Change to the directory that contains fastvid and dos4gw before trying to run fastvid. It's either that or put dos4gw somewhere in your PATH.

You might try logging vspeed results to a text file by doing vspeed > result.txt

bakemono wrote on 2026-01-11, 17:22:

Change to the directory that contains fastvid and dos4gw before trying to run fastvid. It's either that or put dos4gw somewhere in your PATH.

You might try logging vspeed results to a text file by doing vspeed > result.txt

Okay, thanks. You mean to load into the directory first as a command and then load fastvid as the next command?

And sorry, I should have clarified, I was actually referring to the DOS Benchmark tools, which come bundled with fastvid as well. I'll edit the initial post. Unless the same command can be done for those as well...?

EDIT: No, I can't get that to work either. It just says bad command or filename. 🙁

Just to make sure I've understood correctly, I put in my autoexec.bat file:

C:\DOSPRO\FASTVID
C:\DOSPRO\FASTVID\FASTVID 111 4 D6000000

Also did:

SET FASTVID=C:\DOSPRO\FASTVID

%FASTVID%\FASTVID 111 4 D6000000

The SET FASTVID+line afterwards is unnecessary, the program doesn't need an environment variable for itself and this will simply waste some of your 640KB.

CD C:\DOSPRO\FASTVID
FASTVID 111 4 D6000000
CD\

This should be all you need. The CD\ is a shorthand for going back to the root of the drive.

Also you should set the Brightness control of your monitor to a level where the background of the text stops glowing, it'll make whatever graphics you'll be seeing much less washed out looking.

Tiido wrote on 2026-01-11, 20:00:

The SET FASTVID+line afterwards is unnecessary, the program doesn't need an environment variable for itself and this will simply […]
Show full quote

The SET FASTVID+line afterwards is unnecessary, the program doesn't need an environment variable for itself and this will simply waste some of your 640KB.

CD C:\DOSPRO\FASTVID
FASTVID 111 4 D6000000
CD\

This should be all you need. The CD\ is a shorthand for going back to the root of the drive.

Also you should set the Brightness control of your monitor to a level where the background of the text stops glowing, it'll make whatever graphics you'll be seeing much less washed out looking.

Ah, okay. I may have set up an environment variable in other BATs unnecessarily. 😅 Doesn’t it need one if you’re calling a path on more than one occasion? So you can just use %FASTVID% rather than type the whole thing out?

To be honest, I didn’t even think of using ‘CD’. I’ll give it a try a bit later and report back. Thanks.

Ah, if you have many locations then environment variable makes some sense. In that case you should have "SET FASTVID=" somewhere near the exit of a batch route, which deletes the variable and frees up a small amount of memory.

Tiido wrote on 2026-01-11, 21:43:

Ah, if you have many locations then environment variable makes some sense. In that case you should have "SET FASTVID=" somewhere near the exit of a batch route, which deletes the variable and frees up a small amount of memory.

I really need to get myself that DOS for Dummies book. ^^; So, don't you have things like SET NAME= at the beginning/top? What's considered a batch route exit?

Batch file just does all the stuff in a sequence as if you entered all that text manually in DOS prompt, except it adds few extra things like GOTO and labels, and exit route would be wherever the batch file finishes things. You can have things GOTO all over the place and exit in multiple locations so such a clearing of an unused environment variable will need the statement at every such exit. Alternatively you GOTO a fixed exit location which would be the cleaner way to do things.

I only SET specific environment variables that games etc. want, such as BLASTER, ULTRASND and ULTRA16 but also some special ones such as DIRCMD

Tiido wrote on 2026-01-11, 22:23:

Batch file just does all the stuff in a sequence as if you entered all that text manually in DOS prompt, except it adds few extra things like GOTO and labels, and exit route would be wherever the batch file finishes things. You can have things GOTO all over the place and exit in multiple locations so such a clearing of an unused environment variable will need the statement at every such exit. Alternatively you GOTO a fixed exit location which would be the cleaner way to do things.

