rt8139d & MSCDEX and memory \ VOGONS

rt8139d & MSCDEX and memory

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First post, by Scythifuge

Posted on 2022-10-19, 22:13

Scythifuge Offline

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Greetings,

I am using a NIC based on the RT8139D chip since there are drivers for DOS and WFW3.11 which I will then be able to use to surf the information super-highway, send emails, download files from FTPs, and play some MP games. I used to be a lot better at tweaking my start up files, but these days I am using DEVLOAD /H to load some stuff into upper memory in order to be my precious 600-624k. However, once windows /net kicks in, it loads some other stuff which eats the ram. Also, I am not sure why, but MSCDEX is using 32k whereas during my tweaking of this same machine over the past few days, it was 16k at some point. Maybe DOS 7.1 and Windows 3.11 have different versions? I would definitely like it to use only 16k if possible.

Does anyone have any ideas about how to load the net stuff into upper memory, and why MSCDEX is jumping between 16k and 32k? Ultimately, I can create a multi-config.sys (which I may do for various reasons, such as reading about some AWE32 drivers which aren't need for games, apparently,) but I would like to maximize my startup files before doing so. Thank you!

Last edited by Scythifuge on 2022-10-19, 22:36. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 6, by darry

Posted on 2022-10-19, 22:31

darry Offline

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What options are you specifying and how many optical drives do you have ?

Memory usage increases with number of drives and with number of buffers .

See:

http://ps-2.kev009.com/eprmhtml/eprm0/h2180.htm
https://www.computerhope.com/mscdex.htm

Reply 2 of 6, by Scythifuge

Posted on 2022-10-19, 22:38

Scythifuge Offline

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darry wrote on 2022-10-19, 22:31:
What options are you specifying and how many optical drives do you have ? […]
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What options are you specifying and how many optical drives do you have ?

Memory usage increases with number of drives and with number of buffers .

See:

http://ps-2.kev009.com/eprmhtml/eprm0/h2180.htm
https://www.computerhope.com/mscdex.htm

I have two drives and I am just loading it and letting it sort itself out without any specifications with the intention of tweaking buffers later on after testing Wing Commander III. Maybe that is it, because I copied mscdex from archived autoexec.bat files with specifications throughout the tweaking and testing, so maybe that was when I had 16k.

Reply 3 of 6, by Scythifuge

Posted on 2022-10-19, 23:03

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That was it, thanks darry! I set up two specific drives and put the E switch, and it cut the 32k to 16k. I can still test Wing Commander III video and play with the buffers for a quad speed. Now I have to figure out this net ram usage.

Reply 4 of 6, by Horun

Posted on 2022-10-19, 23:36

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Scythifuge wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:03:

That was it, thanks darry! I set up two specific drives and put the E switch, and it cut the 32k to 16k. I can still test Wing Commander III video and play with the buffers for a quad speed. Now I have to figure out this net ram usage.

🤣 thought you said the rtl8139d did not work ;p

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 5 of 6, by Scythifuge

Posted on 2022-10-19, 23:40

Scythifuge Offline

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Horun wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:36:

Scythifuge wrote on 2022-10-19, 23:03:

That was it, thanks darry! I set up two specific drives and put the E switch, and it cut the 32k to 16k. I can still test Wing Commander III video and play with the buffers for a quad speed. Now I have to figure out this net ram usage.

🤣 thought you said the rtl8139d did not work ;p

I did? I mentioned it is taking up too much memory. Windows\net start loads rtsnd which is taking up 31k. I am looking to see if that can be reduced or loaded into upper memory. Putting DEVLOAD in front of it doesn't work. Since this is a 486, I may look into another NIC to see if the drivers use less memory. I have a 10mb 3com lying around and an available ISA slot, but it is the slowest card.

Reply 6 of 6, by Horun

Posted on 2022-10-20, 00:07

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Sorry my bad. Got confused between you and deksar in that other thread talking about 8139's..

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

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