#Lantastic 6.0 and PAR
27 messages in this thread
Hello,
Before I get to my problem, let me just thank DPS for the PAR. I have
been using my unit for about 2 months and I love it. The best part
of my PAR experience was that it took only about an hour to get
running (It took my local matrox dealer 3 1/2 weeks to get the MAX up
and running).
Now my problem!
I just received a new DELL Dimension XPS 90, and decided to network my
systems together with Lantastic 6.0. I spent most of the day getting
it set up, but I have run into a problem.
In the system with my PAR unit, I haven't been able to run Lantastic
and the PAR together. I can only get one or the other. If run the
PAR drivers, the network locks up when I try to connect to remote
machine. If I disable the PAR drivers, the network runs AOK!
I tried calling DPS tech support and they told me Lantastic and the
PAR were "incompatible." Which I though was odd, since I have never
seen that mentioned on the forum.
Any suggestions? In what order should I load the network and PAR
drivers? Do I have to do anything special in Lantastic, so it
recognizes the PAR?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Jim G.
P.S. – Any other Lantastic specific setup I should know for flawless
network rendering.
I'm not much of a network guru but I can tell you that I run Lantastic
AI on the machine with the PAR and it (PAR.EXE) sees network drives
fine. What it won't do is receive files from the network slaves due
to an order problem. ie. it is virtually impossible to get the
slaves to output the frames in proper order. Sounds to me like you
have a hardware address conflict or software competing for the same
space.
It could be that all of the drivers that you load up on start up are
hogging all of your available conventional memory. I had to get QEMM
to give me enough memory to get my PAR to coexist with my NOVELL
network. Check it out with the MEM command.
I have no idea if this will help you, James, but I run the PAR in a
machine that is Lantastic-networked to others in my system, too. The
only way I could get everything (including 3DS) to work together was
to run QEMM with ALL high memory excluded (exclude A000-DFFF) on the
QEMM line during boot-up.
All conflicts went away after this.
>>QEMM with ALL high memory excluded (exclude A000-DFFF)
I hate to think how much base memory that leaves you. I'm
about to order a P90 and was thinking about doing a peer to peer
network with my one other machine. With Qemm loading most stuff high
on my machine now, I still only have 500k free, and go down to 417k
when I load my par and TIGA drivers. If I couldn't load anything
high, i'd probably have something like 300k left to run programs.
Once I do have two machines, will it be worth it to actually network
them? Any advice in advance will be helpful. Thanks.
Who needs base alot of memory?<g>
Seriously, the machine in question typically only runs programs that
are extended-mode, so they really don't care how much base memory is
lying around.
On the other hand, if I ever do need alot of base-memory, a
different, base-memory specific configuration is only a keystroke
away. I haven't needed to use it that I can recall though.
I find networking two or three machines to be a wonderful thing, Dave.
One can be rendering away while I'm working on other stuff. It's
amazing to see how often I've used the network, once it was up and
running.
I had success installing the new PAR software but I have just run into
my first problem. With the first version of the software I could
shell out of 3DS easily to operate the PAR. Now I cannot, I have to
fire up version 1.0. I suspect that the new version takes up more
room and has pushed me over the limit. Any ideas on what minimum
conv. memory is required?
Hmmm..Sorry that I can't really help you on this one, Bob. Now that the PAR.exe
software is using Phar Lap 286, maybe things have changed concerning shelling
out.
Hey Gus — Any thoughts here?
-Alan
No I have not yet downloaded the new PAR software. I have no idea what it is
doing. I've also switched away from Lantastic several months ago so I have no
clue what it could be. As it works for some and not for others, I tend to think
it's more a configuration problem than an incompatibility case.
Thanks, Gus.
-Alan
Robert –
Not sure what the minimum memory requirement is, but QEMM or the Netroom memory
managers may help. I currently use Netroom, with great success.
I'm running Netroom 3.02, the PAR, and PAR.EXE 1.27B, and have no problems
shelling out to DOS, even if I haven't launched 3dshell (Started by typing 3DS
only). I think the secret may be that Netroom frees up a ton of below 640k
memory (I currently have 628 k available) by loading BIOS and the standard
video range high. The only problem I ever had with Netroom was that I was
unable to run PAR.EXE 1.09.
Netroom runs about $70 through mail order, and runs all DOS and Windows like a
charm (along with Stacker 4.0)
This may work for you.
