Command: buffers / buffershigh
BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH tells FreeDOS how many disk buffers it should
allocate.
BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH is a CONFIG.SYS / FDCONFIG.SYS command.
Syntax:
buffers=nn[,m]
buffershigh=nn[,m]
nn is the number of primary disk buffers, in the range 1-99.
m is the number of secondary disk buffers, in the range 1-8.
Options:
Usage:
The default setting depends on the amount of conventional memory
your system has:
Memory (KiB) Primary Buffers Secondary Buffers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
< 128 3 1
128 - 255 5 1
256 - 511 10 1
512 - 640 15 1
Comments:
Increasing the number of BUFFERS can improve the speed of programs
that work with a large number of files, but also uses up more
memory resources.
The secondary buffer option is available for compatibility with
other DOS kernels, but is ignored by the FreeDOS kernel. In MS DOS,
a secondary buffer be can used to read-ahead data. FreeDOS does not do
this. BUFFERS are stored in HMA by FreeDOS, unless you select nn to
allocate more buffers than fit in HMA. If nn is smaller, unused HMA
space will be used for further buffers until something else allocates
the HMA space for something else. Even then, at least nn buffers will
always be available. You can set nn to a negative value to disable
the use of unused HMA space: BUFFERS=-10 only uses 10 buffers, further
free space in the HMA will just stay unused. Because the buffers can
use the HMA anyway, BUFFERSHIGH does the same as BUFFERS for now, but
shows a note about that to inform the user that it does not use UMB
(UPPER MEMORY BLOCKS, see: LH / LOADHIGH).
Important: You should have a high memory manager such as HIMEMX,
JEMM386 or JEMMEX installed when using this option.
BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH is a command internal to kernel.sys and needs
no other file in order to work.
Examples:
IN CONFIG.SYS / FDCONFIG.SYS:
buffers=20 OR:
buffershigh=40
See also:
config.sys/fdconfig.sys
files/fileshigh
himemx
jemm386
jemmex
lh/loadhigh
Copyright © 2003 Robert Platt, updated 2008 and 2022 by W. Spiegl.
This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.