EMM386 appears to be causing games to hang/crash \ VOGONS

EMM386 appears to be causing games to hang/crash

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First post, by nzoomed

Posted on 2020-08-09, 07:43

nzoomed Offline

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Posts: 136
Joined: 2017-08-01, 22:48

Ive noticed a few glitches in my games on my new install of DOS on a 386.
Some issues were downright corruption on defective media, but ive had issues with Rockford locking up with a blank screen after I loose all my lifes.
Instead of going to the home screen, it just goes blank.
Then I noticed I could get the game to work fine when EMM386 was turned off.
I only discovered this by accident after turning it off along with smartdrive so I could run Speedsys properly.
I have noticed other apps sometimes do the same thing too, such as cachechk when I came to running it.

Below is my config.sys and autoexec.bat files for you to inspect.

I have run memmaker earlier on, and it seems to keep throwing out the line for the CDROM driver in Autoexec.bat and I had to add it back after running memmaker.

Any other ideas?
Im pretty sure the RAM is OK, it passed a memtest86+ test fine.

1DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
3BUFFERS=33,0
4FILES=90
5STACKS=9,256
6DOS=UMB
7LASTDRIVE=E
8FCBS=4,0
9DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
10DEVICEHIGH /L:1,10416 =C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS
11DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
12DOS=HIGH
13DEVICEHIGH /L:1,40800 =C:\DOS\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
14DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
15

SET SOUND=C:\SB16 SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S C:\SB16\SB16SET /P /Q LH /L:0 C:\ […]
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SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\SB16SET /P /Q
LH /L:0 C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
LH /L:1,29472 c:\MOUSE\MOUSE.COM
LOADHIGH=C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

Reply 1 of 2, by dr_st

Posted on 2020-08-09, 11:12

dr_st Offline

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Posts: 3356
Joined: 2015-04-09, 07:18

There are at least two issues I can think of:

1. Some games (not many, but some) have compatibility issues with EMM386 or protected mode in general.
2. On some systems EMM386 fails to automatically detect available vs reserved memory address regions, and can allocate UMBs in address space reserved to BIOS or devices, which can lead to weird crashes and misbehavior. For this purpose the X= switch was introduced which tells EMM386 which regions to exclude.

Since I never owned a 386 and haven't played Rockford, I cannot be of more specific help in your case.

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Reply 2 of 2, by nzoomed

Posted on 2020-08-09, 11:22

nzoomed Offline

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Rank: Member
Posts: 136
Joined: 2017-08-01, 22:48

dr_st wrote on 2020-08-09, 11:12:
There are at least two issues I can think of: […]
Show full quote

There are at least two issues I can think of:

1. Some games (not many, but some) have compatibility issues with EMM386 or protected mode in general.
2. On some systems EMM386 fails to automatically detect available vs reserved memory address regions, and can allocate UMBs in address space reserved to BIOS or devices, which can lead to weird crashes and misbehavior. For this purpose the X= switch was introduced which tells EMM386 which regions to exclude.

Since I never owned a 386 and haven't played Rockford, I cannot be of more specific help in your case.

OK, thats interesting to know, Rockford is from about 1987 I think.
Since Cachechk was doing silly things, I wonder if its something else?
I have been told that the A20 line bug on some motherboards can do similar things.
Would be interested if someone else with a 386 can test this game out.

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