========================================================================= 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" ! 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 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! 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 --- þ MR/2 2.12 NR þ Can you imagine OS/2 for Windows 95? --- þ MR/2 2.12 NR þ Can you imagine OS/2 for Windows 95?