Paul and everybody: I have just finished running a 4,000 1024 x 768 pixel image *bat * .par file image rendering run in less than 5 hours on a P2/450 running in DOS 7.01 from *.bat & *.par files generated by Thore Bernstein's little Windows proggie Fractint Animations which can be found on: http://home.online.no/~thbernt/fractint.htm I really recommend it. Anyone who has used the DOS proggie FReeGo 0.11 by Ivan Muccinelli will see a similarity in the *bat and *.par files that are generated! You can get Ivan's excellent proglet at: http://web.tiscali.it/freego_rifero/ Both proggies can generate the BAT & PAR files that instruct Fractint to generate my animations. However here's the part that really impressed me. I ran the *bat and *par files from a specially configured configuration of DOS 7.01 with XMS enabled using a SMARTDRV cache of 8 megs! It was the SMARTDRV HDD cache that made all the difference! There are some little tricks and tweaks on how to configure SMARTDRV to the optimal settings for your "mix" of CPU & HDD, but once properly configured SMARTDRV really does it's job supremely. Here's the line in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file that I used in my system to load SMARTRV.EXE: LH /L:0;2,41328 /S C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE 8192 16 A C+ K /E:8192 /B:32768 /N You will need to run MEMMAKER.EXE to actually do the configuring and load SMARTDRV.EXE properly into your DOS system. There was none of the dreadful "slowing down" or mangled damaged files that I had previusly experienced when trying to run these *.bat & *par files from within a Win98 "Dos Box". The *.bat and *.par file combo just kept cranking out the files in "Disk Video Mode " using the XMS and didn't slow done until it reached the end of the *.bat file. Could it be that without the proper HDD buffering and caching, Fractint really slows down to a crawl? Even though I wasn't using generating the image files in Fractint's Direct video mode, I also loaded a DOS video accelerator and the regular screen rendering speed has also been improved. Jack O Trades also reminded me that Dos 6.xx has a 1024 file limit per sub-directory. I think DOS 7.01 is a little better in that area, but the smart move is to either save the image files to the drive root directory or tweak the *.bat files to change to different sub-directories every 1024 files or so. Brute force and more CPU muscle and clock speed are nice, but until I started using SMARTDRV.EXE, I was getting the "slow-poke" results on my P4/1Gig and K7/2Gig machines. Maybe the HDD I/O has been the problem all along. Hmmmmmm. Even with only 32, 64, or 128 Megs of RAM, there's more than enough RAM on even an older Win3.xx/Win95/Win98 machine to load a monster HDD cache and a properly tweaked and configured Vesa Video Accelerator like UNIVBE and still give Fractint more than enough free RAM and clock speed to do it's math. Once you have a large enough HDD cache (SMARTDRV) that's properly configured all the HDD I/O operations just ZIP by! I have the carcasses of older P-100 and P-200 "boat-anchor" machines with 128 meg & 256 Meg of RAM. Maybe with SMARTDRV and the proper VESA software video accelerator loaded into DOS they might have enough muscle and clock speed to provide the resources that Fractint needs. Frankly, the only reason I need Windoze is to burn CD-ROMs and network to my other machines that have the image and sound apps to make my animations and send files to my DesignJet. There are plenty od "RETRO" DOS based apps that do all that now, so maybe if I can find all those DOS apps, I'll build me a totally "RETRO" DOS box with no "Windoze"! My little DOSBOX machine has been named "RENDER" on the network and it just sits there quietly rendering away, while it's bloated "Windoze" laden "net-buddies" "MAINPC" and "PRNTSRVR" grunt, thrash, churn, and grind away, even when they're idle! Go- figure! I know that I'm a member of the "Get Fractint into Windoze" lobby, but since I've discovered this radical improvement in the image rendering speed, I'm no longer all that disappointed with Fractint being such an "old-timer" and a "slow-poke". I'd really like to hear how any other Fractologists have managed to radically improve Fractint's performance in either this or any other way! BTW Does Fractint in batch mode need any special DOS resources like STACKS, FCBS, FILES, or BUFFERS? What settings would you recommend? Enjoy! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul N. Lee" <Paul.N.Lee@Worldnet.att.net> To: <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:47 PM Subject: Re: [Fractint] Problems Using Fractint With Bat Files In Win98 Dos Box.
Tony Parker wrote:
Paul: Thanks all your for your help and comments.
You are more than welcome!! :-)
Here's the ftp type download address for olddos.exe. ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/mslfiles/olddos.exe
Most of the old Windows and DOS items may be found on the various levels of Windows install and upgrade CDs. They are usually located in the TOOLS directory on the CD (such as SMARTDRV.EXE, EMM386.EXE, MEM.EXE, etc.). All sorts of things that might be useful in the correct environment.
Sincerely, P.N.L. ------------------------------------------------- http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/PNL_Fractals.html
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