QuickBasic and Ntvdm.exe

Hawkeye56 · Post by **Hawkeye56** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 4:38 pm

Hi

I am running an app developed in QB on an XP box and I notice it is quite slow and disk intensive. Using Sysinternals process explorer I can see that the major user is ntvdm.exe. Only about 20% of the CPU is in use of which ntvdm.exe is using just over half. My question is, would it help me to add RAM to my machine as I only have 256mb on the machine in question or is this not going to help because of some other limitation caused by using QB in XP?

Thanks

Neil

buff2 · Post by **buff2** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:08 pm

Just a guess but i doubt that adding ram will help.
being unfamiliar with the program(s) I cannot say for sure but i would
try it on another computer -- it may be the 16bit QB is the culprit.

imJAKYKONGjusnotloggedin · Post by **imJAKYKONGjusnotloggedin** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:05 pm

I have to beg to differ. NTvdm is the kernel for an NT-based windows (NT 3.1, NT 4, W2K, WXP), and relies heavily on the CPU being available (it's monolithic, has a lot to do).
Best thing to do is probably run it on a different machine, or upgrade to windows 2000.
That, or get ntvdm off a windows 2k computer, and use a live cd linux called knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net) to replace the kernel from your current machine with a windows 2k kernel.
BE WARNED! i have not tried this, and cannot garauntee that win.com(the GUI) for xp and the ntvdm.exe for windows 2000 will work together ... might have to replace both. Also know that if this doesen't work, you might have a "Dead" system and need to re-install. Follow my directions/suggestions at your own risk!

imJAKYKONGjustnotloggedin · Post by **imJAKYKONGjustnotloggedin** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:06 pm

one thing i forgot to mention - NTvdm doesen't use much RAM - actually, it uses about 1kb because one part of it is the virtual memory manager, which makes your hd into RAM (the parts that aren't used). Ram is no problem with NTVdm, on basically any machine!

imJAKYKONGjustnotloggedin · Post by **imJAKYKONGjustnotloggedin** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:49 pm

what DOES use ram is win.com, it's the GUI, has a TON to deal with (this is why i like command prompts) so it depends heavily on the kernel being compatable, and your system having enough ram to handle it's outragous graphics (why don't they stick to a simple GUI and let programs use your memory?)