OS/2 e-Zine! - The Need For Speed

The Need For Speed

- by Jon Cochran

Let me start off this month by saying that this column will be a hodgepodge of tidbits I've wanted to include in past columns, but haven't had the room. Am I slacking? Yes, I'm waiting until I can get my hands on a copy of Warp 4.0 to play with. But we're all doing that, aren't we?

Overdrives: 2nd Opinion

Well, I think I was wrong. After looking at a system with the 586/133 CPU and a system with the P83 Overdrive, the P83 really seems a lot faster. According to benchmarks, the P83's FPU doesn't seem all that much faster than that of the 133. But the internals of the P83 really make the difference here. The 32K cache and the superscalar technology both combine to make a chip that is really faster than you'd think it could be.

I should point out that I'm talking about the 83Mhz version. This is the version designed for systems with a 33mhz bus speed. The other Pentium overdrive, the 63mhz version, probably won't perform as well due to the 25mhz bus design. Yeah, that 486/50 sure seemed like a good deal at the time, but you probably should of gotten the /33DX version...

So is the Pentium overdrive worth it? If you are willing to pay the US$60 price difference between that and the 586/133, it most definitely is. If your system supports the P24T overdrive, go for it. Otherwise...

Life With Cyrix

My Cyrix 6x86 133 seems to be doing quite well, thanks. The FPU benchmarks poorly compared with a true Pentium chip, so I'm assuming VTD will be out of the question (as you may or may not know, VTD is highly dependent on the FPU). The official line seems to be that if your FPU has the horsepower, VTD will run. The Cyrix 133, it seems, is a bit iffy on this.

I haven't had any of the heat problems I've been hearing about, and hopefully it'll stay that way. No compatibility problems either. Then again, I haven't tried Quake.

Tiny Tidbits

If you do decide to get a Pentium-class overdrive, be sure to change the Maxwait line in your config.sys to MAXWAIT=2 This really seems to help smooth out the system. OS/2 doesn't do that by default (except on Aptiva preloads), so it's something you have to do by hand.

Now that there's a native Netscape/2, you can safely delete your old Windows version of Netscape, and REM out the DOS TCP/IP support from your config.sys (assuming the only thing you need the DOS TCP/IP support for is Netscape). To do this just rem out the following lines:

           DEVICE=C:\TCPIP\BIN\VDOSTCP.VDD
                DEVICE=C:\TCPIP\BIN\VDOSTCP.SYS
                RUN=C:\TCPIP\BIN\VDOSCTL.EXE

If you rem those lines out, you'll save a bit of memory.

If you've got a really fast Internet connection, you can download prerelease versions of Freelance Graphics and WordPro from Lotus. I haven't a clue if they work, since in order to run them you need to download a "Special Edition FixPak 23", and that FP23SE simply refuses to install on my machine, and I haven't a clue why. Oh well, I can wait for 4.0.

Finally, CD-ROM running a bit pokey these days? If you've got ram to spare, look for the line

   IFS=\OS2\BOOT\CDFS.IFS /Q

And add a /c:4 to the end of it. The switch will double the default CD-ROM cache to 256K, which may make a difference in performance. As always, your mileage may vary.

Next month, I'll talk about OS/2 4 and how to avoid the mistakes I'm probably going to make when I install it.

By the way, I'm looking for benchmarks. If you've got any of the following processors:

Cyrix 6x86 133 and up
; Pentium Overdrives any speed
; or AMD 586/133

Send me your benchmarks! Download Sysbench from Hobbes and send me the results (and be sure to tell me what kind of system you have). In the meantime, thanks!

Jon Cochran is a full time student at Rider University majoring in History/Secondary Education. He hopes (or at least his parents do) to graduate soon.

[Our Sponsor: PMView - The fast, fun, flexible way to view and modify images under OS/2.]

This page is maintained by Falcon Networking. We welcome your suggestions.