I only SET specific environment variables that games etc. want, such as BLASTER, ULTRASND and ULTRA16 but also some special ones such as DIRCMD

Hmm. I see. This is an example of a BAT file for a game I might set up:

SET UNISOUND=C:\DOSPRO\UNISOUND SET SHSUCD=C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD SET THROTTLE=C:\DOSPRO\THROTTLE SET GAME=D:\DOS\GAME […]
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SET UNISOUND=C:\DOSPRO\UNISOUND
SET SHSUCD=C:\DOSPRO\SHSUCD
SET THROTTLE=C:\DOSPRO\THROTTLE
SET GAME=D:\DOS\GAME

%UNISOUND%\UNISOUND /V50 /VW50 /VL50
%SHSUCD%\SHSUCD\SHSUCDHD /F:E:\DOS\GAME\DISK1.ISO
%SHSUCD%\SHSUCDX D:SHSU-CDH,E
%THROTTLE%\THROTTLE 5
CALL %GAME%\GAME.EXE
%SHSUCD%\SHSUCDX /D1
%SHSUCD%\SHSUCDHD /U

I'm not quite sure how you, or it, clear environment variables exactly. Would I be better having containers/functions (similar to in coding) that contain a block of commands, and have one for exiting the BAT file, and have GOTO at the end of one block?

Tiido wrote on 2026-01-11, 20:00:

Also you should set the Brightness control of your monitor to a level where the background of the text stops glowing, it'll make whatever graphics you'll be seeing much less washed out looking.

I think it might just be my phone. On some occasions everything looks blurry and I capture scanlines running up and down the screen. And then other times I’ll take a pic and everything’s fine. Like this:

At any rate, your suggestion worked, Tiido. Thank you! 😀

Now I'm going to look at orderng that book...

You need to be careful as EMM386 (or similar) will interfere with FASTVID's ability to improve LFB performance. For this reason I create unique configurations for DOS games on in Windows 98 PC (using customized PIF shortcuts).

On my P3 1.4S and Ti 4200:

1VESA mode 0x0101 available, display offset y = 0.
2VESA mode 0x4101 available, display offset y = 0.
3
4VESA mode 0x0101 reports LFB address:        F0000000
5VESA mode 0x4101 reports LFB address:        F0000000
6PCI config10 reports possible LFB address:   EC000000
7PCI config14 reports possible LFB address:   F0000000
8User (command line) reports no LFB address:
9
10VSPEED will use VESA mode 0x4101 and F0000000 as the LFB address.
11
1232bit protected mode video benchmark version 1.10. (640x480x8bit)
13
14No FASTVID and with EMM386 loaded
15Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             60.83 million bytes per second
16Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
17
18FASTVID X11 64 F0000000 with EMM386 loaded
19Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             95.48 million bytes per second
20Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
21
22No FASTVID and without EMM386 loaded
23Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             60.83 million bytes per second
24Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
25
26FASTVID X11 64 F0000000 without EMM386 loaded
27Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             95.85 million bytes per second
28Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:    183.58 million bytes per second

y2k se wrote on 2026-01-12, 02:33:

You need to be careful as EMM386 (or similar) will interfere with FASTVID's ability to improve LFB performance. For this reason […]
Show full quote

You need to be careful as EMM386 (or similar) will interfere with FASTVID's ability to improve LFB performance. For this reason I create unique configurations for DOS games on in Windows 98 PC (using customized PIF shortcuts).

On my P3 1.4S and Ti 4200:

Copy code to clipboard

1VESA mode 0x0101 available, display offset y = 0.
2VESA mode 0x4101 available, display offset y = 0.
3
4VESA mode 0x0101 reports LFB address:        F0000000
5VESA mode 0x4101 reports LFB address:        F0000000
6PCI config10 reports possible LFB address:   EC000000
7PCI config14 reports possible LFB address:   F0000000
8User (command line) reports no LFB address:
9
10VSPEED will use VESA mode 0x4101 and F0000000 as the LFB address.
11
1232bit protected mode video benchmark version 1.10. (640x480x8bit)
13
14No FASTVID and with EMM386 loaded
15Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             60.83 million bytes per second
16Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
17
18FASTVID X11 64 F0000000 with EMM386 loaded
19Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             95.48 million bytes per second
20Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
21
22No FASTVID and without EMM386 loaded
23Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             60.83 million bytes per second
24Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:     67.09 million bytes per second
25
26FASTVID X11 64 F0000000 without EMM386 loaded
27Copy DRAM to banked VGA:             95.85 million bytes per second
28Copy DRAM to linear framebuffer:    183.58 million bytes per second

Cool. Thanks for the heads-up. I had no idea that affected performance, too. I have actually got it set up with my first DOS environment using HIMEM and EMM386. ^^; I'll have to do another test and compare the results.

Just tried the benchmarks with EMM disabled and the results are identical to the ones I've recorded with EMM enabled.