > > That was one thing that I thought I understood, but I don't think I do
> > > anymore.  BTw, I can't run Cubic Player unless I have QEMM running.  For
> > > some reason it always crashes after starting to load up the module, if I
> > > only have Himem loaded.
> > >
> >
> > Try booting totally clean. BTW, are you implying that you are running
> > himem.sys *and* QEMM? I have no problem running Cubic V.96 booting clean,
>
> Come on Hussam.  By now,you should know that I'm not an idiot.  Do you
> really think I could run my system with no problems doing something as
> dumb as that?  =)

Sorry. No offense intended at all. I have seen *programmers* pull that
stunt and I had to explain to them that it wasn't a good idea. I was just
trying to get clarification not to offend. Again, sorry :-)

>
> > with himem.sys only or himem and emm386. I can load a 1Meg mod and play it
> > fine under all of the three conditions. You are now discovering the joys
> of
> protected mode and compatibility problems with certain hardware
> > combinations. That's the point I tried to make in my previous posts about
> > smartdrv :-)
>
> If it makes any difference, I am using a Sound Blaster 16.  Can't afford
> a third soundcard yet.  Besides, the one with the cache works.  The one
> without a cache doesn't.
>

I did the experiment using a Sound Blaster 16 also. No problems. Please
don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm simply
saying that in the world of PCs, what works on one hardware combination
does not necessarily work on another. That was the whole point of my
cautions about memory managers, smartdrv etc.

> > P.S. I'm running PCDOS 6.3 not MSDOS.
>
> MS-DOS 6.22.  Why aer you using PC-DOS 6.3?
>

Because I think it is much better supported by IBM. IBM starts out with
the Microsoft code. They then debug the crap out of it and release it as
IBM or PC DOS. They issue almost monthly patch disks called Corrective
Service Diskettes (CSD) to constantly fix bugs as they are found. AND THEY
ARE FREE. Many of these bugs are pretty obscure but they do it nontheless.
When I found out about the CSDs, out of curiosity, I called IBM to inquire
about them.  After a very pleasant discussion with the folks at Big Blue,
they *Fedexed* three CSDs to me *overnight* at no charge. Try to get that
service out of Microsoft.

I tried to get some info from Microsoft about the Windows memory
fragmentation bug. BTW, this bug manifests itself as follows. Start up
Windows and immediatly pull down the help menu. Click on "About Progam
Manager". Now you will see a percentage of free Windows resources.
Typicaly this is 80% to 85%. Now start an application like word, Excel or
whatever and close it. Check your resources. You will find that you now
have less resources than what you started with. This degeneration can
keep on going until you get the "not enough memory" message. You can have
16 Meg of RAM, nothing running and still be out of memory!

Anyway, I called Microsoft to ask about a fix for this bug. After being
bounced around for half an hour, asked 20 questions about my registration
# and told that the clock starts NOW for three months of free support
after which I would be charged, they told me it wasn't Windows' fault but
that of the applications! I politely reminded them that Microsoft apps did
it too, the answer was a cavalier "well, we didn't say it was only other
people's stuff that had the problem" :-/. I found that hard to believe
since the problem occurs also if you run a *DOS* application from Windows.
Their "fix"? exit and restart Windows.

This experience told me that the IBM people are a lot more reliable than
Microsoft and I've stuck with their version of DOS. BTW, IBM pays
Microsoft $20 for each copy of PCDOS that they sell. Starting with PCDOS
7.0, It will be pure IBM code. I'm told it should be hitting the stores
soon and you bet that I can't wait to get my hands on it.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 06:45 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2142] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
> >
>
[cut]

> > > I happen to be a faithful user of Stacker also, and when you run,
> > > Stacker, .........
> >
> > You like living dangerously don't you :-) Stacker is IMHO a very bad idea
> > unless you are using a laptop where hard drive upgrades are either not
> > available or very expensive. In an age where a 420 MB hard drive costs
> > $140US and a 1Gig goes for $370US it does not make sense to me to buy a $70
> > program to give you a 50% increase in disk size at the cost of severe
> > risk to your data, slowing down your hard drive performance and chewing
> > up CPU power to do compression/decompression of data.
>
> If you've ever actually used Stacker, with it set to maximum speed, and
> do occasional defrags with maximum compression, you'll barely notice any
> speed difference.  I read an article in PC-Magazine on data compression
> once, that said Stacker reads at maximum compression are not even 10%
> slower than regular DOS reads.  As far as severe risk to your data, I
> have read many articles in major magazines(PC Magazine, Byte, Computer
> Shooper), that agreed with the fact that they put your data in no more
> danger than DOS does.  Provided you don't do stupid things like turn your
> computer off, in the middle of a write, you won't have any problems.
> Keep in mind that the the same things that would cause damage to Stacker
> drives, would still cause major damage to DOS drives.

