Command: buffers / buffershigh

  BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH tells FreeDOS how many disk buffers it should
  allocate.
  BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH is a CONFIG.SYS / FDCONFIG.SYS command.

Syntax:

  buffers=nn[,m]
  buffershigh=nn[,m]
    nn  is the number of primary disk buffers, in the range 1-99.
    m   is the number of secondary disk buffers, in the range 1-8.

Options:

  Usage:

  The default setting depends on the amount of conventional memory
  your system has:

  Memory (KiB)               Primary Buffers           Secondary Buffers
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    < 128                           3                         1
  128 - 255                         5                         1
  256 - 511                        10                         1
  512 - 640                        15                         1

Comments:

  Increasing the number of BUFFERS can improve the speed of programs
  that work with a large number of files, but also uses up more
  memory resources.
  The secondary buffer option is available for compatibility with
  other DOS kernels, but is ignored by the FreeDOS kernel. In MS DOS,
  a secondary buffer be can used to read-ahead data. FreeDOS does not do
  this. BUFFERS are stored in HMA by FreeDOS, unless you select nn to
  allocate more buffers than fit in HMA. If nn is smaller, unused HMA
  space will be used for further buffers until something else allocates
  the HMA space for something else. Even then, at least nn buffers will
  always be available. You can set nn to a negative value to disable
  the use of unused HMA space: BUFFERS=-10 only uses 10 buffers, further
  free space in the HMA will just stay unused. Because the buffers can
  use the HMA anyway, BUFFERSHIGH does the same as BUFFERS for now, but
  shows a note about that to inform the user that it does not use UMB
  (UPPER MEMORY BLOCKS, see: LH / LOADHIGH).
  Important: You should have a high memory manager such as HIMEMX,
  JEMM386 or JEMMEX installed when using this option.
  BUFFERS / BUFFERSHIGH is a command internal to kernel.sys and needs
  no other file in order to work.

Examples:

  IN CONFIG.SYS / FDCONFIG.SYS:
    buffers=20 OR:
    buffershigh=40

See also:

  config.sys/fdconfig.sys
  files/fileshigh
  himemx
  jemm386
  jemmex
  lh/loadhigh

  Copyright © 2003 Robert Platt, updated 2008 and 2022 by W. Spiegl.

  This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
  See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.