Processor, Memory, OS, Graphics Info?

Archive: Processor, Memory, OS, Graphics Info?

Psychedelic
19th May 2003 19:57 UTC

Processor, Memory, OS, Graphics Info?
Hi,
I am trying to create an installer that checks to see if the current hardware meets minimum system requirements.
In order to do this I need to check the speed of the processor, total physical RAM, operating system version and also preferably info about the graphics card such as graphics memory.

I have searched the forums and the documentation but i haven't found a function that will give me this information.

Does anyone have any idea how i might accomplish this?

Thanks
Psych

Joel
19th May 2003 21:02 UTC

You have plugin call "system.dll" in ${NSISDIR}\Plugins".
Check this web archive to see more examples.

Psychedelic
19th May 2003 21:59 UTC

Ok so I looked at the examples at the link you showed me. I'm a beginer as far as programming in win32 is concerned so is there somewhere i can look to find the relevant functions that i need to call?
I need to know the:
Processor Type: (AMD/INTEL)
Process Speed: MHz
RAM: MB
OS: NT/98/ME/2000/XP

and preferably
Video Memory: MB

Thanks

Afrow UK
19th May 2003 22:10 UTC

You can get the full Windows version - look here
No-one has written a plug-in to determin how much video card memory a pc has, but somone is currently writing one - look at this post here
As far as I can see, the plugin is really only 5% done!

I'm not sure how to get the processor, mhz, and ram, but I'm sure Kichik could write you something which uses the system plugin.

There is a way to detext the version of Directx nstalled, and to update it in this topic: here

Hope some of them help!

-Stu

Afrow UK
19th May 2003 22:11 UTC

You could also search for a windows specific value in the registry, incase you find where windows may put some useful values.

-Stu

Sunjammer
19th May 2003 22:51 UTC

Check out the cpudesc plugin here, that can get you the cpu information you require.

Psychedelic
21st May 2003 22:17 UTC

Ok so I have the OS and the RAM now. I noticed a script that would read an entry of the registy but only of type REG_MULTI_SZ. The system MHz is of type REG_DWORD.
I've tried to modify the file but with no success. Does anyone know how i might acccess this information?

Thanks

The file that I was trying to work off of is located in the plugin's folder in the System Plugins Examples.

kichik
22nd May 2003 16:39 UTC

You don't need a special script to read from REG_DWORD, just use ReadRegDWORD. Make sure that value is always true, on Windows 98 too. I think I have heard about this value somewhere and if I remember correctly it doesn't hold the right value on Windows 98 and is off by a little on other systems.

kichik
22nd May 2003 17:32 UTC

To find out the CPU speed you can use a variant of this program:
http://www.codeproject.com/system/cp...asp#xx372884xx

Psychedelic
22nd May 2003 17:58 UTC

Thanks!
That worked.
All i needed was:
ReadRegDWORD $0 HKLM "HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\0\" "~MHz"
MessageBox MB_OK "Processor Speed: $0MHz"

I've tested it on NT4, 2000 & XP so far and it works.

kichik
22nd May 2003 18:05 UTC

I have just checked it on Windows 98 and it doesn't work. The key isn't there.

kichik
30th May 2003 19:51 UTC

Latest CPUDesc gets CPU speed too:
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/archive/...instances=0,32

The page hasn't updated yet but the download has.

l_d_allan
28th August 2006 10:39 UTC

I was trying out this plugin to get the cpu speed. It is a modification of the Examples\System\System.nsi code

With an AMD64-3700 (single CPU) with 2.4 clock speed, I'm getting a mhz result of 1283. The results from the NCPU and RAM are correct. Am I doing something wrong? (Note that I have the cpu running at full-speed, without the energy saving AMD Cool'n'Quiet in effect.)

; This is just an example of cpudesc Plugin

>; To have this work, cpudesc.dll should be in 'plugin' subdirectory

>; As of 2006-Aug-27, here is a link to cpudesc:

; ***91;url***93;http://nsis.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/images/8/87/Cpudesc.zip***91;/url***93;

>; 

; (c) l_d_allan (modified from system.nsi by brainsucker)


>Name "CheckMhz Plugin Example"

>OutFile "CheckMhz.exe"

>SetPluginUnload  alwaysoff


Section "ThisNameIsIgnoredSoWhyBother?"