Don't believe all that you read in the mags. Stacker creates a mounted
volume where all your data is stored. This is basically a single, massive
compressed file on your physical drive. It then does fancy footwork to
make that volume look like drive C:. If you have straight DOS and you have
a catastrophic crash, you lose several affected files (unless your FAT is
damaged). If you get corruption of your mounted volume, recovering the
rest of your data is nearly impossible. This applies to DoubleSpace and
SuperStore as well.

>
> > > Speedrive,
> >
> > Well, now you need Speedrive to recover the performance lost to Stacker!
>
> Humph.

Am I mean or what :-)

>
> > > .......CD-ROM Drives, Doskey, Norton Anti-Virus,
> >
> > Ahhhh we finally agree on a few things. But Doskey is a 2k totally
> > innocuous TSR and Norton Antivirus can be run as a stand alone
> > application (not a TSR) requiring no UMBs.
>
> True, but it can't scan executables as they are running, and provide
> protection against "stealth" viruses if you don't load the big(read 47K)
> TSR.  Which is kind of strange.  In my configuration with Stealth
> Disabled, it only takes 4K as it loads itself into EMS.  However, my
> Stealth config tries to load it into UMB's only.  I tried forcing EMS,
> but then it just loads into low memory.
>

Just think about it. Scanning executables as they are running requires
CPU overhead. Guess what that does to your execution speed? I think the
best virus protection is to back up often and to scan new stuff. So if
you miss something, you can always do a format c:/s and selectively
restore. your data. I think that's more reasonable than a 47K TSR that
slows things down.

> > > Vesa Drivers,
> >
> > Most video cards made in the last couple of years have Vesa support
> > built-in. No external TSRs needed ;-)
>
> Mine was purchased about 3 or 4 years ago.  Diamond SpeedStar 24x.  I
> sure as hell am not upgrading that thing, while I still own an ISA
> system.  Still a great board for DOS.                          ^^^

Ok Ok! :-) Wait 'till you discover the exquisite pleasures of brand new
incompatibilities when you upgrade to local bus (especially PCI) > 528 Meg
mode 3 drives. HeHeHe.

>
> > > .... MSCDEX,
> >
> > Ok.
> >
> > > a Video Card intialization utility, files, etc.
> >
> > Wait a minute, these are not TSRs. They do their thing and crawl back
> > onto the hard disk.
>
> No.  MY Video Card Initializer is one that makes sure your screen is
> centered etc, in all of the video modes.  Only takes like 1K.

Ok. I'm running one too for my SpeedStar Pro. It's called promode.

>
> > > ....................................................You see
> > > where UMBs are at a premium.  Even though I have a fairly new Western
> > > Digital 428 MB HD that is listed at 13ms, Any cache will increase its
> > > performance.  I used to run caches even when I only had 4 MB of RAM.  If
> > > more games would be written without the need for things like EMS maybe
> > > we wouldn't need Memory Managers, but that is still a distant point on
> > > the horizon.
> > >
> >
> > Windows games don't need EMS, DOS/4G games (doom, heretic, ROTT etc) even
> > Cubic Player don't even need himem.sys or emm386. You can boot clean and
> > they will work fine. In fact some of them encourage you not to have memory
> > managers loaded. The trend is to go away from EMS support and it is well
> > underway. Inertia Player on a non GUS sound card needs an EMS driver *and*
> > a page frame to load mods bigger than your free DOS memory minus the Iplay
> > executable. Same with DMP.
>
> Really?  I thought just about everything required an XMS manager at the
> least.  Hmm...

Try it. Hit F5 on boot up and run DOOM. It'll work just peachy.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 08:46 EET
From: "Jens Puchert" <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2143] Re: Just completely screwed up... arghhh!!

