UltraCD CD-ROM cache driver V2.10 User Guide ============================================ (for MS-DOS and Windows) Copyright Notice ================ Copyright 1993, Far Stone Tech Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the express written permission of Far Stone Tech. Corporation. or Fax to 886-2-203 9222 for details. Trademarks ========== Far Stone is a registered trademark of Far Stone technology corporation. Microsoft and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Coporation. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Other product names mentioned in this manual may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Table of contents ================= About this manual Chapter 1 - Introduction Overview System requirement UltraCD features Chapter 2 - UltraCD Installation Before installation Installation procedure Sample installation Chapter 3 - UltraCD command line syntax On-line help Disable and Enable Unload Flush Status and Statistical information Directory caching mode Chapter 4 - UltraCD Windows monitor Setup UltraCD Windows monitor Run UltraCD monitor Appendix A - MSCDEX command line in brief Appendix B - UltraCD messages About this manual ================= This manual describes how to use UltraCD in details. Below are the brief descriptions of the contents of the chapters that follow. Chapter 1, "Instroduction", describes the system requirement and UltraCD features as well as the basic information that you should know before installing UltraCD. Chapter 2, "UltraCD installation" discusses the procedure for installing UltraCD in details, and shows a sample installation procedure. Chapter 3, "UltraCD command line syntax" explains all of the UltraCD command parameters. Chapter 4, "UltraCD Windows monitor" gives information about running UltraCD monitor in Windows. Appendix A, shows MSCDEX command line in brief Appendix B, explains the UltraCD messages. Chapter 1 - Introduction ======================== This chapter covers information of system requirement for UltraCD and UltraCD features. As along with basic other basic information that you should know before installing UltraCD on your system. UltraCD is a professional cache driver for CD-ROM drives. It creates a cache buffer (allocateed from your system RAM) for CD-ROM drives. UltraCD keeps a copy of the most valuable and the most frequently used data in this buffer. When your CD-ROM titles/applications read data from CD-ROM drives. UltraCD will directly copy data from the buffer instead of reading from CD-ROM drive if the requesed data is already in the cache buffer. It will save invaluable time for you. On the average, each save means about 0.5 seconds is eliminated (on single speed CD-ROM drives), or 0.3 seconds (on double spin CD-ROM drives). From our experience, UltraCD will save you hours per day when using data base or encyclopedia CD-ROM titles. UltraCD provides intelligent algorithms for caching, includes Least Recently Used processing, data hashing, statistical analysis and directory handling. All of the functions and capabilities have been integrated into one file - UltraCD.EXE. This includes the cache driver, the installation program, the status check program, the Windows control panel program and on-line help, etc. Overview ======== UltraCD is a professional CD-ROM cache driver that enhances the access speed of CD-ROM drives up to 30 times, and it can be installed in 30 seconds. UltraCD supports MS-DOS and Windows, compatible to AT-BUS, SCSI-BUS and all double speed CD-ROM drives. It incorporates a Windows control panel, an easy-to-use installation program, an on-line help facility, a status reporter, easy unloading and other capabilities. System requirement ================== To install UltraCD, you need the following minimum requirements : * A CD-ROM drive. (AT-bus, SCSI-bus or double speed drives) * MS-DOS 3.0 or above * At least 256 KB of extended memory. UltraCD features ================ UltraCD has been incorporated with the most advanced technology and the most flexibilities for users : * Excellent performance : Dramatically improves CD-ROM device performance up to 30 times faster under MS-DOS and MS-Windows. It supports a cache buffer size up to 64 MB. * Easy to install, learn, and use: Can be installed within 30 seconds. Has a Windows monitor, startup by command line, integrated with install, on-line help, status check, easy unloading and other capabilities. Chapter 2 - UltraCD Installation ================================ In this chapter, we describe how to install UltraCD on your system with the installation program. Before installation Before your installation of UltraCD, you have to setup your CD-ROM drive properly, and make sure that MSCDEX is correctly installed on your system. That means, if you have a logical drive (such as dirve E:) for your CD-ROM drive, then you are properly configured, and ready for UltraCD installation. If you do not have a logical drive for your CD-ROM drive, please refer to your CD-ROM drive installation guide from the CD-ROM drive manufacturer. Setup CD-ROM drive first before installing UltraCD. Appendix A shows the MSCDEX command line in brief. Installation procedure ====================== To start the installation program, follows these procedures for drive A: (1) Insert UltraCD diskette into drive A: (2) Change current directory to A: (or B:) (3) UltraCD /SETUP Note: The program may also be installed from drive B: You will get the installation screen, and UltraCD installation program will ask you to specify the RAM size that you want to allocated as CD-ROM cache buffer. In