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=========================================================================
Date: 02-02-95 15:57 Message #: 13 ASGARD
From: CHRIS JOHNSON Status: PUBLIC
To: ALL Ref #:
Subject: PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATION Conf: SUPPORT: OS/2 (13)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
OS/2 INTERNATIONAL FEB 2 1995
Attention Power Users!
I appreciate the correspondence I have received to date regarding
this thread. What follows is my seventh update in fine tuning a system
at least similar to mine.
I currently run a 486 66 with 16 meg of ram (I just dropped down
from 20) with an enhanced IDE controller. The tips revolve around a
a system of similar ram and capabilities with notes for other
configurations. The defaults are usually sufficient for most users;
but, nevertheless, people eventually make great demands upon their system.
If you have a low memory situation, this message may help out tremendously.
I run WARP.
UPDATE: 7
What follows is a collaboration of several people. I would like
to thank Bob Hess, Glenn Reimche, Ronold Ross, and Harold Ulery for their
additional tips and for putting their systems to the test. I thought I knew
a lot about system operations, but I am even wiser than when I started this
thread. Since I started this, the amount of netmail (and even personal calls)
has totaled in the hundreds. I got swamped over the holidays but that's OK.
I had a LOT of fun. Hopefully, this message will reduce some FAQ in some
of the conferences. Jim Gilliland warned that WARP would cause heavy message
traffic--and it has!
Welp, here are some tips. Take only those that you find necessary.
For some, they have helped tremendously. For others, it was a mild
improvement. If memory conservation or improved speed is important to you,
please read on. Your mileage could vary depending on your system hardware.
These settings represent one "School of Thought" <VBG>!
1) IFS=C:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:2048 /CRECL:64 /AUTOCHECK:CD
Only include this line if you actually have a partition formatted
HPFS rather than FAT. If you are strictly FAT, rem this line out.
HPFS eats a chunk of memory--particularly on low memory
systems--[BH]
If one runs both FAT and HPFS, don't go excessive with the cache
settings. Give more to the most commonly used file system. Don't
forget that I have 16 meg of ram. Anything less than that and I
don't recommend anything more than /CACHE:1536 /CRECL:32 On an
8 meg system, I have found that /CACHE:768 up to /CACHE:1280 are
ok--[CJ].
2) Removed IBM2FLPY.ADD
Saved me some memory--[CJ] .
Only needed on Microchannel PC's.--[manual]
3) Removed XDFLOPPY.FLT
It appears that many people would have no use for this--[GR].
If one wants to use selective install from diskettes, this needs
to be reenabled. You can save a little mem without it--[CJ].
4) SET RESTARTOBJECTS=STARTUPFOLDERSONLY
If you have an annoying program that won't shutdown, when you reboot
it is likely to still be running. This will allow, at bootup,
the same standard desktop without any running processes except
those in the startup folder--[CJ].
5) SET KEYS=OFF
This saved me a little memory--[CJ]. Preference here, if you like
recalling past commands, you may want to consider leaving it ON.
6) PRIORITY_DISK_IO=NO
When my BBS is up or I'm doing intensive communications, NO is a
must--[CJ].
7) FILES=30
For DOS sessions. The default is fine. I just have the memory
to waste and some DOS programs get a little finicky for some
reason. For a BBS, this setting could be better than default and
could help out WIN/OS2 sessions--[CJ].
8) BUFFERS=90
Good for bringing up those icons when using the drives objects.
Helps out the floppy access. Of course, on good memory systems this
is acceptable. If one has lower memory, consider 60 at 8 meg and
no more than 30 for smaller configurations--[CJ].
9) MAXWAIT=1 (consider (2) for normal operations)
Things are a little more responsive. When my BBS is up I use 1.
I also found that I removed all forms of ZERRORS when I was multi-
tasking with Livewire 2.2 when I used MAXWAIT=1--[CJ].
10) RUN=C:\OS2\CACHE.EXE /MAXAGE:7500 /DISKIDLE:60000 /BUFFERIDLE:60000
Check it out. It's going to be a seat of the pants feel--[CJ].
11) MEMMAN=SWAP,PROTECT
The default is ok. Consider COMMIT on low disk space situations instead
of PROTECT--[CJ].
12) IOPL=YES
Don't advise ANYONE to put this to NO. I would stick with yes.
This lets programs use I/O commands when processing (especially
important COMM programs). It is extremely bad to have at NO (I
tried, just in case, and got a CPS of 1100 to my usual 1670 during
a download, and 10 errors of a 300k file). The performance impact
of NO is nominal at best but not dangerous--[RR].
13) SWAPPATH=C:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 16000
This is a good general setting no matter how much RAM you have.
If you have decent disk space available, go ahead and put a big
swap file on it. If you are not this fortunate, put the swap size
at the default and then run several tasks you might think of doing
concurrently. Look at the swap file and then set it 1 meg larger--[CJ].
