Working With Warp

By Terry Hamilton


 * Part 1 of a series.

Continuing the presentation from the December TO/2 meeting let's take a quick look at ways of Tuning OS/2 for better performance.

OVERALL IMPROVEMENTS
One of the first things to decide when installing is how to partition and format your drives. With most current PC's formatting your drives as HPFS will improve overall performance.

HPFS is best under the following circumstances:
 * Greater than 8MB of memory (HPFS takes about 250kb of memory to load)
 * Partition size is greater than 100MB
 * More than 500 files on the partition (but less than 5000 per directory)

FAT can be used when to above conditions don't apply or when compatibility with native DOS or WINDOWS is needed.

When Partitioning drives you'd be best off to have at least 3 partitions. One for each Operating System, One for applications and One for temporary files.


 * You should also only install applications that you need. Adding excess files to the hard drive, DLL's to the LIBPATH, entries to the INI files and icons to the Desktop will add up to slow down your PC.
 * In WARP 4 installing OpenDoc and VoiceType and Multimedia and all the BonusPak applications can cut your performance significantly so be selective or uninstall applications after trying them.


 * Place temporary files and file that change regularly onto a separate partition with plenty of space (preferably HPFS formatted).
 * Enlarging a file can take twice as long as writing it the first time so you want to make sure there is a little fragmentation (when a file gets split into pieces all over the drive) as possible.


 * Occasionally defragment FAT and HPFS drives. When possible place commonly used files first.

CONFIG.SYS Changes

 * Remove unnecessary device drivers. Particularly from programs you have uninstalled.  If you don't have any HPFS formatted drives you can remove the IFS=HPFS.IFS statement.  Be careful of DOS programs that attempt to put lines in the OS/2 config.sys.


 * Tune the LIBPATH, PATH, DPATH, HELP path statements to place the most used directories at the beginning of the statements. OS/2 searches for files in the directories in the orders they are listed.  Place network drives at the end of the path statements.


 * Make sure the LIBPATH statement starts with ".;" as OS/2 will then check in the current working directory for DLL files. This is required for many applications.


 * Make your SWAPPATH statement point towards the Most used partition on the Least used drive. The idea is to have the drive head over the swapfile location as often as possible.  Also make the INITIAL size of the file large enough so that the file does not have to grow as the system runs.


 * Tune the IFS=HPFS.IFS /CACHE:xxx /CRECL:yyy /AUTOCHECK:cde statement:
 * Make the /CACHE parameter an appropriate size for your system memory (10% of total memory is good). This is particularly important if you have a slow hard drive.
 * Make the /CRECL parameter 32. This sets the maximum cached record size to 32KB. You can raise that to 64KB and see if it helps your system.
 * The /AUTOECHECK parameter specifies drives to run CHKDSK on after a crash.


 * Tune the DISKCACHE=size,crecl,LW,AC:cde cache for FAT formatted drives:
 * Make the "size" appropriate for your system memory. FAT + HPFS cache should total 10% of memory.
 * Make "crecl" = 32kb and it can be raised to 64kb.
 * The LW parameter enables LAZYWRITE (delayed writing to the drive).
 * The AC: parameter forces CHKDSK when the system reboots after a crash.


 * BUFFERS=90 sets asside 512byte blocks per Buffer for caching FAT directories. You can lower this but remember that floppy drives are FAT.


 * MAXWAIT=3 specifies how many seconds a program waits before getting a priority boost. Lower this to 2 and see how it works for you.  Lowering it to 1 will slow your system if you are using the SWAPFILE a lot.


 * THREADS=512 enables the total number of threads available to programs. Only as machine running LAN SERVER will likely need more than 512. The base OS plus a few apps takes about 80 so 256 should be enough unless running on a network.


 * Remove XDFLOPPY.FLT if you don't need it. It's only used for reading the OS/2 install diskettes.

WORKPLACE SHELL
There are a dozen little settings on the Desktop that can help improve your system. Here are a few:


 * Desktop Settings/Properties
 * LOCKUP takes CPU timeslices to monitor the system - turn it off.
 * The bitmap also takes memory when lockup activates.
 * ARCHIVING dramatically slows bootup, only use it when you make a change
 * BACKGROUND Bitmaps and FONTS take up system memory and take time to load whenever the windows with them are opened. Use as few as possible.
 * Use the Column(WARP 4) / Flowed(WARP 3) Icon views to make opening folders faster since WARP doesn't need to calculate icon coordinates.
 * HIDE windows instead of using MINIMIZE to MINIMIZED VIEWER or to DESKTOP.
 * Using ALWAYS MAINTAIN SORT ORDER will slow down opening of folders.


 * System Settings/Properties
 * Use a lower VIDEO RESOLUTION
 * Turn off Confirmed closing of DOS & OS/2 Windows
 * Turn off the DISPLAY PROGRESS INDICATOR
 * Turn off Desktop Animation
 * In WARP 4 turn off FULL WINDOW DRAG
 * Disable TYPE-AHEAD as it takes cycles to buffer the typing.
 * Turn off COMET CURSOR
 * Turn off PRINT SCREEN


 * Disable all System Sounds. They take time to load the WAV files plus CPU cycles and 250kb of memory to play them.  To completely remove Sound look for and run the program DINSTSND.CMD (installed with Multimedia) and save approximately 40k of memory.  This will not affect sound from other programs.


 * To make DOS & OS/2 WINDOWS process faster you can minimize them OR cover the window with another window. It takes CPU cycles to display the text in the window and not showing the window makes the process run faster.


 * If you are only printing from one application at a time you can disable the SPOOL. It saves some threads and memory.


 * All applications use less resources when running in Full-Screen mode.

HARDWARE

 * When in doubt more memory is more important than a more powerful CPU. A 486 with 32MB is likely to run faster than a 586 with 8MB. CPU Cache (L1 and L2 cache) can also improve performance if you are running CPU intensive applications (like Photo>Graphics).


 * Memory is very important. The minimum reasonable performance for a general home PC is 16MB, for a machine running network software it is 32MB (or more).  The more applications you run simultaneously (from the STARTUP Folder or otherwise) the more base memory you need.


 * The most important fact to remember about OS/2 is that it when it runs out of real RAM it will use your hard drive SWAP file as memory.
 * Fast Hard drives are therefore vital to good performance. SCSI is usually faster than EIDE and SCSI also allows the ability to access multiple physical drives simultaneously.  A hardware drive CACHE will also help speed booting OS/2 and starting applications but no regular operations.
 * Bus-mastering adapters also remove excess overhead from the CPU.


 * Fast video cards with good drivers (Good cards with good drivers are rare) will be beneficial, especially when running at higher resolutions. Higher resolutions and more colours equals a slower display.

With all hardware if you have to spend more money it is probably going to make your system faster.