First post, by Great Hierophant
- Rank
- l33t
While Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle are classics, they are extremely difficult when it comes to memory. They will not run if an Expanded Memory Manager like EMM386.EXE or QEMM.SYS is loaded, even if the "NOEMS" parameter is used.
Ultima 7 requires the following amount of Conventional Memory to Run:
Roland MT-32/LAPC-I (music) and Sound Blaster Pro (speech): 535K
Sound Blaster Pro (music and speech): 548K
Serpent Isle requires the following amount of Conventional Memory to Run:
Roland MT-32/LAPC-I (music) and Sound Blaster Pro (speech): 563K
Sound Blaster Pro (music and speech): 573K
Fortunately these games require HIMEM.SYS to run, this grants DOS access to the High Memory Area, reducing the Conventional Memory Burden from 75K to 25K. It also allows the game to access the Extended Memory Area (in its own peculiar way.)
The unfortunate side is without an Expanded Memory Manager loaded, there is no access to the Upper Memory Area. Typically, this can add anywhere from 112K to 208K, depending on the system. The CD ROM driver and MSCDEX can inhabit this area, as can mouse and sound card drivers.
Without UMA, the situation becomes grim:
MSDOS 25K
COMMAND.COM 10K
OAKCDROM.SYS 35K
MSCDEX.EXE 22K
MOUSE.COM 22K
(These program sizes are from Win98's DOS 7.10)
In this configuration, the user only has 522K, only enough to get Ultima 7 running without sound. I would conclude in order to run these games with sound, a user either had to avoid loading the device drivers to get his CD-ROM working in DOS or use a boot disk. This raises an eyebrow when you consider that for the compilation releases, he had to install the games from a CD!
Now, was it truly hopeless back in the day? Modern programs can help us avoid the memory crunch to an extent, but what could someone do about this 15 years ago?