  SetOutPath $TEMP


 ; ----- Sample 3a ----- Direct proc definition -----

  ;0000000000111111111122222222223333333333444444444455555555556666666666777777777788888888889999

 ;01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

 ;INTELP=d AMD=add PPRO=b MMX=d SSE=b SSE2=b 3DNOW=d ARCH=dd LEVEL=dd NCPU=dd MHZ=ddddd RAM=dddd


 ; Direct specification demo

  cpudesc::tell

  Pop$0

 

  StrCpy$1 $0 2, 73         ;pull out two characters after NCPU=

 IntFmt $4 "%u" $1          ; and turn it into a number in $4

  StrCpy$1 $0 5, 80         ;pull out five characters after MHZ=

 IntFmt $2 "%u" $1          ; and turn it into a number in $2

  StrCpy$1 $0 4, 90         ;pull out four characters after RAM=

 IntFmt $3 "%u" $1          ; and turn it into a number in $3

  MessageBox MB_OKCANCEL "NCPU: '$4'  Mhz: '$2'  Ram (megs): '$3'"


 ; last plugin call must not have /NOUNLOAD so NSIS will be able to delete the temporary DLL

  SetPluginUnload manual

 ; do nothing

  System::Free 0


SectionEnd 

>

kichik
28th August 2006 12:03 UTC

The leading zeros cause NSIS to think it's an octal number. You can add another leading number and later remove it.

StrCpy $1 $0 5 80
IntOp $2 1$1 - 100000

l_d_allan
28th August 2006 12:47 UTC

Thanks ... you're good!

Like so?


  cpudesc::tell

  Pop$0

 

  StrCpy$1 $0 2, 73         ;pull out two characters

                            ; (that may have leading

                            ; zero) after NCPU=

 StrCpy $1 1$1              ;$1 now has leading 1 in

                            ; front of 0 to keep from 

                            ; being octal

  IntOp $2 $1 - 100         ;remove leading one

  

  StrCpy$1 $0 5, 80         ;pull out five characters 

                            ; that may have leading 0

                            ; after MHZ=

 StrCpy $1 1$1              ;$1 now has leading 1 in

                            ; front of 0 to keep from

                            ; being octal

  IntOp $3 $1 - 100000      ;remove leading one


  StrCpy$1 $0 4, 90         ;pull out four characters 

                            ; after RAM=

 StrCpy $1 1$1              ;$1 now has leading 1 in 

                            ; front of 0 to keep from 

                            ; being octal

  IntOp $4 $1 - 10000       ;remove leading one


  MessageBox MB_OKCANCEL "NCPU: '$2'  Mhz: '$3'  Ram (megs): '$4'"

Perhaps it would be appropriate to modify the cpudesc.c code. I took a look at it, and there is this line:

wsprintf( ostr, "INTELP=%1d AMD=%c%2.2d PPRO=%1d MMX=%1d SSE=%1d SSE2=%1d 3DNOW=%1d ARCH=%2.2d LEVEL=%2.2d NCPU=%2.2d MHZ=%5.5d RAM=%4.4d",
intelpentium, amdlet, amd, pprocompat, hasmmx, hassse, hassse2, has3dnow, arch, level, ncpu, mhz, ram );

I'm not familiar with the %5.5d format, but perhaps it should be %5d to maintain spacing. The existing code seems to be equivalent to %05d to put a leading zero (or maybe cpudesc.dll is "out of sync" with cpudesc.c?)

But that might mess up StrCpy $1 $0 5, 80?

I suppose the same "padding" with leading 1 applies to NCPU and RAM ... if you had less than 1 gig of memory?

kichik
28th August 2006 13:11 UTC

Using %-5d in the plug-in should do the trick as the padding will go on the right. But changing that would break backwards compatibility with scripts using StrCmp.

The same padding applies to RAM, but doesn't bother NCPU because it's only two digits.