New versions of software are becoming so beefed up that they
should be tested for steroids. The executable file that starts PageMaker
4.0 is 1.3 Mb. Corel Draw requires 8 Mb, unless you install the
clip art also—then the number rises to over 15. The fact that
these new software programs cry out for a 386 machine is accepted
by virtually all PC publishers, but many users feel that that edict
doesn’t go far enough. A standard medium-speed 386 might not
be up to the task of driving new Windows 3.0 software. I recently
recommended that a friend switch to a 386 machine to run Windows
3.0 and PageMaker 4.0, because her AT wouldn’t be fast enough.
She bought a 386 SX, we loaded everything onto it, and ran the software.
Then I sheepishly told her that she might want to get a faster 386,
because this one might not be fast enough.
How fast is fast? More importantly, how
do you achieve fast? I recently completed
an overhaul of my system, in pursuit of
determining just how much hardware muscle
I needed to run Windows software acceptably,
and which particular components have the
most impact on performance. My results
might
surprise you—they surprised me.
My system began as a 386-20, with a 100
Mb hard drive and 4Mb of memory. It ended
up as a 386-33, with a 150 Mb hard drive
and 8 Mb of memory. My display adaptor
and monitor remained a constant. I had
expected that the jump from a 20Mhz board
to a 33 would be noticeable and dramatic;
it was the former, not the latter. I had
expected the move to a bigger and faster
hard drive to be significant; it was.
I had expected the increase in memory
to return a slight increase in performance;
it didn’t—its return was exceptional.
No. 1: Memory, the Key to Happiness
Without a doubt, the most significant
component in my upgrade was the move to
8Mb of RAM. It was also the cheapest,
what with 1MB SIMs dipping well below
$50 each. I am convinced that insufficient
memory is the leading cause of software
crashes and erratic behavior, and among
the guilty parties are software developers
who understate minimum requirements. Ventura
Publisher, for instance, cites 2Mb of
RAM as the minimum requirement for running
the Windows version. Regular users of
the product know that to be a joke.
These monsters need elbow room in a big
way, and the more you give them the happier
they are. Increased speed of a computer
is only significant if it translates into
a similar increase in your productivity.
Barring outright incompetence on your
part, or choosing crummy software, the
biggest deterrent to productivity is software
that crashes and systems that lock up.
Therefore, my advice is the same to everyone,
regardless of their software choices or
the type of documents they produce: make
sure you get a motherboard that can accommodate
at least 8 Mb of RAM and fill it to capacity.
There is just no sense in skimping in
this very critical area, especially when
memory costs are so low as to be almost
trivial. Sufficient reserves of memory
also make possible the second most important
component.
No. 2: A Cache of Memory for Your Hard
Drive
How ironic that the second most important
component costs between zero and 50 dollars.
With 8Mb of memory, you can afford to
devote a full 1Mb to disk caching, the
magical operation that substantially reduces
disk drive activity. If your system can
read data from memory instead of from
the comparatively slow magnetic medium
of your hard drive, you are in for enormous
time-savings. The larger the cache, the
more data can be stored in RAM. Desktop
publishing applications stand to gain
considerably from disk caching, as there
are many tasks that require repeated trips
to the hard drive to retrieve massive
amounts of code. Screen fonts, dialog
box overlay files, printer drivers, help
files, templates, style sheets—these
program parts are continuously being called
into action. Th larger your cache, the
more of their code stays in memory.
Many of today’s shell, menu, and swiss-army-knife
type programs come bundled with disk cache
software, and perhaps the most highly
touted cache of all, HyperDisk, is available
as shareware. Even if you go with Microsoft’s
low-end SMARTDRV, you’re way ahead of
the game. The more you can buffer the
activity of your hard drive, the more
you reduce the importance of Component
No. 3...
No. 3: The Hard Drive
Disk caching notwithstanding, data makes
its journey into memory from one source—your
hard drive (unless you only work off of
floppies, in which case you are beyond
help). Disk drive speeds are several orders
of magnitude below memory speed, and the
best you can do is soften the blow with
the fastest hard drive you can afford.
It’s practically a given that you’re
going to need close to 100Mb of capacity,
maybe more. In addition, you should keep
your eye on two other numbers: access
time and data transfer rate, the first
measured in milliseconds (smaller numbers
being better) and the second measured
in kilobytes of data per second (larger
numbers being better). Access times should
be no higher than 20. Investing in a hard
drive with access times in the low teens
will result in real and noticeable improvements
in system performance.
While you can cache 1Mb or so of data,
Windows and the software running thereunder
routinely throw around megabytes of data
as if they were juggling balls. The faster
the data come off of the hard drive, the
better.
No. 4: The Speed of the Processor
Much to my surprise, the clock speed
of the 386 board resulted in the smallest
improvement. Don’t get me wrong—a
33Mhz machine is definitely faster than
a similar 16, 20, or a 25Mhz machine,
and the differential cost is small enough
to tempt many users who are on the fence
about which and how many components to
upgrade. But upgrading the motherboard
and leaving memory count at 2 or 4Mb,
or upgrading the board but leaving your
38Ms hard drive in the system is not the
right call. A 16Mhz 386 with 8Mb will
routinely outperform a 33Mhz 4Mb uncached
system.
Things have changed since the entre of
Windows 3.0. It used to be that adding
a turbo board or a replacement motherboard
was the best thing you could do. Memory
was an afterthought. Today, it is the
most precious resource of all, and should
be first on your list of upgrade items.
I have little doubt that as I contemplate
my next move, I will look seriously at
replacing the 1Mb SIMs on my board, increasing
to 16Mb of RAM and dedicating 4Mb of RAM
to a disk cache. Sounds like overkill?
Not anymore.
This article really was published,
in 1991, and the author was serious in
all of his assertions. Scary, eh...?
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