Did you use the batch file and patch?

Gamecollector wrote:

Have tested some DOS glide games with Voodoo 2 on P4 3.2E/Intel 865 PE/2 GB RAM/7 GB FAT32 HDD volume/WinME real DOS mode patch. […]
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Have tested some DOS glide games with Voodoo 2 on P4 3.2E/Intel 865 PE/2 GB RAM/7 GB FAT32 HDD volume/WinME real DOS mode patch.
Glide2x.ovl 2.56 (from win9x 3.02.02 drivers).
Have used Freedos 1.0 emm386, xcdrom, shsucdx and ctmouse. WinME emm386 freezes even with 512 MB RAM...
Strange result - Blood 3dfx and Blood Plasma Pack 3dfx can't find the card even if I put glide2x.ovl in the game directory.
Any suggestions?

I've been having the exact same problem. All my web searches always pointed to limiting the protected mode RAM to 63 or 64 MB in Windows 9x. I am in pure DOS, so was unable to test that. I tried removing all but one stick of RAM from my system (for testing,) but my smallest stick is 128 MB. That is as far as I could get in testing, but it didn't seem to matter which Glide version I used, for either Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 card. I've also tried minimalistic boots, slowing down the system by adjusting FSB & with MoSlo. and using XMSDISK to eat up RAM in stages until Blood refuses to even try due to lack of RAM. I ran out of things to try, that I can think of, and haven't been able to get constructive advice on anything else that might work. I've since moved Blood to my DOSBox list and play it there (in 3DFX mode, works fine on my vintage system in software mode.) Not the best solution (to my mind,) as there are issues in DOSBox, but it's playable at least.

AFAIR MS-DOS 6.x himem.sys have 64 MB limit so you can use it with any physical RAM size and still have the proper value. Plus there is himemx.sys from Freedos (/max= option).
The trouble is - WinME automatically loads himem.sys and you can't change its parameters.
Well, I will replace WinMe to Win98SE and try again. Or I will try MS-DOS 6.22 itself...

Gamecollector wrote:

AFAIR MS-DOS 6.x himem.sys have 64 MB limit so you can use it with any physical RAM size and still have the proper value. Plus there is himemx.sys from Freedos (/max= option).
The trouble is - WinME automatically loads himem.sys and you can't change its parameters.
Well, I will replace WinMe to Win98SE and try again. Or I will try MS-DOS 6.22 itself...

One of my minimalistic boots removed the SETXMSTO.EXE line from CONFIG.SYS (it allows me to set available XMS to match what is installed and not the 64MB limit of HIMEM.SYS.) So that boot "should" have been limited to 64MB, but the problem still occurred. I also tried setting XMS to a lesser value. It may not be the RAM causing the problem, I just don't know. The only references I was able to find concerning this problem, though, had to do with RAM. I just wish I could find instances involving DOS and not Windows on the issue.

Unfortunately, most of the responses I got on the issue involved people telling me I'm an idiot for wanting to use DOS in the first place, and to get with the times. Not "here" but on other sites I've posted the question on. I tend to get the same style of sarcastic comments when I post questions concerning my programing issues as well. I find it rather disgusting, myself. If they are too young to know the answer they should just not respond, instead of insulting me 🙁

As for here, nobody seems to know how to fix it. At least nobody ever responded to my query with anything helpful 🙁

Well, I have replaced my WinME to Win98 SE. So after I will fix Win9x/WinXp dualbooting - I will try to configure the classic Win98 DOS mode.
<8GB FAT32 HDD volume and 512 MB RAM. And down to 64 MB or 16 MB if needed.

Bad news:
1) There is no limiter in the Win98SE himem.sys.
2) Strange, but Win98SE emm386.exe can't initialize UMBs if RAM option was used. Only with NOEMS (59 KB). Have found the reason - Sapphire Radeon HD2600 Pro Agp grabs too many addresses in upper memory. After I have replaced it to Matrox Mystique - I got 90 KB of UMBs and can use the EMS+UMB setup.
3) Statically linked glide games still not work.
4) Blood/Blood: Plasma Pak still can't find my Voodoo2. Have found the reason - the game prefers EMS and needs 53 MB of it. Use XMS-only setup.
There is other detector for Blood - the version 1.00 skips blood000.dem and freezes after the 3rd demo...
5) Archimedean Dynasty (all 3 versions) and Screamer 2 (both 3dfx versions) are broken.
Good news
1) Some WinME DOS patch glitches are gone (Descent 2 eregcard, Extreme Assault installation etc).
2) After I have installed the univbe 5.3a compatible videocard in this PC (Matrox Mystique) - other pack of glitches is gone (needs for Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. and for software versions of Dreams to Reality, Grand Theft Auto/London 1969).

Gamecollector wrote:

Bad news: 1) There is no limiter in the Win98SE himem.sys. 2) Strange, but Win98SE emm386.exe can't initialize UMBs if RAM optio […]
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Bad news:
1) There is no limiter in the Win98SE himem.sys.
2) Strange, but Win98SE emm386.exe can't initialize UMBs if RAM option was used. Only with NOEMS (59 KB).
3) Statically linked glide games still not work.
4) Blood still can't find my Voodoo2.
There is another detector for Blood - the version 1.00 skips blood000.dem and freezes after the 3rd demo...
Good news
1) Some WinME DOS patch glitches are gone (Descent 2 eregcard, Extreme Assault installation etc).

