First post, by carangil
edit: Later in this thread I have the necessary files attached. I get about 100MB/s in ATTO Benchmark at 2MB sizes and higher. K6-2+ 600 Mhz.
original message:
I have an old SS7 machine that I put a SIl3512 card in. Linux likes it. Even DOS likes it.
Win98 only kind-of likes it. It sees the DOS BIOS extension (int 13) and goes into MS-DOS compatibility mode filesystem. Read speeds are fine! The built-in DOS BIOS driver lets Windows 98 read at over 30 MB/sec. (I know the theoretical max is 60 MB/sec, but UDMA never worked on this machine properly, and 30 MB is fast for me on this particular computer.)
Writing sucks bad: Write speed are 3-4 MB a second, and the mouse freezes when writing: Probably something about going into compatibility mode. ( I don't know WHY there is a such a difference between read and write speed, since read must also drop down into DOS; maybe when writing it does an extra step like flush some hardware buffer or something.)
I have the Syba version of the card, but on their site, the Syba download (Which clains to be WIN98) doesn't actually have a $Chicago$ Driver in the inf file, just NT/2000/XP/7. Windows 98 recognizes the INF, and uses it to give a name to the controller (Instead of the question mark icon, it says it a scsi controller, assigns interrupt and IO space, but then also says 'no driver files are needed or installed'),and it still insists the 'D' drive is in DOS compatibility mode. The card is a RAID card, but there's only 1 disk: Maybe this driver just enables the softraid feature I'm not using.
When I find the older 3112 drivers, they have the vxd file for win98. That is what I want for the 3512. I found links to files that 'work great' on win98 on a couple forums (Even one on this one!), but the direct link to Silicon Image is broken. Lattice took them over, and their 'Silicon Image file archive' seems very incomplete: There's no 3512 files I can find at all.
Any help would be appreciated:
- Locate correct 3512 drivers and BIOS image for WIn98 usage
OR
- How to improve WRITE performance on MS-DOS compatibility mode to match the already fast READ performance in compatibility mode.
Thanks!
Not all is lost: I can still boot on my CF card, and keep game data directories on the SATA drive. Savegame files aren't that big; its mostly a read-only drive.