The following information was provided by Phil Gordemer of Cadd Value.

1. Use AUTOCAD 10 revs. C-7 and up, if possible.  If a user has
Autocad Rev C-2 [which causes corrupted files even without LANtastic]
Autocad will provide a free upgrade IF the user takes his original
disks to the Dealer he purchased Autocad from.

2. Set FCBS=40,40 and FILES=40 on machines running AUTOCAD.  Higher
values may actually degrade performance.  The FCBS at 40,40 is
imperative!

3. Specialty video boards on stations running AUTOCAD 10 may cause
problems. Video boards that work well are Calcomp's and Nth Engine.
One that does not work is the Photon Board when using the "Photon"
driver.

4.  To determine whether or not the video board is the problem it is
a good idea to ask the customer what video driver he is using.  If he
is using the manufacturer supplied driver and having problems, then
request that he change to the Autocad supplied video driver [after
putting the video adapter in the default mode for EGA or VGA] If the
problems disappear, this will show that the manufacturer supplied
driver is probably the cause.

5.  In particular, the Photon board has a memory resident driver,
also called Photon, that hooks into disk through INT 13. Using the
Autocad supplied video driver for CGA mode with this board works,
showing that the problem with the network is the Photon driver.

6.  Autocad files can be corrupted when used on a network since
Autocad closes the file once it is placed into RAM [like Lotus 2.01 &
below] leaving DOS and SHARE unaware another user has the file.

7.  Using DOS 4.01 is OK, but it is NOT recommend that HIMEM.SYS be
loaded.

8.  Using an Autocad server which is serving the plotter and or
printers on the network as a workstation is not recommended and
end-users should be aware of this.  User's correctly view LANtastic
as a peer-to-peer network not requiring a dedicated server.  However,
Autocad is such a memory intensive program [and disk intensive if a
RAM disk isn't used for Autocad programs & overlays] that is NOT
practical to use the server that is servicing printing/plotting as a
workstation.

9.  Use RAM disks and Video drivers in Expanded memory only.  Using
extended memory will cause various problems.

10. Almost all CAD programs have TSR's to speed up video display.
Two well known driver's are Video Velocity and Lightning Zoom.  These
TSR's MUST be loaded BEFORE the network.  They do disk access like a
cache and must be loaded before the network to work correctly.

11. If user's report that the plotter plots for awhile and then
stops, they should increase the CPS to the plotter [to the max of
32767 is OK].  This problem seems to be unique to HP Plotters.

12.  Customer's should use the plotter manufacturer's cable to assure
correct DTR or DSR handshaking [also known as CTS and RTS].  They
also must be sure the plotter has been notified of this type of
handshaking by changing menu choices or dip switches on the plotter.
Autocad should be told to use Direct handshaking.  Don't be fooled by
the user saying a plotter doesn't do DTR handshaking.  Autocad has no
choice to DTR and the user may be reading the autocad choice instead
of the plotter choices.

13.  Autocad 386 works great and in pure protected mode.  The only
problem with LANtastic seems to be caused by Video created drivers
that can't use protected mode and have to keep switching the virtual
mode.  Have the customer call the video vendor for the latest
drivers.  Early versions of Autocad 386 have a problem with the Phar
Lap DOS Extender that was used (could cause LAN disconnects), the
problems have been fixed in version 10a.