Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!olivea!mintaka!charm.LCS.MIT.EDU!mikew From: mikew@charm.LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael B. Williams) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: Performance degradation in 386 enhanced mode Message-ID: <1991Jan18.214027.2762@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 18 Jan 91 21:40:27 GMT References: <4491@mindlink.UUCP> <29402@usc> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Reply-To: mikew@charm.LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael B. Williams) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 40 In article <29402@usc>, dkyoon@pollux.usc.edu (Dae-Kyun Yoon) writes: |> I agree that the performance degradation in 386 Enhaced mode has *almost* |> nothing to do with swap file. And it also has nothing to do with the |> speed of the machine. Of course, if the machine is faster, the performance |> in 386enhanced mode is better than on the slower machine. However |> we are talking about the relative performace degradation between standard |> mode and enhanced mode on the same 386(386sx) machine. |> |> The performance degradation in 386 enhanced mode is the result of |> multitasking of windows applications even a DOS app is running with |> exclusive box checked. In standard mode, if a dos app is |> activated, all other apps including windows apps are suspended. |> However, in enhanced mode, windows apps are always able to get a |> time slice of CPU. You can easily verify this by doing file transfer |> using one of the windows comm program (like winqvt), and focus on the |> DOS app which is supposed to be run exclusively. You will see, the |> file transfer's going on in background. |> |> I would appreciate any comments on my observation, and pealse correct |> me if I am wrong. Two points: 1) The term ``performance degradation'' isn't really strong enough. We're talking about a SEVERE performance degredation (60% in my case). 2) This severe performance degredation occurs on *some* similarly configured machines, but not others, even when running the same programs in the same way. Questions: 1) It may be helpful to be able to isolate the problem to 16 MHz machines. Does anyone with a 20MHz machine have this problem? 2) Bruce (your mail bounced): I have 2MB on the motherboard, so I'll disable the 4MB RAM card I have and see if that could be the problem. ________________________________________________________________________ Michael B. Williams \ 1-2-3-4, KICK THE LAWSUITS OUT THE DOOR MIT NE43-532 \ 5-6-7-8, INNOVATE DON'T LITIGATE Laboratory for Computer Science \ 9-A-B-C, INTERFACES SHOULD BE FREE 545 Technology Square \ D-E-F-0, LOOK AND FEEL HAS GOT TO GO! Cambridge, MA 02139 -------------------------------------- (617) 253-5983 Internet: mikew@athena.mit.edu CompuServe: 73667,3264