HWiNFO for DOS resurrected (version 6.x)

Martin

HWiNFO Author
Staff member
After almost a decade, I decided to give the DOS version of HWiNFO a new refresh. So here it comes - version 6.x.
The main problem in the past was that the program grew quite large by adding support of new systems and components, so it became problematic to fit it into conventional memory. Porting the entire program to a DOS extended would be too much effort unfortunately. So I decided to refresh the program by paying more attention to older systems and scrapping support of some relatively 'new' systems. New systems are well supported in HWiNFO32 (which has been recently enabled to run on Windows 95 too). I paid a lot of attention to the cost of memory required/feature benefit.

Here the list of changes in HWiNFO for DOS v6.0.4:
- Reduced conventional memory requirement by removing sensor support and support of some 'too new' systems. Optimized a lot of code for more efficiency and lower memory footprint.
- Revamped support of many CPUs and GPUs especially.
- Split internal databases to allow running on Non-PCI systems with just 2 MB memory.
- Went back to FPU-emulation in compiler, which now allows running without FPU. This option costs some additional memory due to larger code, but I think this capability is worth it.
- Fixed a crash on some Tseng ET4000 adapters with bugged VBIOS.
- Fixed a possible hang during scan of older Sound Blaster cards.
- Fixed reporting of L3 cache for AMD-K6-2+.
- Fix a possible hang @ HPLANP detection.
- Fix wrong identification of Intel 82595 LAN on some systems.
- Updated enumeration of Plug-and-Play devices.
- Improved detection of L1/L2 cache size on 386/486 systems.
- Brought back tests for 386/486 CPU errata: 32-bit Multiply, POPAD, INSB, STOSB, MOVSB, BSWAP
- Improved identification of EISA mainboards.
- Added support of Compaq ASPI driver.
- Improved detection of SoundBlaster AWE DRAM size. Might require CTCM to be loaded in CONFIG.SYS.
- Added detection of Aztech Labs Sound Galaxy NX Pro.

Current minimal requirements:
- 386 CPU
- ~ 550 KB of free Conventional system memory
- ~ 830 KB (Non-PCI systems) / 5 MB (PCI systems) free XMS memory (XMS manager recommended)
 
Version 6.0.5 released:
- Enhanced detection of ESS sound cards.
- Improved support of later CPUs.
- Optimizations for reduced memory usage.
 
Version 6.1.0 released:
  • Rewritten and optimized ~90% of code for lower memory usage.
  • Fixed a possible crash when running without XMS manager.
  • Added enumeration of PnP cards also when BIOS isn't PnP-capable.
  • Fixed detection of systems without FPU.
  • Added detection of FPU clock for discrete FPUs.
  • Improved support and reporting of stepping for Cyrix CPUs.
  • Updated detection of Adaptec AHA-154x controllers.
  • Enhanced detection of ESS sound cards.
  • Updated detection of various SIO chips.
  • Added detection of VLSI VL82C330 and VL82C331 chipsets.
  • Improved IRQ/DMA list, fixed reporting of PCI allocated resources.
  • Improved detection of TI486SXL/SXL2 CPUs.
  • Improved support of modern systems.
 
Version 6.1.1 released:
  • Added Debug Mode via -d command-line switch.
  • Improved detection of IBM Blue Lightning CPUs.
  • Improved detection of some 386/486 chipsets.
  • Added reporting of supported/current AGP mode.
  • Improved detection of some SiS graphics adapters.
  • Improved L1/L2 cache detection.
 
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