Quick tips

1. 1. Arachne needs at least 386 with 4 MB of RAM to do anything useful
2. 2. Enable at least 1 MB of standard XMS memory or at least 512 KB of EMS.
3. 3. Both read and write disk caching is REQUIRED
4. 4. Let your TEMP enviroment variable point to your RAM disk and use it for local caching.
5. 5. Disable all obsolete visual effects using Preferences screen.

More details

1. Make sure your %TEMP% enviroment variable points to existing directory on your fastest disk drive - see also notes about configuring TEMP directory. This is extremely important if you choosed swapping to disk. Minimal size of such RAM disk is 512 KB.
2. If you are using HIMEM.SYS, make sure, that "numhandles=xx" argument is present on the HIMEM.SYS line in your config.sys file. "xx" should be some suitable number, let's say 64 (?). When using QEMM memory manager (recommended), you won't have this problem, but when Arachne crashes and restarts without dealocating XMS, the perfomance may be gone. You should better reboot you PC in such case.
3. Try to keep number of files in Arachne working directory smaller than 128
4. Disable smooth scrolling, smooth Page Up/Page Down, and virtual screen, or try to select values adequate to performance of your computer (you can use Preferences screen to do this).
5. Disable frames
6. Disable logo animation
7. Use SMARTDRV (NWCACHE in OpenDOS). Make sure, that you are using also write disk caching, not only something like "SMARTDRV /X" (default setting in AUTOEXEC.BAT on many systems), but rather "SMARTDRV C+"
8. There are reports, that Arachne is "ultrafast" on most systems if you run it from 2-3 MB RAM disk (RAM disk can be configured in DOS CONGIF.SYS file). Detailed explanation how to fit Arachne even on small RAM disk was written by Clarence Verge, long time Arachne user. If your RAM disk is not big enough for Arachne, try at least to point your %TEMP% enviroment variable to it - Arachne uses it for some temporary files. It can be more efficient than using the memory as XMS/EMS.
9. In multitasking enviroment (like Windows 95) try to run Arachne in single task ("MS-DOS") mode.
10. If it is possible, select directly your SVGA card and do not use VESA driver. VESA calls are approximately two times slower than direct access to some older SVGA cards (like Trident or TSENG). Another solution is to use UNIVBE VESA driver, available at http://www.scitechsoft.com/ BTW: some VESA implementations slow down Arachne so much, that it runs slower on Pentium at school lab than on my 386 at home.
11. Turn off local icons and turn on fast JPEG preview in "More options" (this is obsolete Hicolor modes it is obsolete) Local surfing and JPEG conversion is also faster if there is enough DOS memory available to spawn the external utilities without leaving Arachne.
12. Switch off image loading. You can load individual images by clicking on them with right mouse button. If you really need real-time response, you can use ~ (tilde) key to temporarily turn off all graphics. Or, if you still want to see images, set image refresh time to 60 seconds (both in "More options").
13. Delete files like PPP_BACK.GIF or PAPER.GIF, especially in EGA mode.
14. Use lower resolution to see less images at one time. It will speed up pallette mixing. It seems, that VESA mode 640x400x256 colors is extremely fast.
15. Using HiColor modes slows down the graphics output, but no palette mixing is required.
16. Try background surfing (hold Ctrl while clicking on link). You can comfortably read current document until new one is downloaded. When download is finished, click the link again and the document will appear immediately.
17. Surf quickly (without reading) to disk cache, then disconnect modem (Alt+H ) and browse documents from Utilities (U) -> Cache Index. In some countries, like Czech Republic, this can also help you to reduce your phone bill.
18. Try to delete disk cache (with F8 key) when computer seems to be too slow. Searching cache for missing images and writing cache index to disk both take a lot of time.
19. Ask your Internet provider or LAN administrator if there is proxy server available. Proxy caches frequently accessed WWW pages (like Netscape homepage, Altavista or Yahoo queries, etc.).
20. Buy faster modem or computer or select faster Internet provider...