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Can I skip Smartdrive?

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First post, by egbertjan

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My configuration is a AMD K6 2+ 500 MHz, mobo Asus P5A-B rev 1.04, 32 MB RAM, Samsung 850 pro 128 GB via IDE/SATA converter. When I start the computer an ALI HDD IDE-driver is loaded, so that the HDD comes in DMA modus with ATA33.
Is it still necessary or usefull to load Smartdrive.exe i.e. for certain games or other applications? Because smartdrive uses about 30 KB of conventional memory.

Reply 1 of 43, by myne

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It makes file copies much faster

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Reply 3 of 43, by kixs

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For DOS... Load SmartDrv in high memory and it will use a lot less.

Otherwise Windows uses it's own cache (also in DOS Prompt).

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Reply 4 of 43, by Jo22

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egbertjan wrote on 2024-10-16, 13:52:

Is it still necessary or usefull to load Smartdrive.exe i.e. for certain games or other applications? Because smartdrive uses about 30 KB of conventional memory.

Smartdrive makes game experience smoother, if a lot of files are being involved.
Might be useful for CD-ROM games, where there are lots of seeks.
Also very useful on period-correct single-speed and double-speed CD-ROM drives.

Btw, there are alternatives to Smartdrive. PC-Tools by Central Point has PC-Cache, which works for HDD and floppy, I think.
Helix Multimedia Cloaking has replacement drivers for SMARTDRV, MSCDEX and MOUSE that run past 1 MB mark. They take up 1KB each in conventional memory.
A memory manager is being required, though, which is included. It also provides DPMI.

Edit: Picture attached.
Edit: Picture attached.
Edit: Pictures attached.

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Last edited by Jo22 on 2024-10-17, 02:54. Edited 3 times in total.

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Reply 5 of 43, by egbertjan

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leileilol wrote on 2024-10-16, 14:34:

If you're planning to play a Build engine game in pure DOS on FAT32 partitions, then it's a must.

I use DOS 6.22 with Fat 16.

Reply 6 of 43, by Jo22

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Smartdrive is natively supported by MS-DOS 6.2x. It supports undocumented DOS APIs etc.
If Smartdrive is being loaded, it will perform duties of BUFFERS and FILES in config.sys file.
It will also speed up things like DIR command, I think. Similar to how FASTOPEN does.

Due to it's caching nature, I assume it will make DOS process certain things in "one row" rather than proccessing it one by one.

Opening/closing files via DOS API might be more instant if Smartdrive is loaded.
There's no need to find the file first each time, because Smartdrive remembers it.

FASTOPEN might have a similar effect, maybe.
It keeps a copy of filenames in memory, a bit akin to hold a FAT copy in memory.

Running SHARE is also useful in general, by the way, I think.
It's useful if networking is used and if multiple applications might open same file.

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Reply 7 of 43, by egbertjan

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I read all kinds of things here that should go slower if I turn off smartdrive. I can't imagine that with an SSD samsung 850 pro in dos 6.22 with IDE driver from ali chip that puts it in udma 2 on 33mb it becomes slower without smartdrive. By loading the ali hdd driver the access time of the ssd and therefore speed has improved a lot and loading games and programs in dos has become much faster. Is it still necessary to use smartdrive in this situation?

Reply 8 of 43, by Jo22

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🤷

The hardware surely is very quick already and doesn’t need it.
Question is how well MS-DOS 6.2 itself runs with/without it, maybe. Needs testing.

As far as benchmarks go I'm just a layman, I'm afraid. 😕

One tip, though: Later hardware might even run better with a memory manager and all sorts of feature complete drivers, generally speaking.
While a 386 or 486 has performance loss in V86 mode and is most stable in Real-Mode,
later 486 chips and Pentiums may see a performance gain by running in Enhanced V86 (VME, as used by QEMM 7 and up).
Things like interrupts and A20 Gate can be simulated quicker than using the real hardware available in Real-Mode.

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Reply 9 of 43, by jmarsh

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With 32MB of RAM it would be silly not to use smartdrv under DOS.
It's still going to greatly reduce the amount of data sent over the bus as well as reduce the amount of physical writes sent to the drive.

Reply 10 of 43, by egbertjan

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I turned off the smart drive. I don't notice that it's off. Everything is just as fast and I have the same number of frames everywhere. I tested Duke Nukem 3d for the same number of frames and measured it to start just as quickly with and without a smart drive. I now have a lot more free memory. What could still cause problems for me on this PC without a smart drive?

Reply 11 of 43, by myne

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It's just a cache.
No problems.

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Re: The thing no one asked for: KICAD 440bx reference schematic

Reply 12 of 43, by Jo22

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^True. I was able to live without it on my 286.

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Reply 13 of 43, by auron

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jmarsh wrote on 2024-10-17, 02:33:

With 32MB of RAM it would be silly not to use smartdrv under DOS.
It's still going to greatly reduce the amount of data sent over the bus as well as reduce the amount of physical writes sent to the drive.

that is also my thinking. accessing RAM should always be faster than a drive behind a PCI interface, which is also sharing its bandwidth/access time with other cards.

besides saving conventional memory, one case for not using smartdrive i can think of is quake, as it actually allocates all of the available RAM under DOS. so maybe with heavy mods and some tweaked settings, there could be a tradeoff here - especially if a machine only had 16 mb RAM.

though one thing i've wondered is whether large smartdrive caches could possibly incur a performance overhead in some cases, because it seems to me more than 4mb was a bit unheard of in the day. in practice i have not had any issues with 8mb on pentiums though.

Reply 14 of 43, by jakethompson1

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Fun random fact: If your Dosstart.bat (or whatever configuration you've set up for a .PIF for your game that needs MS-DOS mode) loads smartdrv, when you exit the shell, the machine will cleanly reboot instead of attempting to boot back into Windows. It's as if smartdrv or Windows (not sure which) realizes it's not a good idea to boot Windows with smartdrv loaded. If you don't run smartdrv, it will boot back into Windows with mscdex and your mouse driver still taking up memory.

Reply 15 of 43, by auron

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that's weird, because AFAIK you can actually load smartdrive in autoexec.bat and boot win9x. looked it up and remembered, the case they give for this are some (probably old) CD drives that need real-mode drivers. old KB article about this: http://manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/msdos7/smartdrv.htm

Reply 16 of 43, by Jo22

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🤷

SmartDrive was officially being supported in Windows 3.1x, at least.
There even was a Windows utility being bundled with MS-DOS 6.22, SMARTMON.

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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 18 of 43, by Jo22

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^I was able to use the Windows 3.1 FastDisk driver by Micro House on Windows 95 and it worked.
I've also used Windows 3.1 sound, graphics and scanner drivers on Windows 95 before.

Edit: I can be wrong, but I remember having FastDisk, 32-Bit File Access and SmartDrive working on WfW 3.11.
SmartDrive was needed to cache the CD-ROM drive (and floppy) because 32-Bit File Access wouldn't do it.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 19 of 43, by jmarsh

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egbertjan wrote on 2024-10-17, 02:42:

I turned off the smart drive. I don't notice that it's off.

Well this was a pointless thread. OP asked a question, received several opinions and then promptly ignored them all.