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Cannot enable EMS under Win2K...

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Reply 100 of 117, by NStriker

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boozy wrote:

Uhmm...do I completely miss the point here or isn't it just like putting DEVICE=EMM386.EXE in your config.sys?

In DOS, yeah. But we're really talking about Win2K's NTVDM. I don't have EMS in the NTVDM. The topic sorta drifted around and got onto DOS and other stuff, too.😀

Reply 102 of 117, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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NStriker wrote:

Unfortunately, there are few of us around telling them what we want,...

Sure we do. We "vote" on a regular basis with our money. And there are all kinds of ideas out there, they just need to choose them intelligently and not choose them because they "wined and dined" company reps *cough*rambus*cough*

and what we want doesn't always end up meeting the industry's roadmap, because they have to push the new tech. Sometimes, it's a real pain, but once it's past, we're fine.

Sure. I've completely adapted to my new motherboard with "microchannels", EISA, EMS memory system, and RAMBUS memory.
Heh-heh-heh. If it's good, I'll take it. If not, I'll take that "roadmap" of their's and trash it.

That I can't use my old power supply with my new system?

While I didn't like the "interpretive" power supply of the ATX (when I switch something off, I want it off, not a timed interpretation, IE: Hold for 4 seconds to turn off). I have to admit that PC's needed a new power supply setup. Too easy to mix up their dual-connectors and toast the motherboard.

BTW, I noticed that there are now options to choose how the power supply reacts on some motherboards, including the classic "immediate shut-down".

(I turned off BIOS USB keyboard support once, and it took me a while to figure out why my RAID card wasn't responding.

"Keyboard error...No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue". Heh.

Most office computers only had either a NIC or a modem, not both, and often didn't even have sound. So I think the industry had to force PCI a bit more than you may think.

Once gamers found out that they could vastly improve their Quake with a 3dfx card, things changed. Nowadays, home users *cough*gamers*cough* have a very large effect on the industry. Almost no business needs 3D acceleration, yet it's very difficult to find 2D only nowadays. The PCI capacity was well beyond that of ISA.

As for DDR... Now that we have it, and the price has been driven down by availability, would you really go back to SDR even if it's only a 10 to 15% difference in performance?

The only reason I bought DDR was that my "new" motherboard required it, and I almost didn't buy the motherboard because of it (although I was glad I did because it allows me to use UMBPCI.SYS). The price-to-performance ratio for DDR memory just isn't good enough. Yes, I'd rather have 1 Gig of DIMM RAM than 512 megs of DDR RAM (that's about the price difference right now).

It you were building a bargain system, sure, but otherwise I doubt it.

That's part of my point. What most computer people don't want to admit...you simply don't need a cutting edge system. Yes, DIMMS will go away. So will DDR RAM. I know that DIMMS will go away sooner, but I would've gotten more for my money.

But if you have an Intel CPU, and don't want to pay RAMBUS premiums, DDR is a boon.

True. Intel people were begging for DDR over RAMBUS.

I've never had an external.


Since I started on an Amiga, I had to go external. But like I said, the front panel was extremely informative. I could actually see when my connection was flaking out. I know there are software equivalents, but with nowhere near the accuracy of the hardwired display.

And that thing had VESA slots, too. Anyone remember those?

Sure do. Still remember insisting on a 486 motherboard with a PCI and not a "VESA Local-bus" video slot. I knew that the VL-bus was a dead end because video was it's only real use, whereas PCI could be used for just about everything.

I remember the argument being particularly fueled by 3dfx fans when 3dfx decided AGP wasn't important in their future.

Also known as "How 3dfx committed suicide". Along with "people don't need more than 16-bit color", and "we'll abandon all the companies that helped us shoot to the top and try to beat all of them single-handedly".

[B]Yeah, I'm not sure what would have been so difficult about supporting the higher voltage. I suppose you'd have to ask their engineers.

I'm certain it was a deliberate effort to "push people forward". Precisely why I'm not fond of that kind of thing.

BTW, you have to read carefully about whether or not your card is a "true" 4x AGP. I came across one that once said it was 4x compatible, then found out that only meant the connector. Apparently the cardmaker just presumed everyone was using a dual-voltage setup (and except for Intel, they were).

[B]Heh. Yeah, well... I do buy various upgrades here and there as the years go on (more RAM, better video, bigger hard drive, faster CPU),...

That's my basic pattern. 486-DX100 in 95, 486DX4-120 chip in '96 (wasted money), ABit BH6 with Celeron 300A (overclocked to 450 of course) in '98 (I think), K7S5A with an AMD Duron-900 in 2001 (sale at Fry's:both for and it used my older memory), and then finally a Shuttle AS40GT board with a Celeron (P4) 1.7GHz chip for (spur-of-the-moment purchase that actually worked out for me).

[B]That, or validate my reason for sitting at home all day by having children, and I'm not ready for that. 😮

Not that it's really relevant, but I thought you were male.