The memory limit I read was for running Blood from within Windows 98, not from a MS-DOS boot of Windows 98 (Win98's himem.sys doesn't need the limiter.) What the instructions say, is to create a shortcut to the 3dfx.exe, then right click on the shortcut and select properties then the memory tab. Set the protected mode memory to 63M or less. Then use that shortcut to run the game.

Someome tested "Prost Grand Prix 1998" with a Voodoo 3 and couldn't get it to work. His post is HERE if you want to read it.

FeedingDragon wrote:

Someone tested "Prost Grand Prix 1998" with a Voodoo 3 and couldn't get it to work.

Dude, that is vetz, the guy who STARTED this thread. 🤣

Stiletto wrote:

FeedingDragon wrote:

Someone tested "Prost Grand Prix 1998" with a Voodoo 3 and couldn't get it to work.

Dude, that is vetz, the guy who STARTED this thread. 🤣

Oops.... I didn't notice that. I only posted this because the Voodoo 3 matrix still lists Prost as "?". So, I didn't even look at the names. Sorry 🙁

Have fixed Blood and Blood: Plasma Pak. The reason for "Fatal error: unable to load .dll" is a low memory.
Works if you load w/o EMS memory manager at all. Theoretically must work if you set EMS>53 MB...
P.S. Have tested the game with 64 MB of EMS, works ok.
P.S.S. The classic "Out of the texture memory" crash is in action.

Gamecollector wrote:

Have fixed Blood and Blood: Plasma Pak. The reason for "Fatal error: unable to load .dll" is a low memory.
Works if you load w/o EMS memory manager at all. Theoretically must work if you set EMS>53 MB...

Now you just need to see if it will crash on the second level like vetz's. 😀

Can you duplicate his Dreams To Reality, Prost Grand Prix, and Tie Break Tennis results?

Dreams to Reality - instant freeze. Patched version - the result is same.
Prost Grand Prix - black screen freeze when you try to start a race.
Tie Break Tennis - black screen freeze when you try to start a match.

Plus:
Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. - "can't init 3dfx".
Screamer 2 s23dfx.exe - "3DFX chip not found!".
All statically linked games not work too. P.S. Even with .bat files.

Gamecollector wrote:

Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. - "can't init 3dfx".
Screamer 2 s23dfx.exe - "3dfx chip not found!".

That's no good, that's different from his results! 😲

Gamecollector wrote:

All statically linked games not work too.

This is probably Voodoo set variables but damned if I can remember what they should be set at...
[EDIT] are you using his batch files? that is probably important.
Voodoo 2 DOS Glide compatibility matrix

I tested with Battlecruiser 3000 A.D version 2.09

Screamer 2 requires batch file. Other people beside me have got this game running, so it must be the system.

My trial and error with screamer rally on voodoo2 is in this thread. But i got it working (single and sli), even on a voodoo3 it works perfectly well.

I did it in win98se, voodoo2 was very stubborn and had to be in the right pci slot for screamer rally to work (using batch and patch) and voodoo3 needed the oldest driver.
on another system a v2 worked right away and didn't care about the pci slot it was in 😕

Voodoo3 gave corruption or errors with newer drivers.

Eventually i got it working on several systems with v1, v2, v2 sli and voodoo3 so keep trying!

Well, got Blood working now 😀 Only problem is that EMM386.EXE maxes out at 32 Mb of EMS. QEMM386 will go higher, but it caps my memory out at 256 Mb (all of which is made EMS,) disables HIMEM.SYS which some of my other games need (get a missing HIMEM.SYS error message,) and blocks XMSDSK from lowering my RAM so that Privateer has digital audio 🙁 Using PCIUMB, I managed to set EMS to 54 Mb (the minimum that will allow Blood to load for me,) but that also broke most of my other games. Still looking for an EMM386 or replacement that will work 🙁

Shouldn't QEMM provide both EMS and XMS?
Anyway, you can try FreeDOS' memory manager or JEMM

alexanrs wrote:

Shouldn't QEMM provide both EMS and XMS?
Anyway, you can try FreeDOS' memory manager or JEMM

QEMM does, but it sets it as ~256M EMS and ~70M of XMS, and I haven't been able to change that (except to drop it down to 5M of EMS and 0 XMS.) As for JEMM, so far I haven't been able to get that to work with any of my newer games except Blood (Armada, Privateer, etc...) I'm still searching, but it looks like I'm going to be stuck with just building a boot menu. I was hoping to avoid that 🙁

Still no luck with Archimedean Dynasty, all 3 version just shortly spin CD then freeze. Too much memory? No soundcard? FAT32? Something else?
DOSBox works ok with this CD...
P.S. AD 3dfx patch uses the glideAPI 2.42 (3dfx patch readme). So - Voodoo2/3/4/5/Banshee troubles are expected...

meljor wrote:

My trial and error with screamer rally on voodoo2 is in this thread.

Screamer Rally works perfectly with the Voodoo2 patch (sr3dfx2.exe).
The trouble is Screamer 2 + Voodoo2.
Well, I will try PCI slots play...
P.S. PCI slots play have failed. Have tried all 5 slots with EF2000: Tactcom.
P.S.S. S23dfx.exe looks like statically linked. So - of course it can't run with my system. Like all others statically linked glide games. 200 MHz FSB and 3.2 GHz CPU is too much, AFAIR the .bat files method can fail even with PIII.

FeedingDragon wrote:

EMM386.EXE maxes out at 32 Mb of EMS.

Use Freedos himemx/jemm386 or jemmex. But the easiest way is the XMS-only boot.
And yes, only asshands programmers always use EMS (even if the EMS size is too low) and work with XMS only if there is no EMS at all...