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PMODE/W MSDOS Extender

PMODE/W MSDOS Extender Overview

Overview

PMODE/W allows DOS programs to run in full 32 bit protected mode, with access to all memory available in the system. PMODE/W basically extends the DOS environment to protected mode and provides a simple interface to the real mode DOS system services for your code. PMODE/W takes care of all aspects of running the system in protected mode and maintaining compatibility with the underlying real mode software. PMODE/W deals with low level necessities such as descriptor tables, memory management, IRQ and interrupt redirection, real/protected mode translation functions, exception handling, and other miscellaneous aspects of running in protected mode. Your code does not need to deal with specific aspects of different systems, such as XMS/EMS/VCPI/DPMI availability. PMODE/W will run on top of almost any system and provide common protected mode services to your program through the DPMI interface specification, as well as most standard DOS functions extended for protected mode use.

PMODE/W is the stub and extender in one. The generated executable contains the PMODE/W extender within it as the stub. When run, PMODE/W will take care of setting up the system and executing the protected mode portion of the program. Several years have gone into the development of PMODE/W. It is now a fairly mature DOS extender, and has gone through its fair share of bugs and incompatibilities. It is at this point, a very stable protected mode system. Great pains have gone into the optimization and testing of PMODE/W. Our major goals have been speed, size, and stability. We now feel that we have achieved a good deal of those things. But don't take our word for it, try it yourself, as you can do that very easily before you actually decide to buy PMODE/W. Just plug PMODE/W into any popular program out there which uses DOS/4GW.

To sum it up, if you are looking for a good solid, stable, and fast extender, PMODE/W may be just what you need.

Here are the advantages of PMODE/W:
No external extender required (everything needed to execute is in the EXE). Small size (less than 12k for the entire extender program). Compression of protected mode executables. Low extended memory overhead. Does not require ANY extended memory to load OR execute. Fast execution.

Our major concerns in developing PMODE/W were speed, size, and stability. PMODE/W itself was written entirely in assembly. When running under PMODE/W, your code will be running at a privilege level of zero, the highest and fastest. PMODE/W does not virtualize what it does not need to, and does not invoke any protected mode mechanism that is slow. For example, if the system is running clean or under XMS, PMODE/W does not turn on paging. Under a memory manager which provides both VCPI and DPMI services, PMODE/W will opt for VCPI protected mode which is significantly faster than DPMI. When PMODE/W makes calls to real mode, it switches the system into actual real mode rather than the slower V86 mode (when it can, under VCPI this is not possible, control must be passed back to the VCPI server). In terms of speed, when your code is running under PMODE/W, it is running as fast as the system will allow. In terms of size on disk, we need say no more than for you to look at the size of the PMODE/W executable and compare it to other extenders. In terms of memory size, you may do tests yourself to confirm that PMODE/W does indeed suck up a lot less memory at run-time than the competition. In fact, PMODE/W will run even if there is absolutely no extended memory in the system (assuming of course there is enough low memory for the program). To be fair, we must say that we squished the PMODE/W executable with our own compression program written expressly for the purpose. This demonstrates the extent we took most of our optimizations to.

When run under a clean system, XMS, or VCPI, PMODE/W has control of protected mode. In this case, it can set up the system to run as fast as possible under the various conditions. Under DPMI, the DPMI host of the system will have full protected mode control and PMODE/W will install its DOS extensions on top of that. If the system provides both VCPI and DPMI services, PMODE/W will use the VCPI services for faster execution, unless instructed not to by the setup program. When PMODE/W does have protected mode control under clean/XMS/VCPI, it runs all code at a privilege level of zero. In addition, under a clean or XMS system, paging will not be enabled. This is only a minor speed increase, but there is no real need to manage paging.

PMODE/W provides a subset of DPMI 0.9 function calls and general functionality when a DPMI host is not present. PMODE/W will pass any software interrupts from protected mode to their default real mode handlers, provided no protected mode handlers have been installed for them, just as DPMI will. The general registers will be passed on to the real mode handler, but the segment registers can not be as they have different meanings in real mode and protected mode. The flags will be passed back from the real mode handler. This provides a simple interface to all real mode interrupt routines which do not take parameters in the segment registers, for example, INT 16h function 00h.

Any IRQs that occur in protected mode and have not been hooked by a protected mode handler will be sent on to their real mode handlers. If an IRQ occurs in real mode, and a protected mode handler has hooked that IRQ, it will be sent to the protected mode handler first. The protected mode handler may chain to the real mode handler for that IRQ by calling the previous protected mode handler for that IRQ. This behavior is in accordance with the DPMI standard. If you hook a protected mode IRQ (INT 31h function 0205h), then hook the same IRQ in real mode (INT 31h function 0201h), the protected mode handler will be called if the IRQ occurs in protected mode, and the real mode handler will handle the IRQs if they occur in real mode. Setting up two handlers like this assures minimal latency. This means a handler will get control when the IRQ occurs as soon as physically possible. PMODE/W does have to intervene in the IRQ process, however, when the low 8 IRQs are mapped to INTs 08h-15h to differentiate IRQs from CPU exceptions.

