BUFFERS=50 seems a bit high, but I'm not entirely sure the effect it has on memory.

First off your FILES and BUFFERS are set extremely high. This will cost you quite some RAM. Lower this to 10 or similar, or leave it out completely.

Second, do you really need the DRIVER.SYS for your floppy? Or can you work without it?

Third, try running with US keyboard by removing the KEYB FR line as well. This also takes up memory.

Also, even though you are using DOS 3.2, try running MEM /C to see details of your memory layout. Not sure if 3.2 supports that... Also, you can try using DOS 3.3 or even 5.0, which definitely supports that command.

Rawit wrote:

BUFFERS=50 seems a bit high, but I'm not entirely sure the effect it has on memory.

I think each buffer is one sector (512 Bytes), but I might be wrong.

root42 wrote:

Rawit wrote:

BUFFERS=50 seems a bit high, but I'm not entirely sure the effect it has on memory.

I think each buffer is one sector (512 Bytes), but I might be wrong.

Looked it up, seems to be 512 + 16 bytes = 528 bytes.

Without a more detailed picture of where your memory is allocated we can spend all day guessing. DRIVER.SYS might be needed for your floppy.

See if you can run MEM /C (I don't recall if MEM command is included with DOS 3.30 so it might not work). If not, maybe someone else can recommend a good utility for DOS 3.30 that can give detailed info about your memory usage.

Thanks for your help.

I set the files and buffers to 5, removed the keyboard parameter.
I really need the driver.sys because i have many games on 3"1/2 floppy disk.

i have now with this setting 320kb free instead of 264 in the same situation.

It is still extremely low, on some others computers (i own vintage laptops) i always used to battle to increase my conventional memory from ~580 to ~600, but never from 264!

By the way i saw i made a mistake i had dos 3.30 installed, and it does not have the MEM command.
If you have any idea about an utility i may use.

Thank you

Can you try to simply boot from a DOS 5.0 floppy, so you can run mem /c? And see what a blank DOS install will give you?

The Dark Corner BBS has some DOS utilities in its file download area. (Where else but a BBS will you find DOS utils)?

http://www.dcee.net/Files/Utils/

Under Memory tools Download SYSMAP.

http://www.dcee.net/Files/Utils/sysmap.arj

It is in ARJ format - you may need the ARJ utility to uncompress it:

http://www.dcee.net/Files/Archiver/

Once you run it this is what the help screen looks like:

I tested this in a DOS 6.22 virtual machine but according to the help screen it works in DOS 3.2 - 4.01.

The main screen looks like this:

Look under the owner column and to the left the amount of memory in bytes to find out what is using so much memory (you can scroll up and down). In my configuration IFS$HLP$, which is Windows for Workgroups network driver for DOS is eating 265K+ base memory.

I wouldn't be surprised if is was DRIVER.SYS since you don't have anything else loading in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.bat.

In any case take a few screenshots and post them here so we can provide insight.

root42 wrote:

First off your FILES and BUFFERS are set extremely high. This will cost you quite some RAM. Lower this to 10 or similar, or leav […]
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First off your FILES and BUFFERS are set extremely high. This will cost you quite some RAM. Lower this to 10 or similar, or leave it out completely.

Second, do you really need the DRIVER.SYS for your floppy? Or can you work without it?

Third, try running with US keyboard by removing the KEYB FR line as well. This also takes up memory.

Also, even though you are using DOS 3.2, try running MEM /C to see details of your memory layout. Not sure if 3.2 supports that... Also, you can try using DOS 3.3 or even 5.0, which definitely supports that command.

I think none of these can be hold accountable for a loss of about 300+ KB RAM. There should be something else is going on.

Just as other friends already suggested, please boot with a DOS 5 or 6 floppy. Don't forget to copy mem.exe to the same boot floppy. Than share the output of "mem /c /p".

PS: http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/dos.html

I had to reset the Keyboard to FR because i had quickly enough to search few minutes each special characters.
And i set the fils and buffers to 10 instead of 5 because trying a game it was stopping at launch for that.

I will show the actual state of memory in real condition, it means with the driver launched to access the CF card.
That's why the amount decreases, so here is checkit :

Here the diagnostic of Commander Keen which refuses to start after :

And the sysmap informations (thanks for you information about), that tends to show me that i have 550kb of free memory :

At the end have the feeling that i have more free memory that i expected but it seems not all programs see it entirely..

For DOS 5.0 the link leads to 1.44mo image disk, i don't have the possibility to read 1.44 disk. I found a not conventional image disk on another web site, but after writting it on a 360k 5.25 disk it was not working.
If it is really necessary i will spend more time later to get it working.

thank you !

My original DOS 5.0 was in 360KB format. Let me check and send you an 360KB bootable image when I return back home

Are we sure that the Orchid Tiny Turbo does not interfere with the RAM?

Admittedly my experience with XT based systems is limited (thankfully) and upgrading your DOS may not solve your problems.

It's possible that the memory expansion board is not recognized by Commander Keen. I recall this scenario with other apps when I had a monochrome-based XT machine. Fortunately the word processor I used didn't have this issue since that was its main use. I didn't get into PC gaming till I got a 286 VGA machine.

Check the documentation that came with the memory board.

256k video memory? Is that memory "borrowed" from the regular ram?

Cobra42898 wrote:

256k video memory? Is that memory "borrowed" from the regular ram?

No, that is the regular RAM on an EGA board.

This should be in Marvin. All old hardware and driver/configuration questions belong there. This subforum is for DOS games on modern systems, as in Very Old Games On New Systems. Marvin, the Paranoid Android

Moved.

Norton Commander wrote:

Admittedly my experience with XT based systems is limited (thankfully) and upgrading your DOS may not solve your problems.

It's possible that the memory expansion board is not recognized by Commander Keen. I recall this scenario with other apps when I had a monochrome-based XT machine. Fortunately the word processor I used didn't have this issue since that was its main use. I didn't get into PC gaming till I got a 286 VGA machine.

Check the documentation that came with the memory board.

We are not trying to upgrade his DOS, we are trying to help him use MEM command (which is available with MS-DOS 5.0 and above) to see what is really happening. 🤣

Thank you for your replies 😀

The theory that the expansion board may not be recognized is interesting !

As a test I tried Monkey Island 2 which is too modern for this PC even with an accelerator, and the game launched well. Of course the scrolling was slow, but it means that the pc should really have more than the memory avaliable displayed by Commander Keen. I don't know how much memory use Monkey Island 2 but certainly a lot more!
I encountered the same issue with Catacomb Abyss, which is from the same team, not enough memory, so maybe their programs recognize only the ram installed on the motherboard.

@Tayyare : By the way i am interested by your offer to do a 360k image of dos 5.0 in order to try MEM.