In message <Pine.3.05.9503241131.B25665-a100000@thunder> you write:

>Hey gurus, just a little question...
>
>    I got the beta of Win95, and I'm trying to get my SB16ASP to even
>work right, therefore, my computer won't boot with it in, and I can't even
>play MODs on Iplay...   what do I do????  Here's the symptoms if anyone
>cares...
>
>Problem:
>
>     Win95 recognizes SB16ASP and assigns it the SB16/AWE-32
>drivers...  yipppeeee...  now it asks you if you want to reboot the
>machine, and you say yes....
>    Upon rebooting, it boots up fine and dandy, but when it plays the
>"tada" sound, it crashes right in the middle of the sample, and locks up
>my machine...  What is my solution???  What can I do???   Has anyone ever
>had these problems as well???
>
>thanks for the airwaves....
>
>Cory
>
>

Wrong IRQ assignment.  Go to Control Panel|System|Device Manager|Properties
and locate another free IRQ.

Jensi


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 09:23 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2145] Re: PSM HELP!!

In message <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
> PLEASE!! could somebody tell me where in the net is a PSM player
> Thanks in advance

Don't panic. Contact me and I'll send you the Epic PSM player. This applies to
anyone (up to a point!).

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 09:24 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2146] OS/2 Soundcards

In message <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>  > Many cards work like this. Most advanced SCSI and IDE controllers reserve a
>  > piece of the upper memory for their BIOS. This allows them to offer more
>  > features and performance than dumb controllers. Even the PCI bus
>  > reserves E800h-EFFFh. Nothing is free.
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but would'nt a 32 bit OS eliminate these
> BIOS-archetectural setbacks? Is this possibly a hardware limitation of the
> 80x86 chips?
If you're talking about upper memory, yes. People seem to forget that
conventional memory, and upper memory disappear with OS/2. It's just
memory (the way it should be). And I don't think (although I could be wrong)
that the OS has to be 32bit.

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 09:25 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2147] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

In message <Pine.SOL.3.90.950319105359.16734A-100000@eddie> [e-mail] writes:
> On Sun, 19 Mar 1995, Andrew Ferrier wrote:
> > In message <Pine.SOL.3.90.950308225507.28778C-100000@eddie> [e-mail] writes:
> > > SoooOOooOOoooo ... has anyone ACTUALLY figure out what those damn drivers
> > > are for besides hoggin up base memory???
> > Yep. I think most games need them. I could be wrong, though. I haven't done
> > extensive tests.
> i have yet to come across a game that didn't run with the sb16 without
> those two tsr's loaded ... so like which games need it?

In general, I think older ones. These ones don't have protected this and clever
thing that, and especially important, they don't have their own drivers.
However, I have found that the drivers are needed for running the SB16 utils.
(such as the Mixer, v. important) and also, the amp. on the soundcard is not
enabled if you don't load the drivers (i.e. You can't crank up a big pair of
speakers).

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 09:22 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2144] Re: Source s3m player

In message <Pine.PCW.3.91.950317193233.14783D-100000@[141.211.7.179]> [e-mail] writes:
On Fri, 17 Mar 1995, Joost Baaij wrote:

> I know I'm a bit off topic here, but can anyone tell me where I can find the
> source of an s3m player? A friend of mine is coding a demo right now but he
> doesn't know how to play s3m's so we're stuck to .mod and that really sucks
> .. :(
> Please, anyone! If you have only the smallest bit of information about this
> please mail it to me, 'coz I don't feel like writing a .mod or converting an
> s3m to .mod !

I have an SB toolkit that includes an S3M player in assembler. I haven't looked
at it, since I don't program in asm, but you may be interested. Contact me
privately.

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 10:21 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2148] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

In message <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
> Yep i figured it out.
> The first one (the one with the settings 220 d:1 h:1)
> This one is used by some old programs (pinball fantasy for example)
> Bigger and newer games have their own drivers (DOOM etc.)
> THe second one ctmm.sys isn't needed buy any program ...I think
>
> Niels

I think you've got it for the first one. Is the second necessary in Win or
the SB16 utils?

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 10:22 EET
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Ferrier)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2149] Just completely screwed up...  arghhh!!

