DOS 7.10 conventional memory increase fun

[eightbit]

Since i picked up an old Gateway P5-120 and have been putzing around with it on what little off time I have had I have been having a lot of fun with this thing just getting stuff to work. That isn't being sarcastic mind you...I actually DO have fun getting stuff to work So far I have the DVD drive, mouse, sound/midi, and USB flash drives working in *Pure* DOS 7.10 (booting to pure dos without Win98 via the NoBootGUI msdos.sys option)

 

I went to try out "Cannon Fodder" tonight (1994 DOS game) just to see how the DOS version fairs to the lovely Amiga version and ran into a slight issue. Not enough conventional memory. The system has 64MB, but conventional DOS memory reads 504MB max executable size and this game requires something like 542MB.

 

I haven't messed with this stuff in a LONG time, but I found an excellent page that may be valuable to some:

 

http://www.mdgx.com/mem6.htm

 

Just using the EMM386 switches outlined there got me 618MB of conventional memory and I was able to load Cannon Fodder just fine. And no, it does not compare to the Amiga version in the slightest...but at least I can run it now

 

I will try replacing the mouse driver with ctmouse maybe tomorrow and see if that gives a little more. Hope it helps someone else that is trying to play DOS games that require more conventional memory in pure Win98SE DOS 7.10.....yeah...all three of us

Edited August 24, 2017 by eightbit

[carlsson]

Some of your MB are really kB but I'll overlook those typos. Anyway, getting more than 618K useable conventional memory probably will be a tough task, squeezing out the last 22K. I suppose you're already loading stuff into the UMB, EMS/XMS/whatever memory.

[eightbit]

Yes, I meant KB I am not used to using Kilobyte anymore...haha! I ended up changing the mouse driver to CTMOUSE and that driver is great. I now have 626KB of conventional memory. I think I'm done That should be enough to run almost everything DOS related I think.

Edited August 25, 2017 by eightbit

[carlsson]

Very nice! I tried to look up what is the maximum realistic amount of free memory, on a DOS computer of any version that is not stripped down below usability. I found a discussion thread on Vogons, where some people seem to obtain up to 631K (possibly a different DOS than you're onto, and different drivers) but even for the extreme cases, that seems to be hard to beat since at least a small portion of the system needs to be in conventional memory.

 

Further reading if you're curious, the discussion has been alive for six years:

http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26435

[mr_me]

Before microsoft came out with an extended memory manager, I used one called QEMM. From what I remember it could squeeze out a few more KB compared with Microsoft emm. They also had this very usefull multitasking environment for DOS called Desqview, with cut and paste and scripting automation.

[MarkO]

Before microsoft came out with an extended memory manager, I used one called QEMM. From what I remember it could squeeze out a few more KB compared with Microsoft emm. They also had this very usefull multitasking environment for DOS called Desqview, with cut and paste and scripting automation.

 

I bought Desqview and QEMM, BITD... Very Nice for Maximum DOS Applications....

 

QEMM 8.0

 

QEMM 97 9.0

 

MarkO

Edited August 28, 2017 by MarkO

[Flojomojo]

But 640K should be enough for anybody!