Revision 2.10 (Revised 11-30-94) Hello, and welcome to the world of OS/2! These are the Settings I use to run 3 dial-in lines and one local node under OS/2 Warp 3.0 for Windows. I have posted comments throughout this file to help you along the way. Extensive testing has been done with these settings on my system as well as a number of others to ensure you get the most performance out of OS/2. Let me know if these settings help you! These settings have been proven to work well under OS/2 2.1, 2.11, 2.1 for Windows, 2.11 for Windows, and Warp 3.0 for Windows. The first thing you will need to get is the current version of SIO, Ray Gwinn's replacement for OS/2's COM drivers. You will see SIO referenced throughout this text, and as of now, SIO is a NECESSITY if you want to run any kind of a BBS under OS/2. The current version of SIO is SIO135.ZIP. The number of Ray's BBS is 1-703-494-0098. Credit card registration online is available. The next thing you will need is for DOS timeslicing. It's a freeware program called OSTSR. This small TSR will convert Desqview aware programs' PAUSE commands to OS/2 DOSSLEEP commands. If you currently use TAME and OS2SPEED, switch to OSTSR. You'll notice quite a performance increase. The current version of OSTSR is OSTSR11.ZIP. OSTSR is available for FREQ off of 1:2210/9639 by using the filename OSTSR11.ZIP. If your are planning on running multinode Wildcat 4.x under OS/2 Warp, you will also need to download WCOS2FIX.ZIP, which patches Wildcat's files to work around a bug in OS/2. This is only necessary if you are trying to run more than one NODE under Wildcat. If you are receiving "Unable to initialize network 10310" errors, you need this fix. This file can also be FREQ'ed from 1:2210/9639. Please note that if you choose to use these settings for OS/2, you are STRONGLY urged to use these settings for ALL of your OS/2 DOS sessions, both VDM, WIN-OS2 and native. Doing this will assure you are getting the most performance possible under OS/2. Also note that even though this text file contains items that will likely generate a considerable performance boost for your system, I do not recommend any settings that would put the stability of OS/2 at risk. I do not use any undocumented commands, and none of my modifications pose any risk to system stability whatsoever. You can be assured that testing these settings will pose no threat to OS/2's stability. Extensive testing has been done to assure stability, no matter what type of DOS-Based BBS software you run. Well...here they are! Good luck! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_AUTOEXEC x:\AUTOEXEC.BAT NOTES: With OS/2 you are allowed to have a different AUTOEXEC.BAT for each DOS session you have. This is an excellent feature for multi-line BBS's. Please note it does not have to be named AUTOEXEC.BAT, it can be named anything you wish. For example, NODE1.BAT, etc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION ON NOTES: Necessary for multitasking ANY communications program. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_BREAK ON NOTES: Turn on to Allow CTRL-Break in the DOS session. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_DEVICE x:\OS2\MDOS\ANSI.SYS x:\xxx\VX00.SYS NOTES: ANSI.SYS is necessary to load if you wish to be able to view callers activity while they are in a door. VX00.SYS is OS/2's FOSSIL driver, and is included with the SIO package. If you use doors that require a FOSSIL driver, VX00 is the one you need to load. (Do NOT use DOS fossil drivers such as X00 or BNU) Substitute the "x"'s above with the appropriate paths. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_FCBS 16 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_FCBS_KEEP 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_FILES 40 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_HIGH ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_LASTDRIVE Z --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_RMSIZE 640 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_SHELL x:\OS2\MDOS\COMMAND.COM x:\OS2\MDOS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE (Blank) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_UMB ON NOTES: This is up to your individual preference. For Sysop's who use Livecat door monitor program under OS/2 this setting as well as DOS_HIGH must be turned OFF for that program to work properly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOS_VERSION (Too Numerous To List) NOTES: This setting is only for programs that require a specific DOS version. 90% of the time this will never need to be touched. