Jim: I really think your idea of loading Fractint to run in memory is intriguing and most elegant. Win98 allows users to create a startup disk which contains an autoexec.bat and a setramd.bat. Those BAT files contain language and device statements that refer to loading a RAMDRIVE.SYS from which to run the various RESCUE and SETUP tools. Provided that Fractint.exe is located on a FAT32 file system partition, I see no reason why the BAT file on the boot floppy can't find Fractint on the harddrive and load it into the RAMDRIVE Would you be willing to post your autoexec.bat, setramd.bat, msdos.ssys and config.sys files to show us how you loaded Fractint into the RAMDRIVE? I've also observed that Fractint's "Video Disk Mode" uses Expanded Memeory Services which is EMS. How much EMS should I allow? Several Fractint "old-timers" have discouraged me from using EMS, on the grounds that XMS is faster but if the "Video Disk Mode" is calling for EMS, shouldn't I be loading EMS? Is there a way to configure Fractint.exe or Sstools.ini how to use memory. I think loading Fractint into protected memory like a TSR is just just so elegant. BTW once loaded into memory can Fractint be called from a BAT file? All the best! Tony ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Muth" <jamth@mindspring.com> To: <fractint@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 9:38 AM Subject: RE: [Fractint] Loading FRACTINT into DOS The Ultimate Fractint Boot Disk

At 01:20 PM 11/4/02 -0000, Iain Stirling wrote:

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What about [running Fractint from] a RAMDRIVE or RAMDISK.

That is how I run Fractint on my fractal-dedicated machine. The program loads and performs its operations faster, but the images take the same time to generate. BTW, I don't think that DOS-7 (the windows 9x etc. version) has ramdrive capability. I use DOS-6.22.

Jim M.

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