#Exit DOS problem
10 messages in this thread
Don, My view is that Autodesk should be responsible for whatever they ship as
part of the 3DS package . Im used to Windows programs that have no problems
with virtual memory. I cant imagine having to exit Photoshop every time it goes
to disk . Design limitations are made to be surpassed as 3DS has done with each
release. Its because 3DS is so outstanding that its few limitations are
disappointing. Heres another wish. Its apparent from the creative and labor
intensive work arounds that users have invented to emulate refractions that
this is a needed feature. Not a ray tracer, of which there are many slow
examples but refraction mapping for selected objects which would maintain speed
while enabling greater realism. I guess Im after that mythical application that
has all the features I need in one program (including plug ins, of course).
Edward,
<< My view is that Autodesk should be responsible for whatever they ship as
part of the 3DS package.. regarding PharLap .>>
In order for 3DS to run as a 32 bit application under DOS, it uses a software
toolkit called a DOS-Extender by Pharlap. Autodesk cannot implement new PharLap
functions but only uses existing capabilities of the Dos-Extender. Clearing the
swap file off of the hard disk, on demand, and reinitializing memory for 3DS is
not a readily available function.
<< . It I guess Im after that mythical application that has all the features I
need in one program (including plug ins, of course). >>
:-).. It would be nice.
Well you said it, "plug-ins" which will be the answer for stuff in our wishes.
As for Pharlap? who knows. I don't mind the problem because I know how to fix
it. I'm just glad it does the paging so well. Many times my system just hangs
up when windows tries to page past memory limitations by 50-100 megabytes.
I recently solved a problem with InterChange with a "miracle product". I wonder
if it might not help 3DS, too. Yost Group, are you within the sound of my
voice?
Within any standard C compiler, there are two functions, malloc() and free().
These are the basic system functions to allocate a piece of memory for your own
use. Sometimes these library functions map directly to operating system
functions. Sometimes the C compiler's libraries use their own "heap manager"
to coalesce memory allocation calls into larger blocks in order to save the
overhead time of calling the operating system for potentially thousands of tiny
memory allocations.
The problem is, many C compiler heap manager aren't as good as they can be.
After a while, they run slower and slower, as the heap manager searches through
longer lists of bits of memory that have been allocated or freed, in order to
fulfill new memory requests or deallocations.
There's a product called SmartHeap, a replacement heap manager. It gives
*orders of magnitude* speed improvement over the compiler's heap manager. And
they've got versions for several compiler and linker environments, including
PharLap.
I know that this product was a lifesaver for InterChange for Windows. (It turns
out the heap managers and system memory managers on the Amiga were much better
than those in Visual C and Windows NT, and we never noticed this problem
before.) I wonder what it might do for 3D Studio! It's about $700 per
platform, no distribution royalty needed. It took about five minutes from the
moment it arrived until installation into InterChange, and suddenly everything
worked much, much faster. As I said, at least 10 if not 100 times speed
improvement for memory management.
We've already got a copy of SH and have been doing a bunch of research with it.
I'm sure you'll see better heap management in future >4 versions.
– G
Has it helped so far? What do your tests say?
Tom's got all the specific data, but it seems encouraging so far.
– G
Interesting, but I think your message would be better directed at Gary or Gus.
Hope they will comment.
I know you're not a programmer. What, Gus is working for Yost these days? 🙂
Don't know but he's usually up on this stuff.