#3DS and DOS 5.0
10 messages in this thread
Emm386 does provide access to VCPI memory as long as the LIM emulator is
active. I set up an AutoCAD station before the Dos Extender update, newdx,
was provided that just had Himem and EMM386 w/ a page frame and
AutoCAD worked just fine. The XMS allocating Dos Extender update
you provided is clearly the way to go though.
Tom
I'm a very new 3DS user (about three days). I'm using a 386 33mhz with
mcp, 8 megs ram and 210 meg HD (the mcp is Intel). I know that everyone
strongly suggests that a 486 w/ Weitek be used for faster operation but I
thought I'd just start with my 386 system.
My first hours with 3DS were extremely painful. The operation has been so
slow and clunky that the program was almost unusable. I'm not talking
about slowness in rendering or anything high-powered but just to move the
cursor arrow from a port to the side menu would take four or five seconds!
The screen redraw took minutes to complete. I was about to put 3DS away
until I got a 486 system but two things happened: I read these messages
about the using 3DS with DOS 5.0 (which I have) and a conversation with the
very kind and helpful Laurie Steele during which I told her that I was
really dissapointe in the model A slowness of the program. She asked me if
my HD was active much of time and the next time I used 3DS I noted that it
was. So, when I saw the messages about 5.0/Qemm/Pharlap: I first updated
the pharlap driver which did nothing discernable and then I installed Qemm
386.
WHAT A DIFFERANCE !!! It may be slow to you 486 people, but 3DS is now
quite useable with an increase in speed of more than 10X (its hard to
calulate but maybe even 20x) I CAN use 3DS on my 386 and (for now) I have
been spared from having to rush out and buy a 486 to complete the tutorial
and you all have been spared from hearing my complaints about the slowness
of 3DS.
God bless us all, everyone.
Alec Jason
the above message was supposed to have been addressed to the ADESK people.
Alec
What a nightmare… developing graphics software for DOS machines is such a
"joy."
Thank you very much for making the effort to move past your operating
environment problems (even though you didn't even know you _had_ a
problem). And thank LAURIE for helping you through it! 🙂
If you think that your 386 is fast now, stick around awhile… we'll make
you REAL HAPPY. (Don't even think of asking me anything about this,
though… please)
Have fun making your way through the tutorials!
– G
G,
Thanks for the reply and the hint of even better things to come.
I must tell you that for the past few hours I've pushed the tutorial aside
and have been animating a few objects to simply fly over, under, around,
and through each other. What FUN! Your program provides the best elements
of video games, creative endeavors, and puzzles. I could feel the
excitement building inside as I completed a new two second animation and
the thrill of seeing it playback. Neat stuff, this!
I'm now really looking forward to doing my work with 3DS. Thanks for all
you've put into it.
Alec Jason
Hi G.,
I'm the person who had the system lock. I'm now one week into 3Ds and have
the same sentiments as Alec. The program is terrific. You
folks are truly amazing in puuting together this program!
I'm almost through the tutorials and am already using both 3DS and AAP.
Now that I have made a couple of animations, my wife understands why I
"needed" 3DS.
Thanks, Bob
Hi Robert,
Thank you very much for the feedback. It's great to know that you're up
and running and HAPPY. Our job is to keep you happy for years and years
and years… (3D animation-wise at least).
Feel free to upload any flics or images that you think will inspire us!
– G
Alec, I suspect what was happening for you was that 3DS was only seeing
640K, for whatever reason (something in how your machine was setup before
you added QEMM). That's how things will behave in less than the minimum
amount of ram. Too slow to be believed. I'm glad you got it worked out.
–Phil
Phil,
Thanks for the reply. I think your analysis is correct but my machine was
using RAM above 1 meg (EMM.386) before I installed Qemm. Anyway, it works
fine now.
Yeah, "too slow to be believed" is right. It reminded me of the first PC
back in 1981 with 64k on the motherboard. I ran a visicalc spreadsheet
which would eventually lock up. (I had to wait a month to get another 64K
on a card which cost $520 !!!!)
Maybe its been a good experience: 3DS on a 386 now seems real fast.
Alec
Alec — ah, the good old days. Well it is that I've managed to forget much
of that… 🙂