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From: rb9a@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Raul  Baragiola)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: How do I increase "Free system resources"
Message-ID: <1990Dec14.221046.21926@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 14 Dec 90 22:10:46 GMT
References: <3130042@hplsla.HP.COM> <1990Dec11.152056.18243@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1990Dec14.181308.27047@rti.rti.org>
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In article <1990Dec14.181308.27047@rti.rti.org> bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright) writes:
>In article <1990Dec11.152056.18243@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) writes:
>> In article <6176@hsv3.UUCP> jls@hsv3.UUCP (James Seidman) writes:
>> >
>> Which
>> brings me to the point raised by another netter as a question. If I want
>> to run something fast (like a simulation) I have to go out of Windows, 
>> loosing its multitasking ability. This doesn't have to be like that, it
>> should be possible to use 80% of the CPU for the simulation in the
>> background and share 20% for word processing, printer spooling and 
>> communications.
>
>I think we need more information on the problem you're having.  Is the
>simulation program a normal DOS program, or a Windows program?  Are
>you running in 386 mode or Standard Mode?  (If it's a normal DOS
>program and you're running in Standard mode you won't be able to run
>simulations in the background in a reasonable way).  Does the program
>use graphics?  If so, and if it's a normal DOS program, Windows doesn't
>provide very efficient emulation of the graphics card for such programs
>and you may be better off to run the program outside Windows or convert
>it to run under Windows.
>
I'm using 386 mode.  But what I describe is not _my_ problem.  Several
netters have posted many times in this newsgroup about it. I also
remember some benchmark and someone reporting of all the permutations
on switch settings.  My problem is not limited to a particular program,
but in the specific case of the simulation, it is a normal DOS application
which uses graphics (but not when it is running in background).

>It really isn't a big problem to convert number-crunching programs
>to Windows, at least if they are writtin in C.

Only 2% of my programs are written in C.  But I think the question is:
what is the overhead (in CPU time) imposed by the Windows environment?
How can it be lowered? In many scientific applications we are not
concerned with graphics or I/O, just with pure MFLOPS (sorry for that
ill-defined term, but you know what I mean).  And I want to use the
computer for other things (like word processing, communications) while
more than 80% of the speed of the CPU is being used in the background
task.  Is this asking too much?

--
Raul A. Baragiola                               \Internet: raul@virginia.edu
Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics          \Phone: (804)-982-2907
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270