Discussion:
EMM386 issues with 4GB RAM under MS-DOS 7.1
(too old to reply)
a jones
2009-07-08 20:02:20 UTC
Permalink
Has anyone ever got MS-DOS 7.1 (I'm talking about booting into the DOS
version that came with Win98SE) to play nice with 4GB of system RAM?
I'm facing a wierd problem with EMM386 that I've never seen before.
Here are the outputs from MEM /C /P without and with EMM386 loaded:

Without EMM386

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total Used Free
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Conventional 655,360 31,648 623,712
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
*************************************************************
Extended (XMS) 3,183,476,7 65,536 3,183,411,2
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Total memory 3,184,132,0 97,184 3,184,034,9
*************************************************************

Total under 1 MB 655,360 31,648 623,712

Largest executable program size 623,616 (609K)
Largest free upper memory block 0 (0K)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

With EMM386

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total Used Free
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Conventional 655,360 16,288 639,072
Upper 129,504 19,664 109,840
Reserved 0 0 0
*************************************************************
Extended (XMS) 3,183,347,2 ? 0
---------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Total memory 3,184,132,0 ? 748,912
*************************************************************

Total under 1 MB 784,864 35,952 748,912

Largest executable program size 639,056 (624K)
Largest free upper memory block 65,280 (64K)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

As you can see, with EMM386 loaded, used and free XMS is not being
detected properly, whereas it is when EMM386 is not loaded. Clearly,
EMM386 is barfing on encountering 4GB of RAM. What do I do to solve
this issue, 'cos many games won't work without free XMS being
available.

TIA for all the help!

P.S. FreeDOS' JEMM386 and JEMMEX work and detect/make available all my
RAM properly, but for various reasons I'd like to use the HIMEM and
EMM386 combo if possible.
A***@NOT.AT.Arargh.com
2009-07-08 20:22:54 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 13:02:20 -0700 (PDT), a jones <***@gmail.com>
wrote:

<snip>
Post by a jones
What do I do to solve
this issue, 'cos many games won't work without free XMS being
available.
Probably best unplug about 3.5 gig of the memory. :-)

I thought is was a well known -feature- that Win98 doesn't really like
more than 512meg of memory, probably because the problem that you have
seen.

Note: -feature-: MS term for a bug/problem.
--
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Marcus Houlden
2009-07-08 23:45:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by A***@NOT.AT.Arargh.com
<snip>
Post by a jones
What do I do to solve
this issue, 'cos many games won't work without free XMS being
available.
Probably best unplug about 3.5 gig of the memory. :-)
I thought is was a well known -feature- that Win98 doesn't really like
more than 512meg of memory, probably because the problem that you have
seen.
Note: -feature-: MS term for a bug/problem.
Even documented at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/253912/en-us

FWIW, I'm using the 32 bit version of XP on a machine with 4 GB of RAM for
work (I need to have Oracle, SQL Server and IIS on the same machine but they
use a lot of memory), and that doesn't allow you to use it all. It comes
back as something like 3.25 GB available. The fix would be the 64 bit
version of XP but that's not supported.

mh.
--
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http://personal.nukesoft.co.uk

From address is a blackhole. Reply-to address is valid.
a jones
2009-07-09 10:59:32 UTC
Permalink
Thanks for the quick replies everyone! :)
Post by A***@NOT.AT.Arargh.com
I thought is was a well known -feature- that Win98 doesn't
really like more than 512meg of memory
Well, I happen to be dual booting between WinXP Pro 32-bit (will be
moving to Win7 64-bit to utilize all my RAM) and MS-DOS 7.1, so
there's no Win98SE to speak of. Just the DOS version included with
Win98SE is being booted into.

Thing is, as noted before, *only* EMM386 is causing problems here.
Without it loaded, MS-DOS 7.1 is able to see all my XMS fine, so I
need some sort of solution for this.
Post by A***@NOT.AT.Arargh.com
-Try EMM386 from MSDOS 8.0 (WME)?
-Use FURD19L to make a 3.5 GB ramdisk to carry your swapfile?
I thought MS-DOS 6.00-6.22 had EMM386 versions 4.45-4.49, and Windows
95/98/ME i.e. MS-DOS 7.00/7.10/8.00 had EMM386 version 4.95? So I
guess WinME's EMM386 should be the same as that included with Win98SE?

Re. FURD19L, I'm sorry, but I Googled it and had no success finding
it. :( What is this exactly and where can I find it?

I should note that I've already tried creating a 2GB RAM drive (that's
the max. size possible) with XMSDisk. I thought that maybe this would
make only the remaining 1.5-2GB of RAM visible to EMM386, but no joy. :
(

On the same lines though, do any of you know of a RAM limiter or a
program that will 'eat' around 3GB of my RAM and that I can load from
CONFIG.SYS *before* EMM386, so that EMM386 sees far less physical RAM
present? I'm pretty sure that might do the trick, but I haven't found
any such utility so far...
JJ
2009-07-09 12:37:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by a jones
On the same lines though, do any of you know of a RAM limiter or a
program that will 'eat' around 3GB of my RAM and that I can load from
CONFIG.SYS *before* EMM386, so that EMM386 sees far less physical RAM
present? I'm pretty sure that might do the trick, but I haven't found
any such utility so far...
EMM386 uses the memory provided by the XMS manager (HIMEM) and not the
native memory (BIOS). So try limiting the HIMEM to use less than 4GB of
memory. e.g.:

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /INT15=1024

This will leave 1024KB of native memory unallocated/unmanaged by HIMEM.
Roughly the total RAM minus 1MB will be the total amount of XMS memory.
p***@nospam.demon.co.uk
2009-07-09 16:20:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by a jones
Thanks for the quick replies everyone! :)
[snip]
Post by a jones
Re. FURD19L, I'm sorry, but I Googled it and had no success finding
it. :( What is this exactly and where can I find it?
It's Franck Uberto's (?) ramdrive for DOS -- the smallest and
most powerful ramdrive I've seen. I think it can be used with
W95/98 with some provisos (it's all in the doc), as are there
loading it in config.sys rather than autoexec.bat.

I have fu_rd19i.zip here, so I guess the 1.9L version is later
and better...

Pete
--
"We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors,
we have borrowed it from our descendants."
Richard Bonner
2009-07-14 12:09:54 UTC
Permalink
***@nospam.demon.co.uk wrote:
(Re: XMSDSK)
Post by p***@nospam.demon.co.uk
It's Franck Uberto's (?) ramdrive for DOS -- the smallest and
most powerful ramdrive I've seen.
*** I agree. I now use it exclusively on all my DOS systems.
Post by p***@nospam.demon.co.uk
I think it can be used with
W95/98 with some provisos (it's all in the doc),
*** There are restrictions but it can be used.
Post by p***@nospam.demon.co.uk
as are there loading it in config.sys rather than autoexec.bat.
*** Yup. WIN 9x balks at CONFIG.sys loading of this program.
Post by p***@nospam.demon.co.uk
I have fu_rd19i.zip here, so I guess the 1.9L version is later
and better...
Pete
*** I am currently using 1.9i with excellent results.

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

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