Some senseless babbling from Ivan Todoroski to Jeff Dunlop
on 15 Nov 98  09:35:00 about PM drawing priorities......

 IT> Replying to a message in : SAVEAREA

 IT> On Friday, 13 November 1998,
 IT> JEFF DUNLOP wrote to IVAN TODOROSKI about PM drawing
 IT> priorities... 
 IT>>   If you run the ping process at any lower priority than Time Critical
 IT>>   (doesn't matter if it's Regular, Idle, or Foreground Server) you'll
 IT>>   notice it stops while you're draging the window,
 
 JD> You're misinterpreting what you see. Both ping and dir/s continue
 JD> to run, it's just the display to the screen that is suspended
 JD> while you drag the window around. For instance, even if you can't
 JD> hear dir/s chugging away in the background, you can certainly
 JD> 'freeze' ping for about five seconds, release the drag window and
 JD> observe five lines instantly appear with normal statistics.

 IT> Nope... checked it THOROUGHLY before I sent the message. If you
 IT> start ping with the normal (default) priority, and drag windows
 IT> around, it virtually stops! The five lines DON'T show up immediately
 IT> when you stop dragging the window (remember, full-window dragging
 IT> must be on). Instead, ping just continues to run with normal speed,
 IT> and the statistics for the period you dragged the window around are
 IT> far from normal, infact they are HORRIBLE!

 IT> If you run "ping localhost" you should get ZERO return
times for the
 IT> packets, but while you're dragging the window the times are EXACTLY
 IT> 1000ms, which is consistent with my MAXWAIT=1 setting in CONFIG.SYS.
 IT> (Imagine, 1 SECOND to get a reply from the SAME MACHINE!)

 IT> Because the higher priority process (dragging the window) is eating
 IT> all the cycles, the ping process only runs in short bursts
 IT> (caused by the starvation boost) one second apart, and that's the
 IT> reason why it registers the packets as returning 1 second after
 IT> sending.

I would suspect your video driver, first off.

I have a Millennium II AGP, with the 2.21 revision drivers, and I have no 
such problem.  When I ping my server, I get 0ms response no matter how 
madly I whip the window around.  I can see it updating as the window is 
moving, which is what full window drag is all about.

The window update doesn't have a higher priority, as far as I can tell.  It 
may get a temporary boost because of the activity.  What processor speed, 
and what graphics adapter do you have?

[snip]
 IT> Try it out and see for yourself (you might have to drag the window
 IT> faster if you have a fast machine and/or fast video card, or else
 IT> the PM activity might not consume 100% of CPU time, which is required
 IT> to observe the effect)

I have a Pentium II running at 266MHz, with a 75MHz bus.  I can't move the 
window any faster without burning a hole in the mouse pad.

 IT> You gave me another idea. I will change the MAXWAIT setting to 2,
 IT> and see if it will change the return times to 2000ms. If it does, my
 IT> theory is correct, and ping (or any other regular priority thread)
 IT> DOES INDEED stop (except for the short starvation boosts) while
 IT> intensive PM screen activity is going on. Read the next message for
 IT> results. I'll address it to ALL, since it may prove quite
 IT> interesting. 

Don't forget the video driver.

Mike Ruskai
thanny{at}home.com


... According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
--- Renegade v05-11 Exp