In message <Pine.3.05.9503241131.B25665-a100000@thunder> [e-mail] writes:
> Problem:
>
>       Win95 recognizes SB16ASP and assigns it the SB16/AWE-32
> drivers...  yipppeeee...  now it asks you if you want to reboot the
> machine, and you say yes....
>       Upon rebooting, it boots up fine and dandy, but when it plays the
> "tada" sound, it crashes right in the middle of the sample, and locks up
> my machine...  What is my solution???  What can I do???   Has anyone ever
> had these problems as well???
> Cory

My suggestion is to try something lesser, like SB, SB Pro. Certainly tell
Microsoft, since it is a prob. in their product. (I think! Are these drivers
the ones that come with the SB16 for Win, or ones that come with Win95?).

TTFN,
Andrew Ferrier

Personal Email: [e-mail]


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 13:45 EET
From: Intertex <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2150]


Hi!

I'm the musician of a new demo group
here in Spain.
If you want to conntact me for
exchanging ideas, samples, etc, write
personaly to my account.
Bye! VV/PR


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 15:53 EET
From: Ng Cheng Kiang <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2151] Re: Wondering about subscription commands

Hi!

> Can someone forward me a copy of the subscription info for this mailing
> list?  How to subscribe and how to unsubscribe?

I presume since you can write here, you already knew how to subscribe. :)
To unsubscribe, write a mail to [e-mail] with no
subject, and "unsubscribe inertia-talk" in the body.

--
 +-------------------------------------------+
 | Ng Cheng Kiang      Fidonet: 6:600/230.10 |
 |    Internet: [e-mail]     |
 |          or  [e-mail]     |
 +-------------------------------------------+


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:12 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2152] Re: memory issues

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> You are exactly correct. And when really fast disk access is needed, I
> recommend a caching controller such as those made by Adaptec for SCSIs and
> Promise for EIDE. There, You have the best of both worlds: Disk caching
> with no software overhead to the system CPU and no software drivers to
> cause conflicts. I built a system like that for a work station running
> AutoCad. The controller has 8 Meg of RAM. If you want to see real disk
> performance, that's the way to go.

I know that this is an opinion question, but what are the best HD
controllers or SCSI adapters, etc?  When I buy my next computer, I am
almost undoubtably going to go with something like a caching HD
controller, a 686, and GOBS of RAM.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:20 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2154] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > If you've ever actually used Stacker, with it set to maximum speed, and
> > do occasional defrags with maximum compression, you'll barely notice any
> > speed difference.  I read an article in PC-Magazine on data compression
> > once, that said Stacker reads at maximum compression are not even 10%
> > slower than regular DOS reads.  As far as severe risk to your data, I
> > have read many articles in major magazines(PC Magazine, Byte, Computer
> > Shooper), that agreed with the fact that they put your data in no more
> > danger than DOS does.  Provided you don't do stupid things like turn your
> > computer off, in the middle of a write, you won't have any problems.
> > Keep in mind that the the same things that would cause damage to Stacker
> > drives, would still cause major damage to DOS drives.
>
> Don't believe all that you read in the mags. Stacker creates a mounted
> volume where all your data is stored. This is basically a single, massive
> compressed file on your physical drive. It then does fancy footwork to
> make that volume look like drive C:. If you have straight DOS and you have
> a catastrophic crash, you lose several affected files (unless your FAT is
> damaged). If you get corruption of your mounted volume, recovering the
> rest of your data is nearly impossible. This applies to DoubleSpace and
> SuperStore as well.

Key words: catastrophic crash.  I don't know about anybody else, but
personally if I ever had a crash that bad, there would be so much stuff
missing that I would probably just reformat and start over.

> > > > Speedrive,
> > >
> > > Well, now you need Speedrive to recover the performance lost to Stacker!
> >
> > Humph.
>
> Am I mean or what :-)

No comment.  =)

> > True, but it can't scan executables as they are running, and provide
> > protection against "stealth" viruses if you don't load the big(read 47K)
> > TSR.  Which is kind of strange.  In my configuration with Stealth
> > Disabled, it only takes 4K as it loads itself into EMS.  However, my
> > Stealth config tries to load it into UMB's only.  I tried forcing EMS,
> > but then it just loads into low memory.
>
> Just think about it. Scanning executables as they are running requires
> CPU overhead. Guess what that does to your execution speed? I think the
> best virus protection is to back up often and to scan new stuff. So if
> you miss something, you can always do a format c:/s and selectively
> restore. your data. I think that's more reasonable than a 47K TSR that
> slows things down.

What if it isn't a boot sector virus?  Then you have a problem.

