;------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; This is the README.TXT file for TURBOCD CD-ROM cache device driver ; ; (C) Copyright FarStone corp. 1993, All rights reserved. ;------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preface : ========= Have you an experience running MS-Windows(TM) without disk caching drivers (without SMARTDRV command in AUTOEXEC.BAT) ? What a terrible hard work for hard disk in this situation ? How about your CD-ROM drives ? It seems to be over loaded when running MS-Windows (TM) multimedia applications or titles (such as Microsoft(R) BookShelf(TM)). TURBOCD (TM) CD-ROM cache device driver is target to resolve this problem. TURBOCD can easily increase CD-ROM performance by 2 to more than 30 times faster, and free as much available conventional memory as without it. System requirement : ==================== To get the benefit from TURBOCD, you need: 1. A CD-ROM drive compliant to MPC (Multimedia PC) 2. At least 256 KB of extended memory. TURBOCD Overview ================ TURBOCD is a professional and experienced cache device driver for CD-ROM devices. It will improve CD-ROM performance from 2 to more than 30 times faster than without it dependent on applications. (please refer to "test report section" in this file). In addition to good performance improvement, TURBOCD also has many other smart features. TURBOCD has an integrated installation program, well test with existing hardware, software and related systems, has on-line help, device driver status and statistics report program, intelligent memory allocation strategy, easy to unload from system, and plus all above, TURBOCD may incredibly use none extra conventional memory of system ! TURBOCD features : ================== 1. Dramatically improve CD-ROM device performance from 2 to 30 times faster. 2. TURBOCD is a professional, experienced product and support the largest cache size up to 64 MB. 3. Command line startup, with unload capability. 4. Integrated with install, status check, unload, on-line help, and others. 5. Automatically detect and allocate memory. 6. Very small and efficient resident code (TSR), at least 7 KB. 7. Can configured to eat nothing of extra conventional memory. Installation ============ It is quite easy to install the TURBOCD CD-ROM device driver, run next at DOS command prompt : > TURBOCD /SETUP Follow the setup program to install TURBOCD onto your system. If you want to change the configuration of TURBOCD, you can run setup program again, TURBOCD setup program will keep track of your current setting and setup the new configuration. Note : You have to reboot to make the new setup active. TURBOCD command syntax : ======================== TURBOCD has the following command line syntax : 1. > TURBOCD /SETUP : setup onto your machine. 2. > TURBOCD [dddddd]: Start TURBOCD (TSR) and use [dddddd] KB of memory as cache, ddddd from 256 to 65535 KB. [dddddd] is option, see note for detail description. 3. > TURBOCD /UN : unload from memory, free all memory used by TURBOCD to system. 4. > TURBOCD [/? | /ST | /ON | /OFF | MAX | MIN] /? or /ST : Help or show TURBOCD driver status /ON or /OFF : Enable or Disable TURBOCD cache driver /MAX or /MIN : Cache all or directory only, Default is MAX if cache buffer size > 512 KB Note : TURBOCD is started by command line "TURBOCD [dddddd]", where ddddd size is optional, it tells TURBOCD allocate how much of system XMS memory for the CD-ROM buffer. The larger the buffer the better CD-ROM performance gained. The size can from 256 to 65535 (256 KB to 64 MB). If you do not specify dddddd, TURBOCD will use the following table to allocate system RAM (XMS RAM) as cache buffer. Free XMS memory TURBOCD allocates ---------------------------------------------------------------- less than 256 KB none (fail to load) less than 1024 KB allocate all > = 1024 KB allocate half of available with maximum buffer size = 2048. Note : If you want to allocate cache buffer size larger than 2048 KB, you have to specify the [dddddd]. TURBOCD will allocate maximum of 2048 KB without this parameter. Note : /UN unload command will free all of the memory occupied by TURBOCD, include cache buffer and program code. Note : /MAX will cache all of the data read from CD-ROM, and /MIN cache the directory information of CD-ROM only. You can change it at any time. By default, TURBOCD will use /MAX methodology except cache buffer size less than 512 KB. Free more conventional memory ============================= After you have installed the TURBOCD CD-ROM device driver, you can release the buffer allocate for MSCDEX.EXE (TM). There is an "/M:number" parameter with MSCDEX.EXE command line. The "number" means to allocate how many 2 KB buffers for MSCDEX, which allocates memory from conventional memory (under 640KB) and that decreases your free conventional memory. In general the buffers allocated are 12 ("/M:12"). If we install TURBOCD onto system, then these buffers have no benefit to CD-ROM performance according to the speed test, so actually we can decrease it to 4 without inferring performance of CD-ROM drives if TURBOCD is loaded. If we reduce the number to 4 then we can free 8 buffer space (16 KB) of conventional memory from MSCDEX. We recommend to update the MSCDEX buffer number to 4 if you need more conventional memory. Next is an example MSCDEX and TURBOCD commands in AUTOEXEC.BAT after you installed TURBOCD and changed MSCDEX buffer number to 4: in AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /M:4 /D:SONY_000 C:\TURBOCD.EXE 1024 Performance test report : ========================= Please find detailed performance test report in file "report.txt" TURBOCD developer : =================== TURBOCD project leader had been given an excellent comment for his disk cache driver developed for a famous world wide PC company in 1988. In the LanTime NSTL test reported in 1990, his cache driver was outstanding the other competitors, such as Microsoft SMARTDRV, and Multisoft PCKwirk cache. Technical highlights : ====================== Intelligent cache method used, which include the read-ahead, data hashing technology, priority data handling, and many others. Notes: ====== Genius is a registered trademark of KYE systems corp. TURBOCD is a trademark of Far Stone Technology Corp. Microsoft is registered trademark of Microsoft corp. Acer is registered trademark of Acer inc.