Haven't ran into any.

Not me either.

I first ever heard about this "problem" from Mau1wulf1977's MS-DOS Timemachine video. Haven't seen it be discussed here on Vogons since I became an active poster a year ago.

Realms of Arkania 2 doesn't like more than 16MB installed, if you have more you just waste megabytes with a ramdisk so you have less than 15MB free of ems/xms

this happens on my 128MB p1 build btw

Certain BIOSes had an option for a "memory hole" at 15-16 MB, but I understand that was because certain obscure ISA cards specifically made use of that range and was not generally related to software.

We just went through solving an issue with Privateer, where it's sound/music has issues when more than 16MB of EMS is available.

I think Crusader: No Remorse/Regret (whichever came first - I can never remember) and Ultima 8 have some kind of memory limitation. Could be more than 16MB though (64?)

Aladdin had problems too, with memory bigger than 32 megs if I remember right.

vetz wrote:

Not me either.

I first ever heard about this "problem" from Mau1wulf1977's MS-DOS Timemachine video. Haven't seen it be discussed here on Vogons since I became an active poster a year ago.

Yea that was Privateer. But you can easily fix it through software.

device=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram 16000

for example resolves the issue on machines with more than 16MB.

The issue is garbled / screeching speech.

I am using the "XMS/EMS RAMdisk v1.9i 16-bit DOS TSR" found on excellent MDGx's DOS Power Toys page , just run it before a problematic game and assign ram to the ramdisk, play and unload it again from the command line... no need to modify your boot files this way 😀

dune 2 has no sound with more than 16mb

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yea that was Privateer. But you can easily fix it through software. […]
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vetz wrote:

Not me either.

I first ever heard about this "problem" from Mau1wulf1977's MS-DOS Timemachine video. Haven't seen it be discussed here on Vogons since I became an active poster a year ago.

Yea that was Privateer. But you can easily fix it through software.

device=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram 16000

for example resolves the issue on machines with more than 16MB.

The issue is garbled / screeching speech.

Ah, so that's why that happened. Cool, looks like I'll still be able to use my Gravis Analog Pro joystick to play that game 😀.

Looking at it from another perspective: Do any games MS-DOS "need" more than 16MB RAM. Or run significantly better with it?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Looking at it from another perspective: Do any games MS-DOS "need" more than 16MB RAM. Or run significantly better with it?

That it a very good point. For gaming / application purposes, do you really need more than 16mb of ram? Of course pushing a 486 to its max is fun, but will it really improve perfomance when it comes to these?

keropi wrote:

Realms of Arkania 2 doesn't like more than 16MB installed, if you have more you just waste megabytes with a ramdisk so you have less than 15MB free of ems/xms

this happens on my 128MB p1 build btw

Agreed ...Realm of Arkania: Star Trail does not work if you have too much RAM. You'll have to create a ram drive.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Looking at it from another perspective: Do any games MS-DOS "need" more than 16MB RAM. Or run significantly better with it?

Some do. Some of the very last ones like Bethesda's Battlespire and Redguard I would presume.
The DOS version of Fallout also requires 32MB RAM. At least that's what it says in the readme, probably a typo. I'm sure that 32MB really helps though.
Abe's Oddyseey also suggests 32MB.

Generally, very late DOS stuff. I was going to say Pyl as well, but I think that only comes with a Windows installer? It was kinda meant to be run under Windows, despite it being a DOS program.

Also, it makes sense to have more RAM when you're using a fast machine. I have 256MB on my K6-3+ system (overkill, I know) and I thought Privateer was behaving like that due to the CPU speed.
Wing Commander 3 also crashed a lot on my machine, could it also be because of the excessive amount of RAM?

robertmo wrote:

dune 2 has no sound with more than 16mb

I've played it with sound on 256mb iirc, I haven't actually been stuck on 16mb since 1995 and i've still had Dune2 with sound

F2bnp wrote:

Also, it makes sense to have more RAM when you're using a fast machine. I have 256MB on my K6-3+ system (overkill, I know) and I thought Privateer was behaving like that due to the CPU speed.
Wing Commander 3 also crashed a lot on my machine, could it also be because of the excessive amount of RAM?

Yea good point. It seems the "ramdrive trick" is a quite convenient workaround. I noticed that my machine benchmarks a little slower with the 16MB module. It's likely a slow type.

I haven't played with the GOG.com version of Wing Commander 3 yet, so can't comment on this yet.

HimemX might be a slightly more elegant workaround than a ramdisk.

Jorpho wrote:

HimemX might be a slightly more elegant workaround than a ramdisk.

Could you tell us more about this please?