[B]Man, these posts are getting long. It's taking me like an hour to reply. Heh heh.🙄

Woof. We're catching up with "Red Baron 3D" people.

Reply 104 of 117, by NStriker

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Pretty sure they are. (Ah, they...gender ambiguosity at its best!) Of course, a rabbit...😉


Heh. Yeah, I'm male. I just happen to like rabbits and various other animals. My mom pushed me to be a vet, but I didn't particularly feel like holding the life of someone's dearly beloved pet in my hands.

As for the children thing... I meant it in a "we" sense, in that my wife would actually have the children and I would stay home to watch them. I suppose that's not the first way it comes to mind when you read that sentence, eh? Heh. 😀

I'll get around to responding with another "marathon post" later.

Reply 105 of 117, by NStriker

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Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

BTW, I noticed that there are now options to choose how the power supply reacts on some motherboards, including the classic "immediate shut-down".

Yeah, I've noticed that option, too, but I haven't bothered to set it that way. I guess I like the extra protection I get against people accidently leaning on my power button while I'm in the middle of Windows. That was a bad thing to do in Win9x, and the NT line doesn't really like it that much, either.

I still remember the time my step-niece did that to me in the middle of a game. I never did like her. Heh.

"Keyboard error...No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue". Heh.


You'd like to think it'd be so helpful, but it didn't even bother to taunt me so. It just ignored me. 😀

Once gamers found out that they could vastly improve their Quake with a 3dfx card, things changed. Nowadays, home users *cough*gamers*cough* have a very large effect on the industry.


Well, see, I'm wondering... Does the average home user (who are often, admittedly, idiots) really care about PS/2? Would they give a rat's ass if their keyboard plugged into the same port as the rest of their junk? Probably not. They'd probably like it. It's easier. And they'd run out of USB ports less quickly (several of my friends have used up all they have). 'Course, they could buy a hub, but that cuts into bandwidth, if that's an issue, and not all things like hubs. Just another thought. 😉

Almost no business needs 3D acceleration, yet it's very difficult to find 2D only nowadays. The PCI capacity was well beyond that of ISA.


Oh yes. Quite true. But on that same token, most of them didn't even really need PCI. If video speed was important or they needed SCSI or something they'd want it, but otherwise it added little at the time except cost. That's what I'm saying. But they were better off in the end.

The only reason I bought DDR was that my "new" motherboard required it, and I almost didn't buy the motherboard because of it (although I was glad I did because it allows me to use UMBPCI.SYS). The price-to-performance ratio for DDR memory just isn't good enough. Yes, I'd rather have 1 Gig of DIMM RAM than 512 megs of DDR RAM (that's about the price difference right now).


I agree that when the AMD 760 chipset was the only viable DDR chipset on the market, the reasons to use DDR were minimal. It was only 10% difference. But that was 2 years ago, mind you. I haven't any comparisons of a more recent DDR chipset to an SDR chipset, so I can't intelligently guess the performance difference today, but I would venture a guess that it's significantly more.
But, to your bargin shopper, SDR is still king, assuredly. I see I can get actually 4x512MB ( each) of SDR for the price of one 512MB DDR module. Personally, I wouldn't know what to do with 2GB of RAM, though. 😁 I'll take my speed.

Yes, DIMMS will go away. So will DDR RAM. I know that DIMMS will go away sooner, but I would've gotten more for my money.


Yeah, and had they not gone to EDO, I'd have gotten more out of the 0 I spent on 4mb of 72 pin FPM RAM for my 486. Or my eight 1mb 30 pin SIMMs. 😀 And maybe I wouldn't have thrown out those 256K SIPPs I had lying around for no apparent reason.

True. Intel people were begging for DDR over RAMBUS.


I'd have never purchased an Intel system if they hadn't switched over. It just wasn't worth it, especially since it was lesser performing for so long.

Sure do. Still remember insisting on a 486 motherboard with a PCI and not a "VESA Local-bus" video slot. I knew that the VL-bus was a dead end because video was it's only real use, whereas PCI could be used for just about everything.


I'm afraid at the time I wasn't building my own systems, just tinkering with the guts a lot, and so I didn't ask the guy who built it. Oh well. It worked, and we never upgraded it much.

Also known as "How 3dfx committed suicide". Along with "people don't need more than 16-bit color", and "we'll abandon all the companies that helped us shoot to the top and try to beat all of them single-handedly".


Yeah, I really thought that was all pretty slick on their part. I had a friend who was a 3dfx zealot who tried to insist to me that his 16bit card looked better than my 32bit color, and that I would never see the difference outside of a still screen shot. And hey, all that banding could be gotten rid of with a spiffy filter, so what's the point? Riiiiiight... He eventually broke down and bought an ATi card after 3dfx died, but he still hates nVidia for their part in it. Fanboys. Sheesh.

BTW, you have to read carefully about whether or not your card is a "true" 4x AGP. I came across one that once said it was 4x compatible, then found out that only meant the connector. Apparently the cardmaker just presumed everyone was using a dual-voltage setup (and except for Intel, they were).


