wolf@cbnewsh.att.com (thomas.wolf) (05/02/91)
Since my last query got such a good response, I thought I'd try again :-) (BTW, if my q's seem naive, it's because I just recently got a PC...prior to that I was a 100% UNIX person: no additives, no preservatives...:-) Windows 3.0 comes with a caching program, SMARTDRV, that all my PC friends tell me is one of the slowest caching programs available. I've been using this cache program under both Desqview and Windows without problems. But because my friends were all using (and highly recommended) "superpck" and "hyperdisk" (and one can always use that extra smidgen of performance), I went out and got a copy of each and tried them on my computer - expecting major performance gains...No dice. Sure, under Windows3.0, both of these programs blow away SmartDrv, but under Desqview (my development environment), SMARTDRV outperforms the other two. A couple of words as to how I 'benchmarked' the caches: I just used a stop- watch to see how many seconds a "make" (Borland C++) of one of my programs took. Here are the relative numbers (as I recall them): WINDOWS3.0 DESQVIEW NONE SUPERPCK 23 21 11 HYPERDSK 21 20 11 SMARTDRV 33 15 13 For each cache, I used the defaults, as applied by the install procedure. (BTW, SUPERPCK seemed to do strange things to my system: occasionally hanging it, and, after changing a few options, causing my harddisk to go beserk(sp?).) I know that there are all sorts of options you can set with these programs, and in the case of superpck I have (one setting brought superpck's performance to within a second of SMARTDRV when in DESQview). My question is: has anyone had similar experiences - ie. found caches to be slower under DESQview when they're normally faster than SMARTDRV? Also, if someone has found an "optimal" setting for these programs under DESQview, I would really appreciate it if you told me - I'm a little disappointed that I can't get better performance out of superpck after spending $80 on it. Just in case hardware setup makes a difference, here's my setup: '386 clone with Awards BIOS, 4Meg RAM, Orchid ProII, UltraStor ESDI controller and Maxtor 150Meg ESDI drive. QEMM 5.12 (with the patch suggested by superpck), DESQview (newest version, can't remember what it is). This setup doesn't seem to be out-of-the-ordinary but, as I mentioned above, it does cause superpck to hang the system on occasion. Thanks, in advance, for any help/info, Tom -- +-------------------------------------+ "Stupid" questions are better than | Thomas Wolf | (201) 615-4789 | no questions at all. No answer is | Bell Labs, NJ | wolf@mink.att.com | better than a stupid one. +-------------------------------------+