Hm. If you need EMS, you could give EMS Magic a try.
Haven't used it under Windows 98SE yet, however.. 🙁
https://www.emsmagic.com/

The A7N8X lacks a contiguous 64 kb block of RAM in the UMA, hence EMM386 can't work easily. You can try adding the parameter "FRAME=D000", which requires disabling legacy USB in the BIOS in order to work, or using the parameters "P0=8000 P1=8400 P2=8800 P3=8C00" to use 16 kb frames instead. But these are just work-arounds. The A7N8X isn't really a good board for DOS.

try change to this:

device=c:\windows\emm386.exe RAM M5

or

device=c:\windows\emm386.exe RAM M6

device=c:\windows\emm386.exe RAM M4

etc...

advanced info here:
https://www.hmisource.com/otasuke/files/appno … es/APNT1025.pdf

my 3 computers works fine with M5 or M6 set

and use forum search function instead Guide #1: No EMS memory available

I tried the FRAME=D000,M5, M6, M4 options. All four give me the following message:

"Option ROM or RAM detected within page frame. Press any key when ready...."

And then after I press any key the boot continues and displays EMM info which looks like everything is OK. When I then log to windows, DOS shortcuts can now be configured with EMM and when I launch EMM compatible game, e.g. Lemmings3D all works, prior to EMM it wouldn't launch complaining about lack of EMM.

The option of
"device=c:\windows\emm386.exe P0=8000 P1=8400 P2=8800 P3=8C00" with or without RAM parameter
didn't do anything at all when booting to DOS. No EMM386 message during boot.
When booting to Windows the PC displays "Windows protection error" and shuts down.

If your DOS games work under Win98SE DOS box, then you can have EMS support without EMM386 driver in Win98SE DOS box by adding the following line to [386Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI.

1NoEMMDriver=OFF

Hence, you don't need to worry about finding free UMA for EMS page frame, and you get the benefits of 32-bit protected-mode native drivers for MOUSE and CD-ROM. If the sound cards support SoundBlaster emulation, then the VxD drivers should have it covered as well. This leaves a very simple system setup without having CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on steroids. The only problem is if your sound card only has WDM audio driver (such as AC97 onboard audio). Then you need extra efforts in getting rarely used WDM sound components for SB/MIDI emulation to work in Win98 DOS box. They are usually not included/disabled from WDM vendors' sound drivers installation INF.
VIA AC'97 Sound Blaster drivers for MS-DOS?

kjliew wrote:

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1NoEMMDriver=OFF

interesting!