🚀 go-pugleaf

More/better DESQview results/information
========================================

  Uptill now other posters and "mailers" have only indicated what was,
possibly, wrong with my DESQview setup and/or results.
  While this in itself is appreciated, it does not help the original
poster very much (i.e. please don't (only) say what is wrong, but (also)
say how to do it right (i.e. get 600K, or whatever other maximum)).

  I continued my DESQview tests and now have results which are better
than those of Windows/386 and are (mainly) consistent which the
"specifications" in the DESQview 386 manual.

  First some quotes from the DESQview 386 manual (page 3) :

<start of quote>

* Low DESQview memory overhead. DESQview 386's memory overhead in
  each virtual machine varies from PC to PC. The chart below shows our test
  results running DESQview 386 with DOS 3.3. (If you are running DOS4.00,
  the numbers will be about 15K smaller). As a point of reference, on PCs run-
  ning only DOS 3.3, (without DESQview 386), the largest conventional
  memory partition size is 590K.

  |----------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                    DESQview 386 Memory Allocation                    |
  |----------------------------------------------------------------------|
  | Display adapter                  Mono/Herc       CGA       EGA/VGA   |
  | Largest Convent'l Mem Partition      660K        670K         580K   |
  | Largest Expanded  Mem Partition      654K        654K         576K   |
  |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

<end of quote>

Summary :
=========

  While *my* "point of reference" is only 587.25K, I can get :

- 579.4K in VGA mode (i.e. nearly the quoted 580K).
- 670 to 675.4K in CGA mode (i.e. equal to or better than the quoted 670K).
- 643.4K in Hercules mode (i.e. *not* the quoted 660K).

  Note: I think the CGA and Mono/Herc numbers in the manual *should* be
676K and 644K (i.e. VGA value plus 96K c.q. 64K) because the size of the
video RAM (address space) is 128/32/64K for VGA/CGA/Hercules.

  These results are much better than the Windows/386 results. "DESQview
beats Windows/386 in second/third round!" :-)

  If the original poster meant "600 * 1000" when he said "600K", then
with some more tuning he might be able to do it in VGA mode.
  If he meant "600 * 1024" then I think it can only, but easily, be done
in CGA or Mono/Herc mode.

  I hope this helps.

Frank Slootweg, Hewlett-Packard, HP-UX Support, Dutch Customer Response Center.

Details :
=========

  If the information from my first posting and the corrections in my
second posting are used the following "tuning" will realize the free
space given in the "Summary" above.

VGA mode :
----------
- 562128 bytes, see my first posting.
- 569968 bytes, see my second posting. Delta: 7840 bytes.
- 582256 bytes by setting "Text Pages: 1" and "Graphics Pages: 1" (was
	 4 and 2) in the "Advanced Options" menu of the "Change a
	 Program" function. Delta: 12288 bytes (12K).
- 583392 bytes by setting "Scipt Buffer Size: 0" (was 1000) in the same
	 menu. Delta: 1136 bytes.
- 585472 bytes by setting "DOS Buffer for EMS: 0" (was 2) as advised in
	 the DESQview manual (page 23) for QEMM-386 version 4.10 or
	 higher. Delta: 2080 bytes.
- 589568 bytes by disabling the Extended BIOS (HP-specific, see my first
	 posting. Non-HP systems will always have this "advantage".).
	 Delta: 4096 bytes (4k).
- 593328 bytes (579.4K) by specifying the full pathname and extension of
	 the command to be executed (this was suggested by another
	 poster in the new "DV vs. Win/386" string) *and* setting "Close
	 on exit" (in the "Advanced Options" menu) to "Y" or " ".
	 Delta: 3760 bytes (3536 bytes for resident portion of
	 COMMAND.COM and two little "holes" (shown as "N/A" by "mapmem"
	 (of TurboPower Software)) of 48 and 176 bytes).

CGA and Hercules mode :
-----------------------

  For both these modes the HP-specific Extended BIOS *must* be disabled.
Otherwise there will be a 4K "hole" in the address space and the results
will be the same (i.e. not better) as given under "VGA mode :".

CGA mode :
----------
- 691648 bytes (675.4K). *Best* result under same conditions as 593328
	 bytes VGA result.
	 Note: The different "free memory utilities" started to fail or
	 give inconsistent results for these high free memory values.
	 The lowest number was 670K ("memchk"). The highest was 691648
	 bytes ("mapmem" Version 2.2).
	 The utilities were :
	 - "mapmem"  2.2/2.9 by TurboPower Software.
	 - "ramfree" 2.9     by TurboPower Software.
	 - "memchk"  5.1     from PCTools.

Hercules mode :
---------------
- 658880 bytes (643.4K). *Best* result under same conditions as 593328
	 bytes VGA result. "memchk" gave 642K.

<end of posting>