Slow Performance Under Windows NT/XP/2000/2003

 

Check Fast Mode Operation

Start Installation Workshop and check that Activate Fast Mode is ticked under Install|Advanced|Special Options.

 

When Activate Fast Mode is unticked, CAPITAL requests a "hard write" to the hard disk of the PC for every record written to the database. This Behaviour overrides the intention of the operating system disk cache. It is more efficient for the operating system to write a large block of data at once, rather than lots of small blocks one after the other.

 

generate/mistake.gifActivate Fast Mode should only be ticked when the PC running CAPITAL is unstable and failing regularly. This feature will increase reliability and reduce the possibility of data corruption. However, it is important that the problems in the PC be corrected, rather than rely solely on turning off the Fast Mode setting. Disabling Fast Mode will reduce the incidence of corruption but not prevent it over the long term.

 

This setting appears to affect performance on NT, including Windows 2000, more significantly than on Windows 95/98 and ME. It may be the case that there is more disk writing overhead under NT and Windows 2000 or that Windows 95/98 and ME are not always writing to the hard disk as thoroughly, when requested to do so, possibly for performance reasons.

Compatible Hardware Timer Emulation (CAPITAL 2.7 only)

The following procedure may improve performance on some systems when running NT:

 

  1. Right-click on the program's icon or entry in Windows Explorer

  2. Click on the Program tab

  3. Click on the Advanced button

  4. Tick Compatible Hardware Timer Emulation

  5. Click OK

  6. Click OK

    7.  

    System performance of other applications is sluggish when running CAPITAL 2.7

    If you are running Windows NT set the idle time sensitivity property to "high". CAPITAL should be set to run on the highest setting possible. This can be done by pointing to the CAPITAL icon, clicking the right mouse and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu.

    You can also control how much time CAPITAL releases to other applications. The more it releases, the slower CAPITAL will run but the faster other applications running with it will perform.

    In the AUTOEXEC.BAT of your computer add this statement:

    SET CAPNTIDLE=nn

    where nn = 1 to 255. The default value is 75.

    Note: For Windows ME you will need to place this statement inside a batch file that is executed before CAPITAL is started.

    Setting this value to 1 would allocate maximum time resources to running CAPITAL. If you set this value on a "server" computer (the computer whose hard disk has CAPITAL on it), then workstations accessing the server may run more slowly.

    If you set this value to 0, the default value of 75 is used.

    You can turn off CPU resource sharing in order to allow CAPITAL to run at maximum speed. Do this like so:

    SET CAPNTIDLE=OFF

    However the above setting is not recommended on a 'server' because the server computer needs to manage the data access requests from other computers. If resource sharing is off, the 'server' computer may run faster at the expense of all the other computer sharing its hard disk.

    The measurable effects of the above setting is extremely Windows version dependent. The setting normally has less effect on Windows 95/98 then on NT 4, but this is not a problem as Windows 95/98 tend to have better CPU resource sharing for DOS applications than NT.

    4/5/2001


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