In accordance with DPMI specifications, PMODE/W will pass up software interrupts 1ch (BIOS timer tick), 23h (DOS CTRL+C), and 24h (DOS critical error) from real mode to protected mode. This means that those interrupts can be hooked directly in protected mode without having to set up a callback mechanism yourself. PMODE/W will also pass interrupt 1bh (BIOS CTRL+BREAK) from real mode up to protected mode. This is not a DPMI requirement, but it is necessary for the sake of compatibility with DOS/4GW. Another departure by PMODE/W from official DPMI specifications is in extended memory allocation. DPMI documentation states that the block of extended memory allocated through function 0501h is guaranteed at least paragraph alignment. The PMODE/W DPMI implementation will enforce only DWORD alignment.

When a PMODE/W executable is run, PMODE/W will attempt to switch the system into protected mode and load the protected mode portion of the same executable. If there is some error, not enough memory, or a system incompatibility, PMODE/W will exit with an error message. If loading was successful, PMODE/W will pass execution control on to the program. PMODE/W will load any 16 bit code and data into low memory, but 32 bit code and data may be loaded into low or extended memory depending on availability.

There are a number of modifiable parameters in the PMODE/W extender executable that affect protected mode execution. For the most part, these parameters deal with memory. PMODE/W allocates one large block of extended memory for its pool from which it provides memory to its client program. There is a maximum value for the extended memory to be allocated. By default, the maximum is all of the extended memory in the system. The maximum value reflects the size of the block you want PMODE/W to take from the system, not necessarily the size of the largest block available to the default GetMem procedures. You may set the maximum to zero to indicate you do not want PMODE/W to allocate ANY extended memory. The amount of memory that you allow PMODE/W to allocate from the system determines how much extended memory will be left to other if you shell out of your PMODE/W program.

Another variable specifies the amount of low memory for PMODE/W to TRY to keep free. If PMODE/W can, it will accommodate this value by loading 32 bit code and data into extended memory. If there is not enough extended memory available for this, 32 bit code and data will be loaded into low memory anyway. If PMODE/W can not keep this much low memory free, it will not exit with an error message. Setting this parameter to a high value will, in effect, duplicate the DOS/4GW behavior of loading all 32 bit code and data into extended memory. If you do not necessarily need any extra low memory free during the execution of your program, you may set this value to zero.

There is a group of parameters that specify the number and size of nested mode switch stacks. Whenever you make a call to real mode, or a callback or IRQ is passed from real mode to its routine in protected mode, a nested stack is used. These parameters have meaning only if the program is not run under a DPMI system. If a DPMI host is in place when the program is run, it provides its own nested stacks for mode switches. The number of nested stacks directly affects the number of nested mode switches your program can make using the various mode switch methods. The size of both the real mode and protected mode nested stacks can also be specified. By default, these values are high enough for normal operation. However, if you intend to use a lot of stack variables in a protected mode IRQ handler, or a lot of recursive calls, you may need to increase the size of the protected mode nested stacks. The more nested stacks you specify, and the larger they are, the more low memory is needed by PMODE/W during execution.

Another group of variables that has meaning only under clean/XMS/VCPI execution specify the number of selectors and DPMI callbacks you want PMODE/W to make available. The more selectors and callbacks you ask for, the more low memory is used by PMODE/W, though the amount of low memory used for each is quite low so that large numbers of each can be specified. There will usually be a little less than the number of selectors and callbacks you request available to your program due to the protected mode system and Pascal code using some of them. For this reason you should request 20h-40h more selectors and 2-4 more callbacks than you will need in your program.

There are four other miscellaneous parameters that can be set. There is a maximum number of page tables to use under a VCPI system. Each page table allocated requires 4k of low memory to be used by PMODE/W and maps 4M of memory. This directly affects the maximum amount of extended memory available under a VCPI system. This parameter is only the maximum number of page tables to allow. At run-time, only as many page tables will be allocated as are needed. Under a clean/XMS system, no page tables are required, so this parameter has no meaning. But under VCPI, you may want to restrict the number of page tables to save low memory if you do not need more than a certain amount of extended memory. This puts a maximum ceiling on extended memory under VCPI which may be lower than the maximum actually specified in the other variable. The second parameter specifies the order of DPMI and VCPI detection. By default, VCPI will be checked before DPMI, but you may set DPMI to be checked before VCPI so that under a system which supports both VCPI and DPMI, DPMI will be used. The third variable specifies how many pages to reserve for physical address mapping calls (INT 31h function 0800h) under VCPI. Under XMS or a clean system, paging is not enabled, and PMODE/W does not need pages for physical address mapping. Each page will allow you to map up to 4M of address space and takes up 4k of extended memory. So for example, if you intend to map a 2M frame buffer of a video card, you will need only one page. You may set this parameter to zero if you do not intend to map any physical addresses. The fourth parameter specifies whether PMODE/W displays its banner at startup. This may be desirable to indicate that the program is indeed running, and has not crashed, as allocating memory from certain VCPI servers can be a slow process.

See also:
PMODE/W Supported DPMI INT 31h functions


Previous: PMODE/W MSDOS Extender To the Table of Content Next: PMODE/W Supported DPMI INT 31h functions
PMODE/W MSDOS Extender Table of Content PMODE/W Supported DPMI INT 31h functions

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