CD-ROM drivers eat up a lot of memory.
You'll probably want to use EMM386.EXE to allow UMBs, and then you can load the drivers into 'high memory', leaving more free conventional memory.
Pretty advanced topic, there's probably some guides somewhere on this or other sites.

I've included a sample preamble for your CONFIG.SYS file. The arguments for FILES, STACKS, BUFFERS, and EMM386 may be slightly different, but all lines should be there. You can then install subsequent drivers into the HMA with the DEVICEHIGH in CONFIG.SYS (like DEVICEHIGH C\DRIVERS\CD\TOSHCD.SYS /D:DVD1) and LH in AUTOEXEC.BAT (like LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:DVD1). Please run mem /c/p (and take screenshots of the two resulting pages of info).

1DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
2DOS=HIGH,UMB
3DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
4FILES=30
5STACKS=0,0
6BUFFERS=20

gdjacobs wrote:

I've included a sample preamble for your CONFIG.SYS file. The arguments for FILES, STACKS, BUFFERS, and EMM386 may be slightly d […]
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I've included a sample preamble for your CONFIG.SYS file. The arguments for FILES, STACKS, BUFFERS, and EMM386 may be slightly different, but all lines should be there. You can then install subsequent drivers into the HMA with the DEVICEHIGH in CONFIG.SYS (like DEVICEHIGH C\DRIVERS\CD\TOSHCD.SYS /D:DVD1) and LH in AUTOEXEC.BAT (like LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:DVD1). Please run mem /c/p (and take screenshots of the two resulting pages of info).

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1DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
2DOS=HIGH,UMB
3DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
4FILES=30
5STACKS=0,0
6BUFFERS=20

Your suggestion works fine. Here are the screenshoots:

In CONFIG.SYS, is SLCD.SYS being loaded via DEVICE or DEVICEHIGH? Likewise, are MMOUSE.COM and MSCDEX.EXE being loaded via LH or straight in AUTOEXEC.BAT?

QEMM 9X on WinWorldPC

ElBrunzy wrote:

QEMM 9X on WinWorldPC/quote]

I've had issues in the past with the QEMM package downloaded from that site. The one on this page works better: http://www.chsoft.com/dv.html

Edit your Config.sys:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE /NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=120

For NOEMS and Maximum Conventional Memory.
Also if you run MS-Dos 6.22 you can run Memmaker for autoconfiguration.
if youre not so experienced, i would try this first.

Maybe you want to show us your config.sys file and autoexec.bat ?

Is SLCD your CD-Rom Driver? if yes you may want to change it with vide-cdd.sys,
uses Less Memory, and MSCDEX.EXE can be replaced with shsucdx from FreeDOS which also needs less memory.
i also would remove smartdrv from my Configuration.
i recommend it only if you use many small files, only if you use a very old hdd its recommend.

A good substitute for MS Mousedriver is cutemouse, i would use a version number older, the newest version has a little bug which can harm Windows 3.x Mouse Behavior.
It also uses less RAM, then mouse.com from MS.

If you run a modern PCI System, you can also opt for umbpci.sys which is a driver that offers umbs on newer PCI Systems, like Pentium with 430FX.
This gives you a lot memory in pci memory space to highload drivers.
i get at least 634Kb free with it on my pentium 1.

He has to use the SLCD driver for the proprietary Sony interface on the GUS to work. Also, there should be no forward slash before NOEMS.

matze79 wrote:

If you run a modern PCI System, you can also opt for umbpci.sys which is a driver that offers umbs on newer PCI Systems, like Pentium with 430FX.
This gives you a lot memory in pci memory space to highload drivers.
i get at least 634Kb free with it on my pentium 1.

umbpci.sys drivers readme indicates that the drivers are not compatible with 486DX (and above) family. So what I've did as I edited both of my config.sys and autoexec.bat with the DOS startec pack contents from philscomputerlab website ( i hope he won't mind). This is what i have now:

Autoexec.bat:

@REM ===== Gravis initialization (3.59) =====
@SET ULTRASND=220,1,1,7,5
@SET ULTRADIR=C:\ULTRASND
@SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T1
@SET ULTRA16=32c,0,0,1,0
@C:\ULTRASND\ULTRINIT.EXE -ej
@REM ===== Gravis initialization ends =====
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS
SET PATH=C:\ULTRASND;%PATH%
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
GoTo %config%
:EMC
:XMC
:CMC
LH C:\BIN\MSCDEX.EXE /D:SONY_000
:EM
:XM
:CM
LH C:\MOUSE\MMOUSE /A8
:E
😦
:C

Config.sys:

[COMMON]
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=120
BUFFERS=30
STACKS=9,256
LASTDRIVE=Z
[menu]
menuitem=EMC, Expanded memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
menuitem=XMC, Extended memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
menuitem=CMC, Conventional Memory only + Mouse + CD-ROM
menuitem=EM, Expanded memory + Mouse
menuitem=XM, Extended memory + Mouse
menuitem=CM, Conventional memory only + Mouse
menuitem=E, Expanded memory
menuitem=X, Extended memory
menuitem=C, Conventional memory only
menudefault=EMC,10

[EMC]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
DEVICEHIGH=DEVICE=\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C
[XMC]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICEHIGH=DEVICE=\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C
[CMC]
DEVICE=\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C
[EM]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
[XM]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
[CM]
[E]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
[X]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
[C]

Not to forget, my configuration is:

LS-486E with AMD DX4-100, 32Mb of RAM
S3 Trio 64V+ with 3dfx Diamond Monster (Voodoo 1)
Gravis ultrasound Max 2.1
Sony CDU-31A
CF adapter with 2GB card
Dual floppy drivers, both 3.5 and 5.25

So far everything seems ok, no issues with config or autoexec. Thanks for all help.

Looks good for the most part, just one change I'd recommend.

DEVICEHIGH=DEVICE=\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C

I'm surprised this syntax works. DEVICE and DEVICEHIGH expect a loadable file as the argument. It should read:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C

Using a full path instead of just \DEV\SLCD.SYS is not always necessary, but it is less ambiguous and the traditional "correct" way to declare in your CONFIG.SYS file.

gdjacobs wrote:

I'm surprised this syntax works. DEVICE and DEVICEHIGH expect a loadable file as the argument. It should read:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DEV\SLCD.SYS /D:SONY_000 /B:340 /M:P /V /C

Using a full path instead of just \DEV\SLCD.SYS is not always necessary, but it is less ambiguous and the traditional "correct" way to declare in your CONFIG.SYS file.

You are correct, that was typo ( DEVICE and DEVICEHIGH expect a loadable file as the argument) I have fixed however I've missed to notice it when i was posting....

Excellent. Absent any wrinkles, I expect you're around 620k conventional RAM now. You can further optimize through the use of utilities like HIMEMX and JEMM386 which are essentially drop in replacements for HIMEM and EMM386.