Shareware Grab Bag/Shareware Grab Bag.iso/090/dv_info.arc/DVSPED.THD

Text File | 1986-03-28 | 8KB | 172 lines

@*
One of the trade-offs of multi-tasking on the PC, is some speed degradation in
the active applications.  When and why this occurs, and how to minimize it, was
discussed at length.


Fm: Gary Saxer (Quarterdeck) 73206,564
To: DESQview bkg COMM users

Another note concerning DESQview and speed.  A DOS Services window with a
directory displayed is constantly getting time allocated to it.  You might try
^NumLock on the window, this freezes that window. (See your manual folks, look
around page 30).  I might also point out that 1-2-3 does a lot of "work" when
you think it is just sitting there!  It constantly checksums itself when
"nothing else" is going on.  A ^NumLock to an idle 1-2-3 window does wonders!


Fm: PETER MCKINNEY 74166,1301
To: Michael Rothman 74405,1313

One of the reasons I wanted DV was to be able to print or compile in the
backgound partition(s) and use a foreground partition for MultiMate.  I have
tried this with the TYPE command in the DOS(128K) partition and the computer
does not return to me until TYPE is finished.  In other words;

            ACTION                          TSR's           DV
Ability to perform DOS operations
from within a program                        x               x
Backgound printing                          n/a               ?
Background communications                   n/a               ?
Compile in background, edit in fore         n/a               ?
have a notepad readily available             x               x
have a calculator readily available          x               x
Any thoughts ?


Fm: Steve Kalman 75136,360
To: PETER MCKINNEY 74166,1301

I am currently printing in the BG while writing this, and if all goes well,
I'll be doing the uploading too (if it fails, I'll come back with another
message).

I have a print spooler running in extended memory, and while the file was
spooling, all else was halted, but once it was done, the system came active
again. I'm not sure what will happen if the spooler was off. Also, the print
was done via the COPY FOO.BAR LPT1


Fm: Steve Kalman 75136,360
To: Jim Butler 74766,1460

I, too, have a spooler working (Superspool from AST).  It's running in EXTENDED
memory on the Advantage card (along with VDISK).  When an application writes to
the spooler, everything else waits (e.g., COPY BIGFILE.TXT LPT1) until the
spooler gets it all (and if the spooler is too small, everything waits until
the file finishes writing into the spooler - I reset mine to be 400K) Once
that's done, the printer prints (but much slower than ever before -
subjectively at about 3/4 speed) and the other partitions become accessible.


Fm: Earle Robinson 70135,141
To: Steve Kalman 75136,360

I have also noted about a 10% speed degradation on the at.  By the way, why did
you reboot to rerun the test?  You can merely exit dv, or am I missing
something?


Fm: Steve Kalman 75136,360
To: Earle Robinson 70135,141 (X)

Yes, you can just exit DV; when doing benchmarks, I like to make sure that
everything is constant except for the variation that I'm testing. Although in
this case I doubt if there would be any difference the extra few seconds for
the re-boot was just for insurance.


Fm: Ben Klausner 70340,374
To: Steve Kalman 75136,360

A couple of days prior to installing DV, I souped up my AT to 9 MHz, so maybe
I have enough improvement to compensate for the time overhead DV requires. Also
have a copy on the Z-150 at home, but haven't had time to use that enough to
tell about speed lags. Also, recently put a V-20 in that, so it may help too.


Fm: Jim Butler 74766,1460
To: Richard P. Wilkes 72746,1712

Richard, I find DV helpful for exactly the applications you mention. I also
find that Lightning ( the disk speed enhancer) makes a *tremendous* difference
in the speed of running big rbase applications. I might like to compare notes
with you on some rbase stuff ... what kinds of things do you do with it?


Fm: Norm Lew 70047,3340
To: Conrad Kageyama (Sysop) 76703,1010

I find this whole discussion somewhat amusing. With DesqView, I can
simultaneously download and perform other tasks, resulting in an additional
20-25 work hours per month. I have CED wherever I wish. I can have a matching
keyhandler loaded in each window should I desire, or if my needs in a
particular window don't warrant a sohpisticated macro program, I can use DV
macros. Running SideKick in a separate window is not so terrible. DV's cut &
paste is better than SideKick's. I would rather do two tasks at 90% of optimum
speed than one at 100% To top it all off, I don't have use DV if don't want to.


Fm: Howard Benner 75676,1624
To: Jim Butler 74766,1460

       Intuitively, why shouldn't dv slow things down?  If the computer is
trying to do a sort in R5K, send and receive messages with ATO, and allow you
to work on a document in WP all at the same time, it seems logical that there
would be some degradation of performance, compared to running just one task.
If the computer works at, say, 67-75% under the scenario above, I'd be
satisfied.
       Put another way, let's say the ATO and R5K tasks each took exactly an
hour, and that you spent an hour working on a WP document. That's 3 hours
without dv.  With all three going at once, and with 25% degredation, ATO and
R5K would take the same 1.33 hours to accomplish their tasks.  Arguably, you'd
still complete the WP task in one hour. That means one hour at the kbd and a
20-minute coffee break to accomplish what, without dv, would have taken
3-hours.  To a purist, that may be unacceptable for multitasking, but it sounds
pretty good to me.


Fm: Paul Ferrara 70075,252
To: Earle Robinson 70135,141 (X)

Speed will be a problem for those on PC/XT's who desire to run applications in
the background.  But just think, if you were running a "stock" AT, you could
probably now go to a faster crystal and never notice the difference.


Fm: Gary Saxer (Quarterdeck) 73206,564
To: Jim Butler 74766,1460 (X)

No, it does not make them go faster.  As shipped by IBM (and clones) the
hardware interrupt priority puts the keyboard on "top".  DESQview has an option
which lets us tell the hardware to make interrupt 2 the highest. Thus a COMM
interrupt will now occur before a keyboard or disk interrupt, and this helps
avoid lost characters.  TopView does the same thing.  Note that any program
which played with this by itself would render itself unrunnable (is that a
word?) in either "View" program as well as on some clones where you can't
change the priorities.


Fm: Gary Saxer (Quarterdeck) 73206,564
To: Jim Butler 74766,1460

DMA is Direct Memory Access.  This means that (in this case) the disk
controller is allowed to directly place its data into memory without the CPU
touching each byte.  The Lightning product from PCSG does this into expanded
memory.  This is a no-no in DESQview since the expanded memory map can change
at any time.  PCSG is aware of this, further info to follow I hope.


Fm: Steve Kalman 75136,360
To: Ben Klausner 70340,374 (X)

Performance adjustemets or not, DV definitely does slow the system. As a test,
I adjusted the performance ratio to 99:1, started dbase3 in the first (largest)
window, and reindexed a 4000 record file Time 3:40 (on an AT). Then I re-booted
without DV and did the same reindex; time 3:00. I'm not terribly pleased; but I
can live with it considering the other advantages it brings me.

I'll try to find time to do this over using a RAM disk for the DBF & NDX - said
RAMdisk in Extended memory.