Adjusting your CD-ROM Cache- If you don't use your CD player that often, your system might be assigning memory for it's cache which you could reclaim. Here is how: Right click on My Computer Select Properties Then the Performance tab and click the File System button Select the CD-ROM tab Note how much memory you are assigning to the CD-ROM cache and adjust as you would like The Minimum is 64Kb (No read-ahead selected and the slider to Small) and the maximum is 1238Kb (Quad-speed or higher and the slider to Large).
Config.sys-
Check your Config.sys, some existing entries may be superfluous, especially when having run Windows 95 setup over the old Windows 3.*. The following commands are now executed by IO.SYS by default: HIMEM.SYS IFSHLP.SYS SETVER.EXE
DOS=HIGH,UMB FILES=30 BUFFERS=23 FCBS=4 LASTDRIVE=Z
STACKS=9,256 SHELL=COMMAND.COM /P
Tuning VCACHE- Windows includes disk-caching technology called VCACHE; this uses memory to store the most recently accessed information on your hard drive. Although VCACHE can grow and shrink dynamically, its size can increase to more than half of the memory on your system very quickly. However VCACHE shrinks its buffer size much more slowly. While all this speeds disk access, the memory that VCACHE uses is at least temporarily unavailable to Windows or its applications.
Actually what happens is when VCACHE steals more memory then necessary it will cause Windows to swap out more then necessary to the swap file. The end result is more HDD activity and reduced performance.
To set the VCACHE edit the system.ini file:
[VCACHE] (this line may or may not already exist in the file)
minfilecache=0
maxfilecache=2048
The maxfilecache should be no more the 20 percent of your systems total RAM. On my system with 32mgs I have found that 13 to 15 percent works best. Also, I have found that setting the min also helps. My settings are:
minfilecache=4096
maxfilecache=4096
The result on my system, with the above settings, was to reduced paging by more then 50% by freeing up the additional memory.
NOTE:
This tip is for home users and not for business intensive systems. Also, if you have 64 megs of memory or more just let windows set it own size. If you find that disk performance is more important to you then added memory for your application you may wish to leave VCACHE alone.
Virtual Memory- You can Speed up Windows95 by specifying a specific size for virtual memory, if you have enough free space on your hard drive. Right click on My Computer and select Properties. Click the Performance Tab, and then click Virtual Memory. Choose 'Let me specify my own virtual memory settings'. The normal rule is 2 1/2 times the amount of installed RAM for minimum and maximum, But I wouldn't put anything less then 60MB and 80MB is better. Press OK, and then OK again, and confirm that you want to restart your computer.
Less than 7 megs of memory?- If you installed Windows 95 on a machine with less than 7 megs of memory .. and then increase your memory above 8 meg, reinstall Windows 95 to take advantage of this memory. Installing with the smaller memory, loads a 'low memory' kernel which will not get replaced until you re-install.
Freeing Memory in DOS Windows- Need more memory when running dos programs in a dos-window, Try this, In the [386Enh] section of 'System.ini', add 'LocalLoadHigh=1'
Freeing up memory- If your not using double space or drive space (which I don't recommend using anyway) You can free up some memory by taking out DBLSPACE.ini and DBLSPACE.bin files from your root directory. The presence of these files caused the DBLSPACE. drivers to be loaded, using up A LOT of conventional memory.
Freeing more memory- Try removing the lines from your autoexec.bat which loads the CD-ROM driver for DOS. It is not needed since WIN 95 also loads its own drivers
Mem./C command- When you use the MEM /C command in an MS-DOS window, it reports zero kilobytes free memory in the upper memory area (UMA). This also occurs if the MS-DOS window is running as a Single Mode MS-DOS application. MEM /C reports zero kilobytes because after loading any real-mode drivers during startup, Windows 95 reserves all global upper memory blocks (UMBs) for Windows 95 operating system use or for expanded memory support.
Items that Windows 95 may load into the UMBs include: •API translation buffers •Application task databases
Performance-
Get the newest 32 bit protected mode drivers for all devices. This is the most important step one can take for performance improvement. Windows 95 uses 32 bit protected mode drivers to access devices and do things on the computer. When vendors put out a device for use on a PC, they generally provide a driver to make the device work with the operating system. Some devices do not need software drivers as they respond to the original operating system drivers, an example of this is an Enhanced IDE hard disk controller. I have installed some that need drivers and others that do not.
SDRAM- If you have purchased a motherboard or computer in the last year or so and are thinking about memory upgrade you might check this out. Most of the newer motherboards have one or two 168 pin DIMM sockets in which you can install SDRAM.
Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) is a new technology that runs at the same clock speed as the microprocessor. The clock on the memory chip is coordinated with the clock of the CPU, so the timing of both the memory and the CPU are in sync. This reduces or eliminates wait states, and makes SDRAM significantly more efficient than Fast Page Mode or Extended Data Out memory. Actually FP and EDO memory are becoming a significant bottleneck for the faster processors and SDRAM helps eliminate the loss of performance.
On some boards if you install SDRAM you will need to remove the other memory and also change a voltage jumper from 5.0v to 3.3v. On some newer mother boards you can populate both the SIMM and DIMM with FP or EDO memory but need to change the voltage jumper on the DIMM if you use SDRAM.
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