OTHER COMPUTER FORMATS
6 messages in this thread
David, installing OS/2 would not be taking chances, since (unless you tell
it otherwise) it leaves your existing DOS and Windows alone, allowing you to
switch between booting DOS the way you always have, and booting OS/2. This is
called "Dual Boot." NT does it also. But NT won't run 3DSr3, period. You
have to Dual Boot back to DOS and you lose all NT advantages and access to NT's
HPFS and NTFS volumes. With OS/2, 3DSr3 runs great, and you don't have to Dual
Boot back to DOS to use it. You CAN still Dual Boot in case you have problems
with OS/2, and you're back to DOS (but without any of the OS/2 features, or
access to any OS/2 HPFS volumes — OS/2 and NT FAT volumes are fully accessible
under plain DOS).
Now that OS/2 2.1 for Windows LISTS for $25, what are you waiting for!? The
more people in here who get OS/2, the more guaranteed customers Autodesk would
have if they came out with an OS/2-specific port of 3DS (with multithreading)!
That $25 includes a $50 rebate on the price of the forthcoming OS/2 Personal
Edition (see below).
For $14.95, you can get the latest beta of Warp (currently Beta 2) directly
from IBM. Warp is the code-name for the NEW OS/2 Personal Edition, which runs
in only 4MB of RAM, is faster, MUCH easier to install and use, and basically
out-Chicagos Chicago months before we will even get to see Chicago! Warp 2 has
received many accolades, including PC Week Product of the Week a couple of
weeks ago. InfoWorld also praised it. You COULD download it from Compuserve
(or GEnie), but I don't recommend that since it's HUGE (over two dozen
high-density floppy disk images)! It would cost WAY more than the $14.95 to
get it on floppies or CD-ROM from IBM, not to mention tying up your modem for
about a weekend to a week (depending on baud rate)…
I have myself run 3DSr3 under OS/2 2.1 with two 3DSr3 instances running at
the same time: one for modelling, one acting as a Network Render station. The
rest of the system sees the second instance as just another Network Render
slave! And it can be rendering WHILE I'm modelling, or doing something in
Windows, etc. on the same machine! And if I'm NOT doing anything else in the
foreground, it actually renders larger projects somewhat FASTER than it would
under DOS (because of OS/2's DPMI 32-bit swapping, which is VASTLY superior to
Phar Lap's 16-bit swapping)!
<< And if I'm NOT doing anything else in the foreground, it actually renders
larger projects somewhat FASTER than it would under DOS (because of OS/2's DPMI
32-bit swapping, which is VASTLY superior to Phar Lap's 16-bit swapping)!>>
If you are not using PharLap extender does this mean that OS2 can
release the swap files after single test renders so that performance
is not degraded? With PharLap its such a pain to exit DOS and restart after
swapping to disk.
Thanks in advance, Ed
>If you are not using PharLap extender does this mean that OS2 can release the
swap files after single test renders so that performance is not degraded? With
PharLap its such a pain to exit DOS and restart after swapping to disk. <
PMJI, but I can hopefully answer that . . .
OS/2 creates a virtual DOS session. Because of this, 3DS just sees a big chunk
of RAM. In fact, some of that is virtual memory provided by OS/2. OS/2 in
turn, takes care of the virtual RAM swapping (paging) — which is way fast when
using the OS/2 High Performance File System (HPFS).
Still, what 3DS does within its address space provided by OS/2, OS/2 has no
control over. You see, Phar Lap is still present, and is being used in a DPMI
compliant fashion. So if 3DS fragments its memory space, performace will still
dwindle, even though you are not directly engaging the Phar Lap paging system.
So to answer your question, an occasional restart of 3DS is still recommended,
but need not be so frequent.
That was a rather condensed explanation. Let me know if it needs diluting!
🙂
BTW: OS/2 uses a flat memory model. As a result, it swaps out whatever
address space is being used the least regardless of who is controlling it. The
individual apps never actually know what is going on as far as paging is
concerned. Hence 3DS will report 0 page faults, when in reality, OS/2 may have
paged out several times to give 3DS enough RAM to work. The old addage still
holds: if you get paging of any sort when running 3DS, BUY MORE RAM.
— James — MAP —
James
Thanks for your answer. It sounds like OS2 would be at least some improvement.
Im waiting for the next OS2 because Ive heard that the
present version has its little idiosyncracies and that a more friendly version
is on the way.
Ed
You still use the PharLap extender under os/2, it's just that PharLap "sees"
whatever memory limit you set for that os/2 session. If you set the memory
limit to 128meg, PharLap won't try to create its own swap file until you've
used up that 128meg. Once 3ds actually allocates more than the physical memory
you have on the machine, os/2 creates its own swap file. The advantage to this
is that os/2 swapping is a lot faster than PharLaps, and os/2 will free up the
swap space once it is deallocated.
LAM
Thanks for the information. It seems like OS2 would eliminate the PharLap
problem.