CompuServe Thread

#AAPro 1.3 and QDPMI

7 messages in this thread
#56182From: Tom PriceSep 4, 1993 11:36 AM
My 386 system uses DOS 5.0, QEMM 7.01 and SuperStor Pro with all drives compressed except for a small 2 meg partition used for QEMM and bootup. After installing ANI Pro 1.3 on one of the compressed drives, I was unable to get it to run at all, from DOS with QEMM returning Exception #13 errors (I think). QDPMI.SYS is installed. A bunch of non-ANI files got corrupted in the process. I was able to get ANI Pro to start from Windows 3.1 but apparently due to the corrupted files from trying to run it from DOS, I got a crash when I tried to exit from Ani Pro. The end result was that I had to do some extensive SSPro disk repair and re-install Windows to get rid of all the corrupted files. [1] Are there known problems with this particular configuration and are there any workarounds or fixes? [2] Would it be safer to run Ani Pro from Windows rather than DOS? This has been successful with other DPMI programs in the past, probably because the Windows DPMI mode is very solid and because QEMM is out of the picture when running in Windows. All suggestions welcome. Thanks. Tom
#56184From: John SchmidtSep 4, 1993 12:07 PM
Tom. I use SuperStor with all drives compressed, (except for some space for the Windows swap file), and have no problems at all, so at least that shouldn't be your problem. I am also using DR DOS 6.0 and its own memory manager, so I can't comment on your other issues, although I have never been able to get AniPro to run under Windows. John
#56190From: Tom PriceSep 4, 1993 1:02 PM
John, Thanks for the reply. This would SEEM to point the finger at QEMM or QDPMI. Hmmm. Tom
#56300From: Jeffrey HeftSep 5, 1993 10:19 AM
I'm using MS Dos 5.0 & QEMM 7.01 – but no drive compressors. I found I had to disable QDPMI in order to get Anipro to run (that was after going thru the full QEMM search and destroy procedure <g>). However, I've seen comments here from someone who runs AAPro with QDPMI, so the problem may be have other sources. JDH
#56307From: Tom PriceSep 5, 1993 1:22 PM
Jeffrey, Thanks much. I'll do some experimentation AFTER I back everything up on my HD. regards, Tom
#56379From: Steven ElliottSep 6, 1993 2:15 PM
Tom, I'm one of the people who are using QEMM's QDPMI.SYS with ANI Pro. It seems that success with these various memory managers is highly dependent upon the different types of system BIOS and adapter boards in the computer. IOW what works for you works for you and may not work for anyone else. That said, I'll explain how my system is set up… I am using QEMM 7.01 with Stealth mapping mode and QDPMI enabled. I also have Stacker 3.01 installed and ANI Pro writes its temporary files to the stacked drive. I never had a problem with QDPMI and have not changed the parameters that QEMM installed for the QDPMI driver: DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /RF C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS SWAPFILE=QDPMI.SWP SWAPSIZE=1024 After looking through the manual (Chapter 10, pg. 108) I would suggest that you check your CONFIG.SYS file. If there is a parameter on the QDPMI line such as EXTCHOFF or NOXCHK, then the QDPMI driver will refuse to relinquish control to the Pharlap extender in ANI Pro. The default setup does not use those parameters and allows QDPMI to step out of the way when a Pharlap program is executed. You could also insert the parameter XCHK into the QDPMI line to force it out of the way. After saying all of that, it appears that QDPMI is not needed to run really important programs such as 3DS and ANI Pro <G>, so if its easier to just not load QDPMI then don't load it. Also, for those of you interested, I had stated in a previous thread that ANI Pro did not seem to like running with the QEMM STEALTH mode. I finally went through the STEALTH.TEC trouble shooting procedures and discovered that ANI Pro wants to directly access system ROM in the range of FC00 to FFFF. After excluding that portion, STEALTH and ANI Pro work together just fine. Now for the weasel words: The above information represents my findings on my machine only. Your actual results and mileage may vary. Steven
#56407From: Tom PriceSep 6, 1993 6:16 PM
Steven, Thanks much for all the good information. I think my first step will be to re-install AAP 1.3 and try to run it from Windows with QEMM out of the picture entirely. I've had good success with other DPMI programs that wouldn't run reliably from DOS with QEMM active. This will fit in nicely with everything else I do, since Windows is my primary interface and I run nothing from the DOS prompt anyway. Will post any interesting information that I learn from this. Tom