Smartdrv isn't good enough?

You're right. I should try that. Thank you. 😀

Before I try SmartDrv, are there any better solutions for disk caching?

BTW, I can't apply SmartDrv right now, because my Win98SE tower is at my mother's house, and I'm not there right now. 🙁

Harry Potter wrote on 2024-08-24, 16:20:

Before I try SmartDrv, are there any better solutions for disk caching?

Ramdrive, cache the entire app.

Back in the day I used PC-CACHE. It has smaller memory footprint and it was faster with only 256kb of buffer. I'm not sure how compatible is with FAT32. So now I only use smartdrv.

ux-3, thank you. I have a DOS-based RAM drive installed in Windows mode and can do the same for my DOS setup. Also, I have enough memory for a huge RAM drive and can keep programs compressed even I admittedly don't need to and provide batch files to decompress them to the drive on access. kixs, I believe I have enough UMBs in DOS mode for SmartDrv and can use that for now.

A software called Helix Multimedia Cloaking has a special version of SmartDrive that runs in Extended Memory.
It also comes with a mouse driver and an special version of MSCDEX that runs in Extended Memory.
Some software products bundle some of these programs, like for example the Logitech mouse driver.
Cloaking technology can be an alternative to using UMBs. Because, some Windows 98 era motherboards have a lot of bloat in the UMA and freeing UMBs can be tricky.
Anyway, it's just an alternative idea. If enough UMBs are available, there's no need to go and buy extra software.

Jo22: I thank you for your advice. I really don't want to buy extra. Now, IIRC, I have 88k total UMBs I think with QEMM's Stealth mode and want to free up more UMBs. I think I have enough for now, though. That's why I'm asking for an alternative disk cache program.