In the book OS/2 unleashed it states, "This is not the optimal
location for the <swapper.dat> file. The swap file should be moved
to the root directory of the most frequently used partition of the
least used hard drive"--[BH].
I personally think this advice is only good if one has 2 or more
physically different drives. Don't confuse this with partitions.
I saw no improvement on just one drive partitioned out to multiple
drives. The theory is that the heads on the other drive will
already be placed on the swap file. That is why it makes no use on
one drive--[CJ].
There has been discussion if it is faster to put it in the root
directory. I have been told that once OS/2 boots up the SWAPPER.DAT
that it is constantly open. Therefore, the location is pretty much
pointless unless there are 2 or more physically different drives--[CJ].
14) THREADS=128
The default values are sufficient. Most users will find that 256
is more than sufficient for them down to 8 megs. Below 8 one should
consider the default values or around 128--[CJ].
128 is more than enough for my 2 line BBS--[HU].
15) PRINTMONBUFSIZE=2048,134,134
Awesome! Experiment with this one and see how it impacts printer
performance versus system performance. I use an EPSON Laserjet. The
buffersize is not measured in K but in bytes. Also, the minimum
default value is 134. Too bad it can't be set to zero--[CJ].
16) FCBS=4,2
FCBS is an old cow. I save a little memory by reducing the
value--[CJ].
17) I REM'd out all references to TCPIP as I don't have a local
provider and saved a sizeable amount of memory--[CJ].
18) REM'd out DISKCACHE=D,LW,AC:CD
Saved 2 meg when I was at 20meg on the system due to the "D" switch
being enabled when I REM'd this line out and had no FAT partition.
You will only need this option if you have a FAT partition. Remove
the diskcache line if you only have HPFS--[CJ]!!!
DISKCACHE=512,32,LW,AC:CD if you have a BBS and only 8 megs for a FAT
DISKCACHE=256,32,LW,AC:CD if you are even more hard up on memory
DISKCACHE=128,32,LW,AC:CD for a 4 meg system on FAT
DISKCACHE=1024,128,LW,AC:CD for an 8 meg system doing normal activities
(up to 1736 for those SPEED demons with only 2 apps running)--[RR].
19) AUTOFAIL=YES
This is adviced for BBS use.
Only input this after you have a good idea how the system is running
--[CJ].
20) PAUSEONERROR=NO
This is adviced for BBS use. These options keep the system in motion
despite any errors encountered. Hopefully you won't encounter any,
but when your not around the bbs, and it comes up with an error, you would
want it to at least automatically fail without pause and continue on with
those processes that do. Your users would appreciate that.
Only input this after you have a good idea how the system is running
--[CJ].
21) SHELL=E:\OS2\MDOS\COMMAND.COM E:\OS2\MDOS /E:2000 /P
If you run a BBS, increasing the environment will help FRONTDOOR--[CJ].
As you can see, I scrunched memory where I could and placed it in
areas that are starving for it, ie CACHE, BUFFERS, PRINTMONBUFSIZE,
etc...
System Information says I have 4.1 meg allocated to OS/2 and the
rest is available to me. Before I did the fine tuning, I had 7.5 meg
allocated to OS/2. Smaller memory allocations can be made by smaller
cache settings.
I had one user report that OS/2 allocated only 3.1 meg to itself
out of a 16 meg system! (It can go even lower on 4 meg machines) The
cache settings impact this value the most.
This advice should be good for 16 meg machines on down to 4.
4 meg machines should be very conservative of any cache settings.
Just going 256k too much could cause exessive swapping. Don't even dare
run HPFS on a 4 meg machine! For even better performance, consider an
alternative shell to run your applications until you can buy 4 more meg
of ram. The GUI is going to take a performance hit on low ram situations.
I have found appreciable gains in performance all the way up to 16 meg.
Maintenance is very low. Once you have made your settings, you can
usually leave your CONFIG.SYS alone. The only thing you usually have
to change when you update memory are the cache settings and swapfile and
the opposite is true if removing memory.
As you can see, once you do some fine tuning, there is very little
left for you to do. That is the beauty of OS/2. Do some changes and
leave it alone! Don't get caught up running benchmarks everyday like you
used to do in the DOS days. There is very little you can do to make it your
dream screamer without purchasing that Pentium 100 you always wanted!
<G>
Have fun and be productive. If this helps anyone out, let me know!
Also, if anyone wants to add some advice, feel free to email me the
info. This advice isn't gospel, but it is the collaboration of several
people on this net. I will compile the advice and give updates as we
haggle, discuss, and come to terms on certain performance issues.
Discussion does not need to be limited to Config.sys. Desktop
folder settings could be added too.
Respectfully,
Chris Johnson 1:208/610
---
■ MR/2 2.12 NR ■ Can you imagine OS/2 for Windows 95? <CJ>
---
■ MR/2 2.12 NR ■ Can you imagine OS/2 for Windows 95? <CJ>