Use DOSBox and set the ems= and xms= settings appropriately so the game's memory detection doesn't overflow.

Yes thanks, DOSBox emulator works very well for this game.

However, I would also like to run this game on an old legacy machine (just for a bit of fun!), so I'm looking for a way to prevent the game's memory detection routine not to "overflow".

Thanks.

You may try adding "/max=32768" to the end of the HIMEM.SYS line. This may only work in FreeDOS.

I've solved the problem!

I used himem.sys from a DOS 5 boot disk.

Then I used emm386.exe from a DOS 6 boot disk, and used it with the noems switch.

"Star Trail" is now happy using these settings.

Update - I ditched himem, and used jemmex instead, and I get much better results - much more memory available, and also "Star Trail" doesn't keep crashing too, which I'm sure you'll agree is a bit of a bonus! 😉

Ok, I guess you solved it now. so...

But for the record, I remember playing this on a plain Win98(FE) machine (well, this one actually, on which I'm writing now), and can't recall these kinds of problems. Maybe I was lucky 😀

P2(Celeron@866mhz)) BX440 board, 512MB memory, and in a full DOS 'window' (via link on desktop). Granted, this wasn't the retail version(which I aqquired later), but some aban_donware one without the copyprot checks... Don't remember if I had to fiddle with the shortcut properties(memory), but believe not.
Anyway, it's deleted from hdd now, so I can't easily test it.

PS: come to think of it, there actually WAS something I had to do!
Hmm... memory(mine), not too much of it... eh..
Anyways, there were this fix that could be applied, not sure what it did(or what _I_ did), but it worked just fine after that.

.

It's all fixed now - with jemmex.

I haven't tested it under Win98's "dos box" mode yet - I'm happy with it working in "pure DOS" atm.