Jack Stein,

07-Nov-99 11:14:06, Jack Stein wrote to Linda Proulx
 JS> Linda Proulx wrote in a message to Peter Knapper:
 LP>> -=> Peter Knapper wrote to Linda Proulx <=-
          Subject: Re: dos games under Warp 4

 JS> Anyway, 32MB of ram is plenty for OS/2.  I ran in 8 for years, no
 JS> complaints, and now only have 20, and that is also plenty.
 JS> Horrible GUI pig apps like Netscape, WINDOWS 3.x and so on can
 JS> never have enough memory or CPU speed, or Disk speed, or video
 JS> memory,

I was relatively satisfied with 16MB of RAM on my 486-66 with Warp3, even
using NetScape and Win-OS/2.  That actually worked better than 20MB of
mis-matched RAM.  But Warp4 enticed me to upgrade to P200i with 64MB RAM (in a
perfectly matched set.)

 JS> so unless you have a Cray super computer, I guess you will always need
 JS> more muscle.  Not sure a Cray would help with some of this garbage that
 JS> is out today

Speaking of garbage, Lotus SmartSuite for Warp (which is Open32) not the
previous SmartSuite'97 (which did have 3 native OS/2 apps along with the
Win-OS/2 junk), falls into that category IMO.  Thus even a P200i with 32MB of
RAM was not enough to prevent jerky screen re-writes when scrolling down a
large word processor DOC or spreadsheet.  And VoiceType (Warp4 only) (Pentium
recommended) may run with 32MB RAM but works much better with 64MB RAM.  Of
course IMO VoiceType is just a fad for 99.99% of OS/2 users, since someone
could learn to type faster and in less months of training than VoiceType
requires.

Of course I just *had* to try every new toy, so I promptly upgraded from 32MB
to 64MB RAM (in a perfectly matched set.)  So later when I tried StarOffice
Suite, it was very happy.

I have read several reports from others who tried to run StarOffice on a 486
and were not very happy.  I have a feeling a 386 would crawl with it, no
matter how much RAM you have.

IMO there is race between many new HardWare developers and many new SoftWare
developers to see which 1 can force the user to upgrade.  Some old timers
like Jack will probably be content with slower systems, because they know
where their niche is, and can resist the temptation to have the latest and
greatest, when what they have been using works very well.

AFAIK Jack has never said this straight out, but I think 1 of the reasons he
is still using Warp3 on a 486 is because he found it challenging to figure
out what was the best HardWare/Price for a Pentium.  And the few new features
of Warp4 were not that important to Jack.  And while Warp4 will install on a
486 and automatically not install VoiceType, Warp4 is more demanding than
Warp3 in both RAM and CPU.

I remember many msgs about the time those large Suites were 1st released, that
suggested that doubling the amount of RAM would provide better performance
increases than making 2 steps upward in CPU speed.  Of course that was about
the time Pentiums were becoming popular and there were many with less than
200MHz.

Anyway I agree that 32MB of RAM is plenty for OS/2 Warp3 on a 386,
considering that some of the popular Suites probably would not be happy with
a 386, and thus you would not be trying to get them to perform up to par, or
use them at all.  But given the desire to upgrade, then I would not put money
in a 386 nor 486 nor even a Pentium less than 200MHz.  And to get good
performance out of Warp4 (with most any app) I would think 32MB would be bare
minimum.  At least I'm satisfied with my P200i with 64MB RAM, in spite of
having seen what a P450i with 256MB RAM can do.

Half of being happy is to be content with what you have as long as it performs
the tasks you want.

     Thanks and Good Luck,        Andy Roberts
                                  andy@shentel.net
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