Hi there!

AMD CPUs have a nice feature: write combining. This small utility is just 
switching it on.

What is write combining good for? It helps my S3 Virge based graphic card driven
by IBM GENGRADD to speed up by 250% at some operations :)

But currently (this is Version 0.00.0!) there are some limitations :->

Your memory aperture of your graphic card needs to be at E40000. Maybe you
can force your graphic driver to set the aperture at the above adress. For
closer Information on this please take a look in the docu of QuickMotion VR
or AnPoCODEC at a.portele.home.pages.de, 
www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~portele or www.quickmotion.com.

a nice util to find out where your aperture currently is is divetest from
Markus Montkowski. You can get it at ftp.netlabs.org/pub/odin/divetest.zip.
Start it and look at the number DIVE->Framebuffer->"starts at".

And you must have an AMD K6-II Stepping 8 or greater. To find this out you can use
blank.exe


output of blank:

hello world       <- this is version 0.0.0 too ! ;)
AuthenticAMD      <- your CPU id string
0000058C          <- model 8, stepping c, signature 5
00000000          <- other information
00000000                      "
008021BF                      "
AMD-K6(tm) 3D pocessor   <- Prozessors name, this string is stored in your CPU!


bldlevel of AMD_K86.dmd says model 9 this is an error.. model 9 is AMD K7 (again
version 0.0.0 ;) ). 

This driver does not work with old prehistoric graphic cards having problems with
out of order write cycles. 


How to get it run?

When installed you will get a message that it is not installed, this is ok (version 
0.0.0 ...)

Just copy AMD_K86.DMD to \OS2\BOOT and append the line

BASEDEV=AMD_K86.DMD

to your config.sys. Thats it.


legal stuff

This is highly experimental code, no error checking or CPU detection nor nothing. Use
at your own risc! There is a chance that you can destroy data with this small util!


please report me your experience to A.Portele@teamos2.de

keep on warping
Andreas Portele  (30.5.1999)