> > Mine was purchased about 3 or 4 years ago.  Diamond SpeedStar 24x.  I
> > sure as hell am not upgrading that thing, while I still own an ISA
> > system.  Still a great board for DOS.                          ^^^
>
> Ok Ok! :-) Wait 'till you discover the exquisite pleasures of brand new
> incompatibilities when you upgrade to local bus (especially PCI) > 528 Meg
> mode 3 drives. HeHeHe.

Why?

> > No.  MY Video Card Initializer is one that makes sure your screen is
> > centered etc, in all of the video modes.  Only takes like 1K.
>
> Ok. I'm running one too for my SpeedStar Pro. It's called promode.

Exactly.

> > Really?  I thought just about everything required an XMS manager at the
> > least.  Hmm...
>
> Try it. Hit F5 on boot up and run DOOM. It'll work just peachy.

I disabled that, I pretty much have to load the DPMS.exe driver, that
trims about 30K off of the Stacker device driver.  Well, I have like 6
configs anyway, so everything usually works fine anyway.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:29 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2158] RE: When the Heavens Fall

aCMe doesn't suck ... tb maui does (JOKE !!!! JOKE !!!!!!!!! ;-)
if aCMe demos need a gus ... so be it. Their music is cool, their gfx also.
But it's true. It's no comparison to 2nd reality.

Joost.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:19 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2153] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> Sorry. No offense intended at all. I have seen *programmers* pull that
> stunt and I had to explain to them that it wasn't a good idea. I was just
> trying to get clarification not to offend. Again, sorry :-)

Umm, no problem.  =)  THing is, no one explained to me the diff between
V86, protected, and real modes.  Jensi?

> > If it makes any difference, I am using a Sound Blaster 16.  Can't afford
> > a third soundcard yet.  Besides, the one with the cache works.  The one
> > without a cache doesn't.
>
> I did the experiment using a Sound Blaster 16 also. No problems. Please
> don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm simply
> saying that in the world of PCs, what works on one hardware combination
> does not necessarily work on another. That was the whole point of my
> cautions about memory managers, smartdrv etc.

Well, what do you have in your setup?  Mine won't work without an EMM.

> > > P.S. I'm running PCDOS 6.3 not MSDOS.
> >
> > MS-DOS 6.22.  Why are you using PC-DOS 6.3?
>
> Because I think it is much better supported by IBM. IBM starts out with
> the Microsoft code. They then debug the crap out of it and release it as
> IBM or PC DOS. They issue almost monthly patch disks called Corrective
> Service Diskettes (CSD) to constantly fix bugs as they are found. AND THEY
> ARE FREE. Many of these bugs are pretty obscure but they do it nontheless.
> When I found out about the CSDs, out of curiosity, I called IBM to inquire
> about them.  After a very pleasant discussion with the folks at Big Blue,
> they *Fedexed* three CSDs to me *overnight* at no charge. Try to get that
> service out of Microsoft.

Wow.

> I tried to get some info from Microsoft about the Windows memory
> fragmentation bug. BTW, this bug manifests itself as follows. Start up
> Windows and immediatly pull down the help menu. Click on "About Progam
> Manager". Now you will see a percentage of free Windows resources.
> Typicaly this is 80% to 85%. Now start an application like word, Excel or
> whatever and close it. Check your resources. You will find that you now
> have less resources than what you started with. This degeneration can
> keep on going until you get the "not enough memory" message. You can have
> 16 Meg of RAM, nothing running and still be out of memory!

I've had that happen too.

> Anyway, I called Microsoft to ask about a fix for this bug. After being
> bounced around for half an hour, asked 20 questions about my registration
> # and told that the clock starts NOW for three months of free support
> after which I would be charged, they told me it wasn't Windows' fault but
> that of the applications! I politely reminded them that Microsoft apps did
> it too, the answer was a cavalier "well, we didn't say it was only other
> people's stuff that had the problem" :-/. I found that hard to believe
> since the problem occurs also if you run a *DOS* application from Windows.
> Their "fix"? exit and restart Windows.

That's a reason why I will not switch to Win95.  If anything I'm gonna go
to Warp.