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DPMI_DOS_API AUTO --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT 4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DPMI_NETWORK_BUFF_SIZE 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EMS_FRAME_LOCATION AUTO --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EMS_HIGH_OS_MAP_REGION 32 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EMS_LOW_OS_MAP_REGION 384 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 2048 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HW_NOSOUND OFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HW_ROM_TO_RAM ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HW_TIMER OFF NOTES: Some people were having difficulty getting system sounds to generate from the PC Speaker when this was turned on. If you are having this problem, turn this option OFF. If you are not experiencing this problem, you can turn it ON. However, the performance improvement is hardly noticeable under most cases. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDLE_SECONDS 60 NOTES: Necessary at 60 for 14.4+ modems. Improves CPS rates dramatically (as opposed to the default of 0) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDLE_SENSITIVITY 75 NOTES: If using OSTSR - Set to 75, otherwise, set it to 100 (Disable it) OSTSR needs IDLE_SENSITIVITY enabled for it to work properly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- INT_DURING_IO OFF NOTES: LEAVE IT OFF! Under NO circumstances should this be turned on unless it is specifically needed for a particular DOS session. Your CPU will take a serious performance hit with this turned ON. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KBD_ALTHOME_BYPASS OFF NOTES: Setting this to ON prevents you from using Alt-Home to toggle between DOS full screen and DOS Window. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KBD_BUFFER_EXTEND ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KBD_CTRL_BYPASS NONE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KBD_RATE_LOCK OFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEM_EXCLUDE-REGIONS (Blank) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEM_INCLUDE_REGIONS (Blank) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOUSE_EXCLUSIVE_ACCESS OFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRINT_SEPERATE_OUTPUT ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRINT_TIMEOUT 15 NOTES: This setting is up to you. It adjusts the amount of time, in seconds, that the system waits before forcing a print job to the printer. The default of 15 seems to work fine for me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SESSION_PRIORITY 1 NOTES: This setting is OS/2 3.0 specific. It works best at the default of 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_ALLOW_ACCESS_COM1 See Notes SIO_ALLOW_ACCESS_COM2 " " SIO_ALLOW_ACCESS_COM3 " " SIO_ALLOW_ACCESS_COM4 " " NOTES: Only allow access to the one COM port you are using for this session. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_IDLE_SENSITIVITY 32 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_DTR No Change at Open or Close NOTES: Some people were reporting drop carriers if this option was set to "On at open, off at close" using SIO 1.32 with a front-end mailer. Setting this to the default cures that problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_FIFO_LOAD_COUNT 16 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_IDSR Ignore DSR during receive --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_OCTS HandShake signal, as in RTS/CTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_ODSR Ignore DSR during transmit. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_RTS HandShake signal, as in RTS/CTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_MODE_XON/XOFF No XON/XOFF Flow Control by SIO --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_SCREEN_SUNC_KLUDGE ON NOTES: Test this on your particular system. It seems to have different results depending on the system. It improves performance for me when it is ON, however it may not for you. Test and set accordingly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_SHARE_ACCESS_WITH_OS/2 ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_VIRTUALIZE_16550A ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SIO_VIRTUALIZE_COM_PORTS ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_8514A_XGA_IOTRAP OFF NOTES: Some people were having problems when switching from full screen graphical programs (such as Ripterm) to something else and then back again. Their video would become corrupted and their screen would go blank or turn a different color. Setting this to OFF cures that problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_FASTPASTE OFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_MODE_RESTRICTION NONE --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_ONDEMAND_MEMORY ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_ROM_EMULATION ON --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_SWITCH_NOTIFICATION OFF --------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO_WINDOW_REFRESH 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XMS_HANDLES 32 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 0 NOTES: Either use EMS or XMS. (Whatever the particular program that you are running wants). Otherwise you are starving OS/2 of the one thing it likes most...LOTS of RAM. You're consuming half of your total 8 meg for this DOS session alone. 