mmx is pentium 2 or so ?

The latest Pentiums (Pentia?) had MMX as well.

There was Pentium MMX (starting I think at 133 Mhz).
I do not see MMX support as a priority (programs requiring it in most cases also require more powerfull computer than DOSBOX is able to emulate on current computers).
Officially DOSBOX emulates 80486 (plus some minor additions for some games).

Mirek

starting at 166MHz

Absolutely correct. MMX started from 166 onwards.

Thank you for answering.
MMX sure is not a priority, but i guessed it's worth a thought.

VDMSound does have MMX support, but lacks XMS/EMS. Without DOSBox i'm not able to get EMS-Memory in a DOS shell, only XMS.
I tried everything from .pif tweaking to config/autoexec.nt editing to manually trying to run Emm386.exe, no success.

Does anyone have clues for me?

Regards, deus-ex.

ems missing with vdm usually happens due to bios devices taking up the place of the pagemapping frame of ems.

you could try to disable all onboard devices (integretated ones) and disabling usb/legacy usb support.

I don't see a real reason to have MMX implemented in dosbox.
AFAIK no DOS game requires it and it would probably be dog slow if implemented in C++ (otherwise wouldn' be platform independant).
I know of one DOS (raytracing) demo which requires MMX and that one also has windows version.

Qbix wrote:

ems missing with vdm usually happens due to bios devices taking up the place of the pagemapping frame of ems.

you could try to disable all onboard devices (integretated ones) and disabling usb/legacy usb support.

Allright, i'm here to report back:
Though beeing well experienced in setting up the bios even an ~old~ dog can learn a new tricks once in a while. My approach was to toggle off everything discardable (including printer port/usb/system- & video bios cache...) and to put back in one after the other to isolate the problem.

Finally, EMS was available!
Reverting back one setting after the other i found the cause: the onboard LAN support. The BIOS just offers a simple "auto/off" toggle, no further settings can be made. Nice. 🙁

I'd never thought to take that as possible cause into consideration.
Thanks for your suggestions, Qbix. 😁

Best regards, deus-ex.

yes. it's usually either usb or lan.

Glad you were able to solve it. not everybody is that lucky. Some bioses put stuff there that can not be disabled (not very compatible with dos as well)

I'm glad you took the advice serious. As you said it was something you would never think off as a possible cause.

deus-ex: just plut a PCI lan card to your comp 😀

An odd thing happened with VDMSound a while ago with regards to EMS. I wasn't able to get EMS unless I turned off "VESA compatibility mode" in VDMSound. This does not affect IT's functionality in the least. It may also allow you to turn your NIC on in your BIOS. It might be worth a shot...

wasn't vesa compatiblity of vdmsound the fact that it went fullscreen ?

Currently i'm not in need for LAN, so i don't have to think about other solutions yet. Funny, since i toggled off "Onboard LAN" for the first time, after rebooting the entry for "OnChip 1934" (Firewire) was gone. It never reapeared afterwards (even with reenabled "OnChip LAN"). So much for bugfree bioses. They don't exist, mind you...

Concerning "VESA compatibility", i allready had that toggled off in the main configuration since that was requiered to enable graphic display in "Open Cubic Player", i.e. Note Dots, Scopes, Spectrum Analyzer... I guess its because my GForce 5600 lacks VESA support. I'm very unhappy with that, it came to my knowledge after buying and installing the card. My previous GF3 came with VESA support including Textmode 132x60 so i figured its common with GForce cards, but nada.

VESA Textmodes and/or general VESA support in DOS environment seems to be very unpopular with Graphiccard manufactors these days. Before you suggest, DOS VESA drivers won't help, i tried allready. Waiting for Scitech (UNIVBE) to support my card in their current new driver platform.

Regards, deus-ex.