> This experience told me that the IBM people are a lot more reliable than
> Microsoft and I've stuck with their version of DOS. BTW, IBM pays
> Microsoft $20 for each copy of PCDOS that they sell. Starting with PCDOS
> 7.0, It will be pure IBM code. I'm told it should be hitting the stores
> soon and you bet that I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Have you ever had any incompatibilities with it?  Is there any
performance difference?  Know if it works with Stacker?  How are the
included memory managers?


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:28 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2157] Re: Cubic Player + Off-Topic: Disk Caches, Netroom, DPMI

Hi!

>Can anyone explain exactly what is necessary to run DPMI programs?

'coz in protected mode there is no EMS/XMS/ubm/dos-memory.
There's just your free mem from bit 0 to bit xxxxxxx.

Ciao,

Joost.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:27 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2156] Re: Just completely screwed up... arghhh!!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Andrew Ferrier wrote:

> My suggestion is to try something lesser, like SB, SB Pro. Certainly tell
> Microsoft, since it is a prob. in their product. (I think! Are these drivers
> the ones that come with the SB16 for Win, or ones that come with Win95?).

Umm, that's why it is a Beta.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:26 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2155] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Andrew Ferrier wrote:

> In message <Pine.SOL.3.90.950319105359.16734A-100000@eddie> [e-mail] writes:

> In general, I think older ones. These ones don't have protected this and clever
> thing that, and especially important, they don't have their own drivers.
> However, I have found that the drivers are needed for running the SB16 utils.
> (such as the Mixer, v. important) and also, the amp. on the soundcard is not
> enabled if you don't load the drivers (i.e. You can't crank up a big pair of
> speakers).

The internal amps suck.  They add too much noise.  I would rather just
turn up my stereo.  Much cleaner sound.


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:31 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2160] Re: Source s3m player

>I have an SB toolkit that includes an S3M player in assembler.

Yes! Can I have that? ppppplllleeeeeeaaaaaassssseeeeeeeee....

Joost.



-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 00:47 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2161] Re: memory issues

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>
> > You are exactly correct. And when really fast disk access is needed, I
> > recommend a caching controller such as those made by Adaptec for SCSIs and
> > Promise for EIDE. There, You have the best of both worlds: Disk caching
> > with no software overhead to the system CPU and no software drivers to
> > cause conflicts. I built a system like that for a work station running
> > AutoCad. The controller has 8 Meg of RAM. If you want to see real disk
> > performance, that's the way to go.
>
> I know that this is an opinion question, but what are the best HD
> controllers or SCSI adapters, etc?  When I buy my next computer, I am
> almost undoubtably going to go with something like a caching HD
> controller, a 686, and GOBS of RAM.
>

If you want the best, go SCSI-II FAST (and WIDE if you can afford it :-).
The industry standard for SCSI controllers is Adaptec. SCSI is very
expandable, each controller can handle 7 physical drives and you can have
as many controllers up to the limit of drive Z:. The same controller will
handle any mix of SCSI devices you like, from tape backups to CD-ROM
drives to scanners etc. You plug them in and they work. Period. The down
side is that SCSI devices cost more than their IDE equivelants simply due
to the economies of scale and because SCSI drives tend to be high end
products with super performance and monster capacities. If you go EIDE, the
Promise caching controllers are very good and offer a better value than
SCSI. But you are limited to two drives supported natively or four with
drivers.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 01:45 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2162] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>

[Norton Antivirus]

> > Just think about it. Scanning executables as they are running requires
> > CPU overhead. Guess what that does to your execution speed? I think the
> > best virus protection is to back up often and to scan new stuff. So if
> > you miss something, you can always do a format c:/s and selectively
> > restore. your data. I think that's more reasonable than a 47K TSR that
> > slows things down.
>
> What if it isn't a boot sector virus?  Then you have a problem.

Correct me if I'm mistaken but the stand alone virus checkers (non-tsr)
scan all non data files for virus signatures. They don't just scan the
boot sector. Additionally, most motherboards made in the last couple of
years have a built-in boot sector virus monitor that intercepts any
attempts to write to the boot sector. It will then stop the show and ask
you if it should allow the write to continue or not.

>
> > > Mine was purchased about 3 or 4 years ago.  Diamond SpeedStar 24x.  I
> > > sure as hell am not upgrading that thing, while I still own an ISA
> > > system.  Still a great board for DOS.                          ^^^
> >
> > Ok Ok! :-) Wait 'till you discover the exquisite pleasures of brand new
> > incompatibilities when you upgrade to local bus (especially PCI) > 528 Meg
> > mode 3 drives. HeHeHe.
>
> Why?