2 meg EMS is PLENTY. That way you get two DOS sessions for the price of one. SUGGESTION: If you run Windows programs under OS/2, allocate XMS memory to the WIN-OS2 sessions, not EMS. Why? Windows does not use EMS, it only uses XMS, thus allocating any EMS memory to WIN-OS2 sessions is unnecessary. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- XMS_MINIMUM_HMA 0 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADDITIONAL NOTES: My best suggestion is if you have the means to do so...get yourself some more RAM.. I have 16 meg on my machine...and it's enough to handle 4 DOS sessions open at once with 2 meg Allocated to each window. This leaves 8 meg left for OS/2...Memory is more important to OS/2 than processor. It knows how to multitask, it just needs the memory to do it effectively.. OSTSR is also an excellent idea...I use OSTSR with a timeslice value of 3. NOTE: If you use OSTSR, you do NOT need Tame or OS2SPEED any more. If you run Wildcat, load it with the /T parameter so it can release timeslices...(although it seems to do it without the /T ) Hopefully you are using 16550 UART's as well..definitely a MUST with high speed communications... IMPORTANT: If you are running Wildcat! 4.x under OS/2, you will need to make a change to your modem's MDM file that Wildcat! uses. You will need to set the transmit AND receive FIFO levels to 14 each. This will allow WC! to run as efficiently as possible under OS/2. If you are running other DOS BBS software, and you also have the ability to modify a setting similar to this, please do so. The HIGHER the number, the better in most cases. If you discover that this is not true in your case, please let me know and I will note that in the next revision of SETTINGS. Now on to that killer of a file they call CONFIG.SYS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- IFS=x:\OS2\HPFS.IFS /CACHE:2048 /CRECL:16 /AUTOCHECK:CD <-EXAMPLE see notes NOTES: This Line is only necessary if you use HPFS drives. If you have 4-8 MEG RAM, change the cache parameter to /CACHE:1024; 9-15 MEG - /CACHE:1536; 16+ - /CACHE:2048. CRECL defines the size of the maximum record size that will be cached. Valid ranges are 2K to 64K with 4K as the default. I have found that 16K works well for me, but you can experiment with that if you like. AUTOCHECK is important because if OS/2 crashes, AUTOCHECK tells OS/2 which drives to CHKDSK for errors. As you can see I have OS/2 check my D and E drives if the system crashes. Change this to your drive letters so it will work properly. (OS/2 SHOULD have done this for you when you installed it. Remember if you do NOT use HPFS drives, REM this line OUT. Since HPFS is an Installable file system (i.e. a portion of it is memory resident) many have asked how much memory HPFS consumes. Using HPFS instead of FAT requires approximately 130k of RAM. This is a small price to pay for the vastly increased performance of HPFS'd drives. If you are considering switching from FAT to HPFS, you MUST have an OS/2 backup program to do so. Fastback Plus for OS/2, as well as IBM's tape backup software are excellent choices. I personally use Fastback/2, and I highly recommend it. It supports nearly every SCSI and QIC tape drive out there, as well as removable drives such as Bernoulli drives. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRIORITY_DISK_IO=NO --------------------------------------------------------------------------- REM PRIORITY=DYNAMIC ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NOTES: One of the WORST things to do...REM this command OUT. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- REM TIMESLICE=50 NOTES: REM this command while you're at it..with this command you are telling OS/2 to multitask like Desqview. You don't WANT OS/2 to multitask like DV, you want OS/2 to multitask like OS/2...and your crippling that ability with that line... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FILES=40 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUFFERS=40 NOTES: OS/2 Warp defaults this to a value of 90. During testing I found having it set that high seems to decrease performance slightly. I still recommend a value of 40, not the default of 90. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IOPL=YES NOTES: IOPL= Input/Output Privilege Level. Simply tells OS/2 what privilege level to assign to programs. Leave this at the default of YES which allows programs that wish to access different levels of I/O to do so. