A. If it is a DOS application, and it uses nearly 100% if a CPU when it runs, Tame can probably help. To verify this, run the application with Tame and see if the CPU utilization decreases.

With Tame installed, the DOS application should be consuming less than 5% of the CPU while it is waiting for user input. There may be a brief CPU spike after each key is pressed, but it quickly settles back to near zero. If the application is given a lengthy operation, it can consume close to 100% of a CPU while performing that operation, but this is the case even with non-DOS applications.

If Tame is installed but the application still consumes excess CPU with, or if application performance decreases, see the Tuning Support Document for solutions.

Q. How much does the upgrade to the latest version cost?

A. If you are a registered user of any version of Tame, the upgrade is free. Just download the new version and run the registration program that is included on your original diskette.

Q. How do I upgrade from version 3.3 to the current version?

A. If you registered for a previous release of Tame, then your registration will work with this version. Copy the updates files into a directory, and copy tame-reg.exe and register.bat from the original Tame directory into the new one. Then run register.bat to serialize the newer version.

Q. Why is a DLL file included?

A. TameVdd.dll can improve the effectiveness in the Windows NT/2000/XP environment. It also provides a variety of administrative bells and whistles such as logging of DOS app CPU usage, forcing untamed apps to use a subset of the CPUs, altering the title line to provide feedback that Tame is loaded, using the registry to provide settings for each DOS app, and many more. Please reference the Tame User Manual document for more details.

Registration

Q. Can I pay by credit card?

A. Yes. To pay by credit card, go to the Tame website at www.tamedos.com and follow the links to online registration.

Q. Will the registered version show a beg screen?

A. No. These registration enticements are only displayed if Tame is not registered for the system that it is running on.

Administration

Q. How can I monitor running DOS tasks

A. The TameView program allows you to monitor DOS processes. By default, icons were added to the start menu during installation. If this was not done, monitoring may still be initiated using the command line.

To monitor all DOS processes, use the following command line.

C:\Tame\TameView /I /PA

To monitor only processes using more than 5% of the CPU, use this command line.

C:\Tame\TameView /I 1 /PC 5

Q. Log results of each DOS run to a file

A. Tame can log DOS application statistics after each run. To enable this feature, set HKLM\Software\Tame\RunLogFile to contain the full path to a file where the run log is to be written.

Tame Settings

Q. Specify settings for an application

A. Settings for a specific application may be placed into HKLM\Software\Tame\<exe_name>. For example, to specify settings for a program named MYAPP.EXE, set values into the key named HKLM\Software\Tame\MYAPP.EXE. Note that any settings that are not present in the application key will be obtained from HKLM\Software\Tame.

Q. Single thread application startup

A. To single thread the startup of a particular application, set the following registry value, where AppName is the name of the application, and ThreadName is any valid name (may include characters of a file name but no backslash).

HKLM\Software\Tame\AppName.EXE\ SingleThreadInit = ThreadName

Q. Specify settings for all applications

A. Default settings may be placed into HKLM\Software\Tame\Default or in HKLM\Software\Tame. Note that any settings in HKLM\Software\Tame will be used if that setting is not specifically overridden for an application. The Default key will be used only if there is no key for the application.

Q. Specify parameters for an application where the resident Tame is not in memory

A. Settings for untamed applications may be placed into HKLM\Software\Tame\Untamed. If Tame is not in memory, the values in the “Untamed” key will be used, regardless of whether an application specific key exists. One use for this key is to restrict the process to a single CPU and change the console title to warn that the process is untamed.

Q. How can increase the number of DOS users that my system will support

A. The short answer is to add some settings to make Tame more aggressive, and then test to make sure that the application still performs well.

Please note that this is a fine-tuning issue. If Tame is not already bringing the idle CPU to low levels, follow the instruction in the Tuning Support Document before attempting to fine-tune.

There are two primary settings that regulate the amount of processor time that DOS apps receive during the period immediately following each keystroke. By default they are set to values that work well with the widest variety of applications. Most applications will work just as well if these settings are adjusted to allow Tame to more aggressively release time slices. The only risk with trying the aggressive values is the chance that the application needs the more conservative values, and therefore it runs more slowly.

1. Boost adjustment

If the application does not poll often while working then the Boost can be disabled. Try setting these options:
“/BoostKey 0 /BoostDOS 0 /BoostVideo 0 /BoostIrq 0”

Note that with boost disabled, the /PollIdle setting becomes much more critical. This sets the threshold of how many polls per tick trigger idle detection. With boost enabled, polls immediately after activity are pretty much ignored. With boost disabled, the only way that Tame can detect that the application is active is to monitor the poll rate.

If the application performs poorly with boost disabled, try setting it to 1 instead.

If the boost settings cannot be reduced without degrading performance then there is one final chance. The /BoostCancel parameter can be used to set a poll rate threshold that can reduce or cancel a boost.

2. With a Windows NT/2000 or OS/2 system, the context switch rate may be reduced by specifying that Tame enter deep sleep sooner than the default 5 seconds. Specify /SwitchRepeatTicks 0 and Tame will enter deep sleep within half a second (the exact time depends on the /SingleSwitchTicks setting that defaults to 9 ticks). This is normally safe to do unless the application needs to do some background work after each key press (e.g. if the app does something when it detects that you have stopped typing).

Q. Why does Tame use different settings when I run different applications

A. By default, Tame is tuned to work well with a wide variety of applications. It can make some adjustments during the initial seconds that the application is running, but those adjustments are very conservative and limited.

Q. How can I save settings that were changed with Alt-Ctrl-T

A. Each setting on the screen corresponds to a command line tuning option. You may use TameVieww at any time to see the settings. Run the following command line from another console.

TameView /P <process id> /LO

As an alternative, the "Tame /WO 2" command will list options in effect, but it must be run in the same console as is used for the DOS app..

System Compatibility

Q. Does Tame work with 16 bit Windows applications

A. Tame can sometimes be effective with Windows applications. The /TimePoll option has been helpful with some applications. Some other Windows applications may be controlled with the /NonWorkIdle option. Both options can sometimes result in sluggish mouse performance.

Q. Does Tame still work with DesqView, DoubleDos and others?

A. Tame Release 4.3 is supported only on Windows NT based operating systems. Other systems are not fully supported.
Tame Release 3.34 has a long history and is well tested in a variety of multitasking systems. Tame release 3.34 will remain available for those who need it.