general, the larger the cache buffer size the better the performance improvement. Of course there are many other applications and drivers that need RAM to get better performance also. We recommend that you do not specify larger than 2048 KB to be on the safe side. Please refer to the next section for a sample installation. We recommend you just press ENTER key, let UltraCD allocated cache buffer dynamically. UltraCD will allocate cache buffer from free extended memory according to the following table : Free extended memory UltraCD will allocate ------------------------------------------------------------------- < 1024 KB All > = 1024 KB half of free memory, with a maximum 2048 KB ------------------------------------------------------------------- Typical AUTOEXEC.BAT after UltraCD installed. in AUTOEXEC.BAT MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:10 C:\UltraCD\UltraCD.EXE 1024 After installation of UltraCD, you should reboot your system to activate UltraCD. Chapter 3 - UltraCD command line syntax ======================================= Load UltraCD can be loaded from your ATUTOEXEC.BAT file or from MS-DOS command prompt, It can also be unloaded from the MS-DOS command prompt. > UltraCD [size] This command loads UltraCD into your system and asks to allocate cache buffer of [size] in size for the CD-ROM drive. On-Line help > UltraCD /? This command will yield a help screen Disable and Enable You can enable and disable the CD-ROM cache function of UltraCD at any time after you have loaded it. > UltraCD /ON : This command enable UltraCD function. > UltraCD /OFF : This command disable UltraCD function. Unload > UltraCD /UN Unload UltraCD from system and free all of the memory it used to system. Flush > UltraCD /FLUSH Flush the cache buffer and statistical information. Status and Statistical information > UltraCD /ST CD-ROM directory caching mode UltraCD internally provide 2 algorithms for caching CD-ROM data. MAX mode is the default. In this mode all of the data read from CD-ROM will be processed. The other is MIN mode, in this mode UltraCD processes only the directory information in CD-ROM. Directory caching capability (MIN mode) is very important in some cases, such as in an very complex CD-ROM title with huge files in it, MIN mode will be the better choice. > UltraCD /MIN : This command sets to MIN caching mode > UltraCD /MAX : This command sets to MAX caching mode Chapter 4 - Using UltraCD monitor with Windows ============================================== UltraCD provides a monitor (or control panel) for Windows. UltraCD monitor can be loaded from the Program manager or File manager of Windows. Add UltraCD monitor into Accessories group in Program manager : (1) Double click the Accessories group. (2) Select "New" from "File" menu bar of Program manager (3) Select "Program item" (4) Fill in the properties and them click OK push button. Appendix A MSCDEX command line brief ===================================== This appendeix describes MSCDEX command line parameter in brief, please refer to Microsoft MSCDEX manual for details. MSCDEX can be loaded from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file or from the command prompt. MSCDEX /D:driver1 [/D:driver2... ] [/E] [/K] [/S] [/V] [/L:letter] [/M:number] /D:driver1 [/D:driver2... ] : Specifies the driver signature of the CD-ROM device drives. /E : Use expanded memory /S : Enable sharing /V : display messages when it started /M:number : specifies the number of sector buffers. Appendix B UltraCD messages =========================== This appendix covers the UltraCD messages and discusses the meaning of each message. *** Error: UltraCD not loaded, command ignored ! Type > "UltraCD /?" for more infomation. ==> You have to load UltraCD before issue other request. *** Error: DOS version 3.0 or above is required ==> UltraCD require MS-DOS 3.0, or above. You are running an old version of MS-DOS. *** Error: UltraCD already loaded, you can unload it by /UN command. ==> UltraCD was loaded already. *** Error: MSCDEX not found. Please run MSCDEX before UltraCD ==> MSCDEX need to be loaded before loading MSCDEX. Install UltraCD again ! *** Error: Invalid command line operands ==> You issued an invalid commnad. *** Error: No XMS memory, loads HIMEM.SYS before running UltraCD ==> Please place HIMEM.SYS or other XMS manager in CONFIG.SYS. *** Error: XMS V2.00 or above needed ==> Your use an old version of XMS manager. *** Error: XMS allocation failure ==> Failed when accessing memory, check your configuration. *** Error: UltraCD can not be loaded from within Windows. Quit Windows and then start UltraCD again ! ==> Please exit Windows and run UltraCD again. *** Error: UltraCD can not be unloaded from within Windows ==> Exit Windows and then unload UltraCD. *** Error: Memory not enough, free memory less than 256 KB ! ==> You do not have enough memory, please free some from other applications, or add RAM onto system. *** Error: Please setup MSCDEX first and then try "UltraCD /SETUP" again ! ==> UltraCD setup will check your CD-ROM drive, please setup CD-ROM device before setup UltraCD. *** Error : Available XMS memory is less than 256 KB free some XMS memory, then try UltraCD /SETUP again ! ==> UltraCD need at least 256KB of free extended memory. *** Error : Cache size error, please try "UltraCD /SETUP" again ! ==> You can not request to allocate cache size larger than available XMS memory. UltraCD enabled ==> UltraCD is active. UltraCD disabled ==> UltraCD driver is disabled. UltraCD: cache buffer flushed ==> UltraCD buffer and statistical information were flushed.