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISKCACHE=512,LW,AC:C <-- EXAMPLE - see notes. NOTES: This statement tells OS/2 how to cache your FAT drives ONLY. HPFS drive caching is controlled by the HPFS IFS statement above. If you do not use FAT drives, REM the above line out. A DISKCACHE of 1024 is good for systems with 4-8 meg RAM, for 9-15 MEG, use a DISKCACHE of 1536, and 16+ use a DISKCACHE of 2048. The LW command turns on lazy-writes, and is recommended. The AC command is the same as the AUTOCHECK command for HPFS drives. You may notice that while I allocated a 2 MEG cache for HPFS, I only allocated 512K for FAT, even though I have 16 MEG of RAM. Remember, if I allocated 2 MEG for BOTH FAT and HPFS, there goes 4 MEG of precious RAM that OS/2 COULD have been using. Since my system is primarily HPFS drives, I use the full 2 MEG cache for HPFS, and use 512K for FAT because I rarely access my FAT drive. Use this same principle based on your situation. If you primarily use FAT instead of HPFS, allocate more cache to FAT than to HPFS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAXWAIT=1 NOTES: Sets the amount of time the system waits before assigning a waiting thread a higher priority. For communications programs, the sooner, the better. I recommend a value of 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SWAPPATH=x:\ 10248 10248 NOTES: Increase your SWAP file to 10 MEG (Something like 10248 10248).. that will definitely give you a slight perf. boost. Heck if it wants to swap to disk...LET IT! You will notice a slight performance increase my moving the swapfile from the default location (x:\OS2\SYSTEM) to the root directory of your least-frequently accessed physical hard drive. If you only have one hard drive, move the swapfile to the root directory of that drive. Remember, In my case, I have 16 MEG of RAM, I usually have 4 DOS sessions open at once, consuming approx 8 MEG RAM total. I also allocate approx. 2.5 MEG RAM to disk caching. That leaves 5.5 MEG for OS/2 to use, and some of that holds TSR's, system DEVICE's, etc., (not a whole lot of RAM left!) so I give OS/2 a large swap file (10 MEG). And now you can see the reason why I do so. It gives OS/2 the breathing room it needs, and improves performance noticeably. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THREADS=256 FCBS=16,8 DOS=HIGH,UMB --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEVICE=x:\xxx\SIO.SYS NOTES: Want to lock the com ports?...to do that..change that line to this: DEVICE=x:\xxx\SIO.SYS (1:38400) (2:38400) NOTES: The above line locks COM1 and COM2 at 38.4. Also, any parameters for SIO MUST be specified on the DEVICE=SIO.SYS line, NOT the VSIO.SYS line. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEVICE=VSIO.SYS NOTES: This is the system file DOS uses. SIO.SYS is used by OS/2. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SET AUTOSTART=PROGRAMS,TASKLIST,FOLDERS,CONNECTIONS,LAUNCHPAD NOTES: This SET statement determines what items to start automatically at bootup. I recommend leaving this alone, unless you would like to disable the automatic startup of the launchpad. If you would like to disable automatic launchpad startup, remove ",LAUNCHPAD" from the above line. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SET RESTARTOBJECTS=NO/STARTUPFOLDERSONLY=YES NOTES: This is an extremely useful option to place in your CONFIG.SYS to control which applications are re-started when the system is rebooted. By default, OS/2 will load up any applications that were running the last time you turned your computer off (or rebooted). This presents a problem when the reason you had to reboot was because of a program that was not working properly, as OS/2 will try to load it again. Placing the above line in your CONFIG.SYS forces OS/2 to only start programs that are in the startup folder on the Desktop. For example, if you had shadow's of your BBS nodes in the startup folder, and the system rebooted, your BBS nodes would automatically be restarted for you since they were in the startup folder. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SET PROMPT=$p$g SET DIRCMD=/o/p NOTES: Some SET statements, like the ones above, may look out of place in a CONFIG.SYS file, but they actually are the SET statements that are enabled when you load an OS/2 session. These SET statements in the CONFIG.SYS do not apply to OS/2 DOS VDM's. You will need to place similar statements in your DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT for them to be recognized. Just think of OS/2's CONFIG.SYS as a MS-DOS CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT combined. