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DOS apps slooooow in XP

D

dbarton

Senior member

Under XP, if I use CMD to do DOS command line stuff, all is good.

If I run a DOS application , text editor (QEDIT) - offline reader (TAPCIS) etc, the keyboard response is quite slow. I can see a short lag after hitting a key, till it shows on the screen.

If I switch to full screen they are all fast, but I'd rather run in a window.

Any tips anywhere on fixing this? I've looked at 20 books, and have not seen any info that seems to help.

 
Originally posted by: Vadatajs
Get into 21st century and abandon dos. XP does not have real dos, that's probably why it's slow.
Click to expand...

Vadatajs, i dont think that is what dbarton wanted to hear. Also, many people still use the dos prompt/console inside of win 2k/XP, or at least, i sure do 🙂

dbarton,

the reason it goes slow is because the dos-prompt is being emulated, and is not a true dos prompt as is found in Windows 95, 98, and ME. I have tried several things as well, however, you will just have to get used to the lag/delay when using it inside of an editor such as QEdit or Edit. Under normal console settings and commands though, it works very well. However, you could stick to full-screen, but as you have already mentioned, you are not too fond it it (me neither).

only other thing to do is to edit the files with a text editor, such as notepad or wordpad, and then proceed to work/compile the final draft of your document/project.

good luck and have fun, as i hope that helps...

-David
 

Yes, definitely more helpful.

I wonder if someone could or will write a better DOS emulator for XP, that improves the keyboard/screen speed.

Seems like there's at least a small market for folks to use old custom biz apps and games.

 
well its probably not the slickest solution, but couldn't you just increase the thread priority level from Windows Task Manager?

ctrl+alt+del, select the processes tab, right click on cmd.exe select properties, and change the priority.

I haven't noticed any horrible lag when using the prompt on my computer. But I'm using Win2k. Maybe it could be the bloat of winXP hard at work?
 
Originally posted by: Drewpy
well its probably not the slickest solution, but couldn't you just increase the thread priority level from Windows Task Manager?

ctrl+alt+del, select the processes tab, right click on cmd.exe select properties, and change the priority.

I haven't noticed any horrible lag when using the prompt on my computer. But I'm using Win2k. Maybe it could be the bloat of winXP hard at work?
Click to expand...


Its not XP's bloat, its just that the NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) is somewhat slow.

Open a CMD window you'll notice everything is nice and fast. Now close CMD and open a COMMAND window. Now try typing, laggy eh? If you open Task Manager right now and look at the Processes tab you'll see ntvdm.exe listed.... When you run CMD the NTVDM is not started, it will not be started until you run a legacy DOS application, things will then slow. When you run COMMAND the NTVDM is launched right away and therefore it runs slow. You'll also notice you cannot use long file names in command here ethier. Try CD "Documents and Settings" in a COMMADN window, it won't work. It will work fine in a CMD window however.
 
Originally posted by: dbarton
Under XP, if I use CMD to do DOS command line stuff, all is good.

If I run a DOS application , text editor (QEDIT) - offline reader (TAPCIS) etc, the keyboard response is quite slow. I can see a short lag after hitting a key, till it shows on the screen.

If I switch to full screen they are all fast, but I'd rather run in a window.

Any tips anywhere on fixing this? I've looked at 20 books, and have not seen any info that seems to help.
Click to expand...

Part of the problem is, that if you are running a "DOS box" in a window, then the text-mode display is emulated, graphically, and only refreshed every X milliseconds, for performance reasons. There is probably a registry tweak somewhere for adjusting the text-screen-emulation refresh rate.

If you are running that DOS box full-screen, then it gets access to the real hardware, so you are running in real text mode, and all updates are instant.
 
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