Bob
Robert:
I am using QEMM but with the huge CD-ROM associated drivers for my NCR SCSI
controller I am only able to get a mere 470k of lower conventional memory.
Thanks for the confirmation that PAR.EXE v. 1.27b can be shelled out to from
within 3DS. I'll take another pass at streamlining my memory requirements to
get it to function. I don't know where to squeeze out any more K. Maybe NCR
has chopped down its requirements in a new driver realease. I'm on the hunt.
Bob
If the CDROM is the only thing you have hanging on the SCSI chain (other than
the hard disk(s)), all you need is CDROM.SYS and MSCDEX. You do not need to
load the CAM drivers nor the ASPICAM converter. You will only need those to
access devices through the ASPI interface such as tape units etc. CDROM is
relatively small. A _LOT_ smaller than if you were using any other controller
I've seen.
Gus:
Believe it or not I had found in my initial installation struggle that I could
live without the CAM driver and ASPICAM converter. I hit on this by trial and
error. When I got rid of them my PAR board would finally initialize. The only
things I've got in my config.sys for the CD-ROM include CDROM.SYS = 29K and
MSCDEX = 27K. My xl starts me off with only 635k of lower memory, normal
right? Actually, NOVELL is more of the culprit here with NETX = 47k and IPXODI
= 15k. I'll try to shuffle things around again and see what I come up with.
Thanks for your assistance.
Bob
Have you tried the "cloaked" CD-ROM, mouse, and disk cache drivers from Helix
Software? These drivers actually run above 1024k and only take about 2k of
conventional memory (or upper memory if you load them high). We use them here
at NRP and they work great. Using these drivers and QEMM 7.04, I get over 600k
of free conventional memory (We use the NLM NetWare Drivers). I don't have
Helix's number, but they are the same people that do Netroom.
____kevin
Kevin:
Thanks for the idea for the Helix software. I've tried a few more alternates
with cfg386 and still I can't get the new PAR software to run when shelled out
from 3DS.
Bob
Robert –
You might want to look at Netroom – it's the only memory manager that can
regain MORE THAN 640 K (because of the fact that it does unconventional things
with TSRs that normally load into the first meg of memory, such as video and
bios). I have 686 K of free base memory in my second machine! It's a 386 with 8
meg of RAM, and I could barely run 3D Studio and Windows imaging programs
before I added Netroom. The PC Zone mail order firm stocks the product – it's
from Helix software. It was rated by PC Magazine as the most effective memory
manager available last year.
Good luck.
bob
Rob,
>> it's the only memory manager that can regain MORE THAN 640 K <<
Actually, EMM386 will let you do the same thing. If you include the A000-AFFF
range and use the NOHIGH (I think) option that tells EMM386 not to load high
itself high … it will append the added 64k to the top of your conventional
memory providing you over 700k of memory. You can still load other things high
is different regions.
Ang
Ang:
Nice to see you back here. I just took out all but the basics from my startup
and still cannot shell out of 3DS to operate the new PAR.EXE. I think
conventional memory is not the issue. I get a beep but no error message when I
attempt to start the PAR software. The previous version still runs fine. Any
ideas?
Bob
Bob,
>>Any ideas?<<
Nope. I just got the software in the mail .. and havn't installed it yet.
Sorry.
Ang
Bob:
Thanks for the Netroom tip. I may become a new customer.
Bob
Can the network be diconnected (so to speak, or made
invisible configuration wise) by a separate boot setup? I think I'll
order the machine this week, so I'll be popping in soon with
questions about what the best net stuff is, and so forth. So be
prepared. <g>
>>can the network be disconnected…<<
Sure! Just leave the calls to it during boot time out, and (besides finding the
ethernet card) the machine will have no idea that there is a network involved.
When you install Lantastic, you can make a seperate .bat file that starts the
network. On configurations where I need the net, I call the file at the end of
the autoexec.bat. If I don't want the net, I just leave it out.
-Alan
Is Lantastic the best one to use?
David
Kind of a loaded question, Dave. Let's put it this way: Lantastic certainly
seems to be the net of choice when hooking up 2-5 machines.
-Alan
I switched the PAR into my newer machine today and it worked O.K the
first time I booted up. I haven't had a chance to see what is
different about the two machines, but if I find anything that might
be useful to others I'll let you know.
Thanks, Jim.
-Alan