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RUN=x:\OS2\CACHE.EXE /MAXAGE:7500 /DISKIDLE:60000 /BUFFERIDLE:60000 NOTES: this command is specific to HPFS only. If you have FAT drives, ignore this line. This line specifies the parameters that HPFS uses to write information to disk. This command is specified as a RUN= statement in the CONFIG.SYS (as above), or it can also be entered at the command prompt. (Yes you can actually change the disk cache parameters on the fly!). The /MAXAGE parameter specifies the maximum amount of time (in milliseconds) before frequently written data is transferred to disk. The /DISKIDLE parameter sets the amount of time the disk must be idle before it can accept data from cache memory. The /BUFFERIDLE parameter specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) that the cache buffer can be idle before the data it contains must be written to disk. Since this is a new addition to SETTINGS, I have tested this line extensively on my system, and have determined it is perfectly safe to use. However, if you do notice problems after adding this line, feel free to remove it. I have tested it under a variety of different circumstances, including abnormal shutdowns, loss of power, etc. And everything corrected itself just fine. CHKDSK automatically corrected any errors, and it did increase performance noticeably. Using this line enables your system to use its memory in the most efficient way possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hope these help you as well as others... feel free to log on to my BBS, and you can see how these settings effect performance! (815-622-9639) Do a message search...anything...it just humms right along...stable as anything too... Try saying THAT with Desqview If you have any other questions, please let me know! I'll help if I can. If these settings do help you, let me know! Comments are always appreciated, positive or negative.If you notice anything I may have left out, or something you would like to see added to SETTINGS, please let me know! I can be reached at: FIDO - 1:2210/9639 InterMailNet 211:211/11350 Internet - sysop@shadow.org Wildnet - OS/2 conference FIDOnet - Wildcat Sysops conference or any OS/2 conference. MSINet - Wildcat Conference MSI HQ BBS - OS/2 Conference CompuServe - 73053,732 Good Luck! Tony Harrison, Sysop Shadowgate BBS BBS (815) 622-9639 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revision History ---------------- 1.00 - (08-05-94) First release of this text file. 1.01 - (09-16-94) Changed EMS_HIGH_OS_MAP_REGION from 0 to 32 because of problems some people were reporting when trying to run applications that used EMS. Included more verbose descriptions for CONFIG.SYS settings. 1.10 Changed a number of things WRT to high baud rates. Many people were complaining of sluggish CPS rates for high speed callers (1600 CPS at 28.8! ), and this "problem" has been found and corrected. CPS rates should improve drastically for those who had problems. Specifically, the following has been changed.. IDLE_SECONDS from 0 to 60 IDLE_SENSITIVITY from 99 to 75 (default) OSTSR from a value of 2 to 3 (3 seemed to be slightly faster) SIO_SCREEN_SYNC_KLUDGE from OFF to ON SIO_IDLE_SENSITIVITY from 40 to 32 SHARE_ACCESS_WITH_OS2 from OFF to ON 1.12 Added some support for OS/2 3.0 Warp. Although I personally have only used the Warp beta, I did have the opportunity to use 3.0 at the IBM unveiling of Warp in Chicago recently. From what I saw of the product, the settings in the Warp beta were the same as in the finished product. I will provide further support for this in the future as soon as I receive the 3.0 release. Added many cosmetic enhancements, specifically breaking down each DOS and CONFIG.SYS setting and adding more verbose comments. HW_TIMER from ON to OFF SIO_MODE_DTR from on at open, off at close to no change at open or close. VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION from off to on VIDEO_8514A_XGA_IOTRAP from ON to OFF 2.00 Added full support for running under OS/2 Warp 3.0 Changed some of the DOS VDM settings to match up with OS/2 3.0 Added many new CONFIG.SYS statements to take advantage of the power and flexibility of OS/2, as well as to clarify some unclear areas of the CONFIG.SYS file. Up until this release, I had aimed this text file toward SysOp's who ran a Wildcat BBS under OS/2. It has come to my attention through numerous sources that these settings improve the performance of other DOS Based BBS software platforms as well. Because of this, I have written this text file with all DOS-Based BBS software users in mind, not just Wildcat! Specifically. I encourage you to distribute this text file to other SysOp's who you feel may benefit from this information! Deleted VDM_PRIORITY Added SESSION_PRIORITY 2.10 Included DOS_DEVICE settings for ANSI support as well as FOSSIL support. Added the RUN=CACHE statement to the CONFIG.SYS to improve caching performance with HPFS'd drives. Revised the optimal memory cache settings for FAT and HPFS drives. More descriptions for certain CONFIG.SYS statements. Refrenced WCOS2FIX.ZIP Refrenced proper WC! FIFO settings Revised the SWAPPATH= parameter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------