azagahl

>>Do you have any problem with your 1 GB of RAM ? Nope. I run Morrowind with both expansions and 1.4 GB of mods installed and it runs like a charm. I don't use MaxPhysPage setting, but I do use MaxFileCache=524288 setting installed by your SP; I believe this is required. One problem I had before was that my SB Live! Value card is very touchy and likes to complain "cannot load patch RAM under 4 MB boundary", preventing Windows from starting. Sometimes the error occurs when shutting down windows. This error occurs less often on 512 MB systems. Setting MaxPhysPage lower, and maybe turning smartdrv off helps avoid this, but I don't want to use those fixes! These changes in windows\system.ini made this problem go away PERMANENTLY (not sure which changes are really required): [386enh] ;EMMExclude=C000-CFFF EMMExclude=A000-FFFF VGAMonoText=OFF PageBuffers=32 LocalLoadHigh=1 I also use lowest possible (undocumented) size of 16 KB for smartdrv cache under Windows. (It's not used anyway.) FWIW, I currently have a ton of TSR's loaded, sblive drivers loaded high, lots of free conventional AND upper memory, and have no problems in Windows or playing DOS games in Windows.

With WinTune98 I couldn't detect any performance difference between compressed (0.8 MB) and uncompressed (2.2 MB). Also I could not detect a DOS memory difference. BTW my system is Athlon64 3400 with 1 GB RAM, and old ATA100 hard drives. I'm guessing boot time would depend on CPU and hard disk speed. So my vote is for the compressed vmm32, with smaller footprint, probably faster loading (CPU 's are always much faster than hard disks) and higher danger of corruption.

Hey, since there is all this talk of vmm32.vxd I should mention I built one last night using the wininit.ini to combine the vxd's. On bootup it said something like "vmm32.tmp integrity check failed, restoring" and then started Windows normally. I renamed vmm32.tmp to vmm32.vxd and deleted all of the vxd's that were combined from the system32 directory, and on rebooting it worked fine without complaint despite the initial "integrity check failed" whining. I tried the new vmm32.vxd compressed as well as non-compressed (2+ MB). I never noticed any difference in bootup speed or resource usage, but I didn't measure it either. I have backups if you guys can recommend a method for measuring these things so I can try all methods (original + seperate vxds, combined compressed and combined uncompressed). I was using vxdlib.exe (vxdlib.zip from Axcel216's site) and it seems like a nice tool. It should be very easy to write a program that uses vxdlib.exe to build vmm32.vxd, so you do not have to depend on wininit.ini.

Thanks for that link Gape, I'll try it out (the fix for slow deletion of files). At one point you said that IE6 install was suggested before installing your SP. Therefore my installation procedure will be to install IE6 SP1, your SP, and then this new fix

Is 2.0 final going to fix the problem where deleting files in EXPLORER.EXE gradually causes system resources to be leaked away (viewable in Resource Meter)? This leads to crashes and extreme sluggishness (e.g. after deleting a file, 1 minute wait for Explorer to wake up). Is there any fix for this problem? I think I'm not the only one because after searching it sounds like others have this problem and it comes from IE 6.

"a fast and free mp3 extension.... really good should pehaps included" Watch out, it has a GNU public license. This can cause big headaches and is definitely not "free". For example, it means I have the right to make a modified version of them mp3 extension, and Gape must provide me with some SP source so I can distribute my own SP with the modified mp3 extension. Otherwise Gape is violating my rights. But if you do include it please make it optional, its nonstandard and e.g. some of like oggs not mp3 files.

>I ran a series of tests and found that just having the vmm32.vxd file loading was >faster, and much more efficient. What about when vmm32 is largely full of useless files? It seems like in a patched system with a lot of vxd files, vmm32 is going to be largely a waste, full of obsolete files. It might even be better to have an empty or non-existent vmm32 (if that's possible). Would it make sense for sp 2.0 to automatically update the vmm32?

To the guy trying to use WinPatcher, it wants you to copy win98\*.* from your Windows CD to c:\windows\options\cabs. In fact, a lot of people install Win98 by doing that copy to a blank hard drive and then running setup from that dir.

>I get Windows protect errors unless I use "EMMExclude=A000-FFFF" in my system.ini. Hi, its me again. I have more system.ini suggestions to add. I just installed 1 GB RAM in my system and could not start windows due to sbeinit.com (Soundblaster Live! card). It said it cannot load before 4 MB boundary or some such nonsense. MaxPhysPage=30000 (not 40000) fixes this, but this wastes 256 MB. I found a better way to fix the problem! [386Enh] EMMExclude=A000-FFFF VGAMonoText=OFF LocalLoadHigh=1 PageBuffers=32 I recommend using these settings. And If somone is knowledgable about these, maybe they are appropriate as defaults for sp2.

2.0b2 works great, even better than 1.6.2 Thanks Gape. Here are some things I noticed: 1. While installing it, it asked me to shutdown and I said no. It continued installing stuff. I suspect if I answered Yes, it might not have installed everything properly. The installation is scary overall, with windows shrinkng and maximizing randomly! 2. It is missing these hotfixes / updates, please add them in your next release: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=870669 http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownlo...c/rtf/en/95.htm http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownlo...rtf/en/5285.htm http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=14964 http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=16898 3. doshere.zip (Command Prompt Here) and ttfext.zip (TrueType Font Extension) should be included 4. I get Windows protect errors unless I use "EMMExclude=A000-FFFF" in my system.ini. Personally I'd rather have Win98 NOT crash, even if I have to give up 400 KB or whatever. I suggest making this default. 5. You should include WinPatcher.exe or similar effects (it extracts from cabs vcomm.vxd, vdmad.vxd, configmg.vxd, vdd.vxd, vmouse.vxd, ntkern.vxd, vflatd.vxd, and ios.vxd into windows and system directories). sp 2.0b2 only installs some of these. Supposedly installing all of them this keeps Windows from building a combined vmm32.vxd , which wastes resources. This might all be supserstition but please do some research. 6. Does "Network server" in the Performance tab acutally help? Because I noticed sp 2.0b2 does not select this but SiSoft Sandra recommends it.

Hi, the Sp 1.6.2 is great, am using it currently. Maybe 2.0 should include these: -True Type font properties extension (ttfext.exe) -DOS prompt here (doshere.exe) BTW, does 1.6.2 include the effects of VXD fix (vdx_fix.bat)? Does it actually help or is it superstition?