Because this technology is brand new. The guys who make the BIOS haven't
in all cases figured out how to implement the new standards that are still
changing. Unless you buy a motherboard made by a good vendor (like AMI or
Micronics) you can't call anyone for tech support or upgrades. This is
particularly true of no-name motherboards. The people making things like
PCI video cards and HD controllers are having a hard time with the PCI
spec since it is *still* being revised. Yet all this stuff is being made
and sold. So you buy video card A and plug it in motherboard B and they
may not talk or talk with an accent :-) same thing with the chipsets.
Intel's Pentium chipsets are in their fourth revision and *still* have
bugs. What about the poor slob who bought a first generation Pentium
motherboard? he goes and buys a new widgit which is now designed to the
latest spec. plugs it in and has nothing but problems. The same state of
affairs existed with the early VESA local bus boards. It is still going on
to a lesser extent with EIDE.

486 ISA boards, on the other hand, are very mature. You can buy just about
any cheapo no-name motherboard and they will usually work with few
problems. Some will be faster or nicer but most work ok.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================


-----------------

Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 23:30 EET
From: [e-mail] (Joost Baaij)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2159] Re: PSM HELP!!

>Don't panic. Contact me and I'll send you the Epic PSM player. This applies to
>anyone (up to a point!).

You might want to consider uploading that to cdrom.com ? 'coz I'm
interested, too.
But, personal email is ok too.

Joost.


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 02:39 EET
From: Hussam Eassa <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2163] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
>
> > > If it makes any difference, I am using a Sound Blaster 16.  Can't afford
> > > a third soundcard yet.  Besides, the one with the cache works.  The one
> > > without a cache doesn't.
> >
> > I did the experiment using a Sound Blaster 16 also. No problems. Please
> > don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm simply
> > saying that in the world of PCs, what works on one hardware combination
> > does not necessarily work on another. That was the whole point of my
> > cautions about memory managers, smartdrv etc.
>
> Well, what do you have in your setup?  Mine won't work without an EMM.

AMI Super Voyager III VLB motherboard, Intel 486DX/2-66SL, Diamond SpeedStar
Pro VLB, SB-16 Value Edition (P220, IRQ 1&5, DMA 1&5 Midi Port 300),
Roland RAP-10 (Port 330, IRQ 11 DMA 6&7), Turtle Beach Multisound (Port
290, IRQ 10, D800h-DFFFh).

BTW, I could not think of any reason why it *shouldn't* work on your
system and I was guessing that maybe DOS version has something to do with
it. That is why I mentioned PCDOS in the first place. Maybe someone on
this list can tell us if they were successful running Cubic with a clean
boot and MSDOS 6.22. I would be very interested in the response.


> > > > P.S. I'm running PCDOS 6.3 not MSDOS.
> > >
> > > MS-DOS 6.22.  Why are you using PC-DOS 6.3?
> >
> > Because I think it is much better supported by IBM. IBM starts out with
> > the Microsoft code. They then debug the crap out of it and release it as
> > IBM or PC DOS. They issue almost monthly patch disks called Corrective
> > Service Diskettes (CSD) to constantly fix bugs as they are found. AND THEY
> > ARE FREE. Many of these bugs are pretty obscure but they do it nontheless.
> > When I found out about the CSDs, out of curiosity, I called IBM to inquire
> > about them.  After a very pleasant discussion with the folks at Big Blue,
> > they *Fedexed* three CSDs to me *overnight* at no charge. Try to get that
> > service out of Microsoft.
>
> Wow.

[cut]

> Have you ever had any incompatibilities with it?  Is there any
> performance difference?  Know if it works with Stacker?  How are the
> included memory managers?
>

No problems with it at all. In fact I always recommend it over MSDOS. I
don't believe that you will see any performance difference. I believe it
is more robust. It works with stacker but it also comes with Superstore,
an uncrippled version of some PC-Tools utils and IBM's anti virus program
(extremely good) as well as drivers to link two PCs into a network via a
null modem serial cable. The memory managers are Himem.sys and EMM386.exe
(modified by IBM) as well as Central point Ramboost. Ramboost does not
load as much stuff high as QEMM but it is fully automatic. It detects any
changes in your config.sys or autoexec.bat and automatically goes through
the learning cycle on the next reboot. It works much better than Mem-Maker
IMHO.

