Stratcat wrote...

Well, its been an hour since this post.
Is it safe to draw the obvious conclusion???

I'm back, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back

I only had the nerve to increase my maxfilecache to 512 MB.  Does that mean
I'm only using 512 MB, and the last 256 MB isn't doing anything?  Should I
sell it and get a new DVD RW?

I know that 768 MB is a stupidly large amount of memory.  I was only
planning on upgrading to 512 or 640, but that guy was selling 768 MB for
$75.  How could I resist?

Occasionally, I will record some hi-fi audio from a streaming radio station,
such as a symphony.  That could be a 50 MB .wav file.  Then, I'll take the
.wav and trim the garbage from the beginning and end of the file (DJ talk,
etc), maybe add a fade as required, adjust the overall volume, and finally
convert it into a .mp3.  The more ram I have, the more of the file gets
processed instantly.  Then I run out of ram, and the rest of the file gets
processed real slow, and the hard drive swaps kerchunk kerchunk.  I can't
wait to process another symphony.

I'm afraid to try setting maxfilecache to 768.  Afraid the computer will
never boot again, and then I'll be screwed.  What's a cruncher to do?
Forget it?  The Microsoft article does _not_ say that all Win98 systems are
limited to 512 MB, and implies that it might not _always_ be a limitation.

Windows operations are much faster, by the way.  Alt-File > New > Folder
used to take 5 or 10 seconds; after increasing maxfilecache, now it takes
just a tenth of a second.  I can browse around Windows Explorer with no
delays, instead of waiting forever for the next folder to open.  I just
noticed that Internet Explorer is going real fast, holy cannoli.

I'm delighted.

Thanks for putting up with my Win98 story.  I know it's old news.

-Neil-