#silly DOS question
5 messages in this thread
Kudos to all on this forum for your knowledge and promptness in answering
questions. That bit of sucking-up done with..<G>..
I'm now waiting for my hardware and software (2 Dell XPS p5-90's w/ 32 megs for
rendering, 1 p5-90 w/ 16 megs, 2.7 Gb storage for server, Novell NetWare 3.12,
and 3Dstudio among other things). In the meantime, I'm still solving problems &
coming up with new questions. (I have lots of 3D experience, but will be new
to 3DS and somewhat new to DOS)
First: I've seen notes in the book "Inside NetWare" that DOS is not real
happy with drive partitions containing more than 500 files. It's not uncommon
for me to do a 30 second job, so that's 900 files. Should I be thinking of
splitting up my 1 Gig drives to limit the number of files on a partition? (not
very desireable), or can I expect file searches and backups to work OK, maybe
just a bit slower with a partition containing 900 – 1200 files?
Second: A question for PAR users (I'll be getting one of those, too); is
there a GPI or SMPTE input on the board? It would be a lot nicer to know at
what timecode # my animation starts. It's also a bit better to tell the client
the animation starts at "01:00:00:00" rather than "01:00:02:27". Not a big
deal, but still…
As to why with only 3 machines I'm using NetWare– there will also be a
PowerMacintosh and one or two Amigas on the network; the PC's are pretty much
just for 3DS! (I hate Windoze– the Mac is for my paintbox/compositing work,
the Amiga is so I can still use the stuff I've been doing for the last 5
years!)
Thanx as always for the help.
>> First: I've seen notes in the book "Inside NetWare" that DOS is
>> not real happy with drive partitions containing more than 500 files.
>> It's not uncommon for me to do a 30 second job, so that's 900 files.
>> Should I be thinking of splitting up my 1 Gig drives to limit the number
>> of files on a partition?
No. That's nothing like that. The limit is only in the number of files in the
root directory of a partition (drive). In theory there is no limit in the
number of files you can have (other than physical space). On top of that, if
you are going to be running this over a Novell server (I hope you mistyped 3.12
– you should be using 3.2) that's isn't DOS. It's Novell and it doesn't have
any limitation.
As long as you keep your files in some subdirectory (as opposed to have
everything sent to the root), you can have as many files you want.
I will let the PAR/GPI question to Don Landis as he is the expert on this.
>> is there a GPI or SMPTE input on the board?
There is a GPI trigger that will trigger in either 3 or 5 seconds preroll. In
the newest version of the software the GPI is selectable to any time to, I
believe 1/100 of a second. There is no way to time code the animation files
but there is a SMPTE readout that starts at 00:00:00:00 for each animation. No
way to address this time display either. I use the GPI trigger all the time
and it works frame accurate with an RM-440 on insert video mode and control
track editing. As you know the jack on the RM-440 is a "cue" jack but sends a
+5Vdc pulse at the start of the 5 second preroll. Works great. I think you
will have to contact DPS for the 5 second GPI on the older software but they
will probably be shipping ver 2.0 when you get your PAR so it won't be an
issue. Let me know if I can help any more.
Don Landis
RE Item 1 – I think you really mean subdirectories rather than partitions. Once
you start getting a lot (~500+) files in a subdirectory, accessing the files
does tend to take a bit longer. Everything still works ok, just a bit slower.
LAM
remember that the root directory can not have more than 500 files in it or else
bad things can happen. i have bben bit by that a few times.
<g>
sherwood