--
========================
Sam
[e-mail]
========================




-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 06:12 EET
From: [e-mail] (Sandor Rabe)
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2164] Re: Just completely screwed up... arghhh!!

Hello there,

I had something strange; since I bought a Diamond Speedstar Pro
I couldn't use the screen under F2. Iplay would crash real hard
on me. I checked IRQ settings and the like but couldn't find
anything wrong. Finally I realized that this speedstar had IRQ 2
enabled (something to do with networking, the manual said). When
I disabled this IRQ with the jumper everything worked fine again.
Actually, I'm writing this 'cause someone had trouble with WIN95
and wavs; sometimes it's something you _really_ wouldn't think
about in the first place.

Grtzzzzz Sandor Rabe.


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 09:02 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2165] RE: When the Heavens Fall

On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Joost Baaij wrote:

> aCMe doesn't suck ... tb maui does (JOKE !!!! JOKE !!!!!!!!! ;-)
> if aCMe demos need a gus ... so be it. Their music is cool, their gfx also.
> But it's true. It's no comparison to 2nd reality.

Thing is, I don't own a GUS yet.  Can't watch them if they won't run.


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 09:09 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2166] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sun, 26 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > What if it isn't a boot sector virus?  Then you have a problem.
>
> Correct me if I'm mistaken but the stand alone virus checkers (non-tsr)
> scan all non data files for virus signatures. They don't just scan the
> boot sector. Additionally, most motherboards made in the last couple of
> years have a built-in boot sector virus monitor that intercepts any
> attempts to write to the boot sector. It will then stop the show and ask
> you if it should allow the write to continue or not.

YEah, but that means they have to be a KNOWN virus with a knwon
signature.  NAV is supposed to be able to catch new ones, if a program
does some questionable things, that look like virus-like activity.


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 09:21 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2168] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sun, 26 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> No problems with it at all. In fact I always recommend it over MSDOS. I
> don't believe that you will see any performance difference. I believe it
> is more robust. It works with stacker but it also comes with Superstore,
> an uncrippled version of some PC-Tools utils and IBM's anti virus program
> (extremely good) as well as drivers to link two PCs into a network via a
> null modem serial cable. The memory managers are Himem.sys and EMM386.exe
> (modified by IBM) as well as Central point Ramboost. Ramboost does not
> load as much stuff high as QEMM but it is fully automatic. It detects any
> changes in your config.sys or autoexec.bat and automatically goes through
> the learning cycle on the next reboot. It works much better than Mem-Maker
> IMHO.

Everyone agree that Memmaker sucks?  I manually optimized my memory and
got about 50K more than memaker could fine.


-----------------

Date: Sun, 26 Mar 95 09:15 EET
From: Jimmy Wan <[e-mail]>
Subject: [INERTIA-TALK:2167] Re: Sb16/cd-rom memory loss!

On Sun, 26 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Jimmy Wan wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 25 Mar 1995, Hussam Eassa wrote:
> >
> > > > If it makes any difference, I am using a Sound Blaster 16.  Can't afford
> > > > a third soundcard yet.  Besides, the one with the cache works.  The one
> > > > without a cache doesn't.
> > >
> > > I did the experiment using a Sound Blaster 16 also. No problems. Please
> > > don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm simply
> > > saying that in the world of PCs, what works on one hardware combination
> > > does not necessarily work on another. That was the whole point of my
> > > cautions about memory managers, smartdrv etc.
> >
> > Well, what do you have in your setup?  Mine won't work without an EMM.
>
> AMI Super Voyager III VLB motherboard, Intel 486DX/2-66SL, Diamond SpeedStar
> Pro VLB, SB-16 Value Edition (P220, IRQ 1&5, DMA 1&5 Midi Port 300),
> Roland RAP-10 (Port 330, IRQ 11 DMA 6&7), Turtle Beach Multisound (Port
> 290, IRQ 10, D800h-DFFFh).
>
> BTW, I could not think of any reason why it *shouldn't* work on your
> system and I was guessing that maybe DOS version has something to do with
> it. That is why I mentioned PCDOS in the first place. Maybe someone on
> this list can tell us if they were successful running Cubic with a clean
> boot and MSDOS 6.22. I would be very interested in the response.

I got it to work with a clean boot, but not with Himem.


-----------------