Yeah, a good point. What card was that, anyway? Since most manufacturers actually supported the 4x specs, I could only think maybe it was 3dfx or possibly those Kyro cards.

That's my basic pattern. 486-DX100 in 95, 486DX4-120 chip in '96 (wasted money), ABit BH6 with Celeron 300A (overclocked to 450 of course) in '98 (I think), K7S5A with an AMD Duron-900 in 2001 (sale at Fry's:both for and it used my older memory), and then finally a Shuttle AS40GT board with a Celeron (P4) 1.7GHz chip for (spur-of-the-moment purchase that actually worked out for me).


Yeah, okay, I have to admit that aside from that waste of cash for 100MHz to 120MHz, you do tend to spend a bit less than me. My 300MHz P2 CPU alone cost me 0+ back in '97 (though that really wasn't worth it, I don't know what I was thinking). And I paid at least 0 for each P3 500. My dually motherboard was about 0, if I'm not mistaken, and my IT7 cost 0 (about the same price as the 1.8GHz P4, actually). I've never been a bargin bin shopper, but I find the best deal I can for what I want.

[b]Woof. We're catching up with "Red Baron 3D" people.


Working on it. They've got us by about 20 posts, but we have them in number of pages because of the length of posts, I think.

Reply 106 of 117, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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NStriker wrote:

... Does the average home user (who are often, admittedly, idiots) really care about PS/2? Would they give a rat's ass if their keyboard plugged into the same port as the rest of their junk? Probably not. They'd probably like it. It's easier. And they'd run out of USB ports less quickly (several of my friends have used up all they have).

I/m certain they don't care either way. Of course, once they plug the keyboard and mouse in, that's it. The advantage of a USB mouse is that you can plug it in without shutting down. The advantage of a PS2 mouse is that it's universal because it's at the BIOS level. DOS,Windows3.1/95/98/ME/2000/XP,Linux,what-have-you. USB is wide-spread, but not yet universal. It will happen eventually.

If video speed was important or they needed SCSI or something they'd want it, but otherwise it added little at the time except cost. That's what I'm saying. But they were better off in the end.

My point was that "at-home-entertainment" is what's driving the video card market, 2D desktop business applications take a back seat.

It was only 10% difference. But that was 2 years ago, mind you. I haven't any comparisons of a more recent DDR chipset to an SDR chipset, so I can't intelligently guess the performance difference today, but I would venture a guess that it's significantly more.

I haven't done any kind of tesing myself (my former K7S5A would've been perfect for it as it will use either type of memory). Let's put it this way, I don't believe that if I had swapped memory out, that I would've been yelling out, "Whoah!! Look at it go! Man that DDR really makes this baby fly!".

While we'll still see some significant steps taken in audio-visuals (primarily game-specific), I think we've just about hit the point of diminishing returns. My 1.7Ghz does run faster, it doesn't perform significantly faster than my previous AMD950 in general operation.

Personally, I wouldn't know what to do with 2GB of RAM, though.

Why run virtual PC's with Win98, WinXP, and FreeDOS simultaneously of course! 😉

Yeah, and had they not gone to EDO, I'd have gotten more out of the 0 I spent on 4mb of 72 pin FPM RAM for my 486.

My sister's business partner certainly got her money's worth. She ran her business on a 386 right up to the point where she crashed it horribly in mid-2000. Even then, she didn't want to pay for a new PC.

He eventually broke down and bought an ATi card after 3dfx died, but he still hates nVidia for their part in it. Fanboys. Sheesh.

Probably still believes the general conspiracy theory about NVidia and 3dfx. Why on earth did they think that they could go "toe-to-toe" with every card-maker out there by themselves. Not to mention refusing to sell 3dfx chips to anyone else. I'm afraid their original massive success went to their heads.

Yeah, a good point. What card was that, anyway?

Already forgot. I remember the mainboard was an Intel 845WN (or WLN depending on what documnet you were looking at). I'm thinking it was a SiS card. In any case it made a really nasty screeching sound when I applied power. I got really lucky, no damage to board or the card. Bleah.

Reply 107 of 117, by Red Knight

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im so upset at this thread - it looked like there was progress going on, then it just died. oh well...

suffice it to say, i have the same exact problem as nstriker has, although my system specs are different:

im running a 2ghz p4, mobility radeon 7500, 256mb DDR ram, winXP professional, no sound card (using intel ac97 processor), and anyways i get teh same ems error as nstriker does.

to make things interesting, if i attempt to use a DOS bootdisk, QEMM flips out on me, gives me an exception 19 error, which says that there is a software or hardware conflict which is causing a total system failure. clearly there's something in my hardware thats just sitting in the middle of my memory allocations, but ill be damned if i know what it is...

im checking more in-depth into my system settings at the moment, ill come back to u if i find anything else...

Reply 108 of 117, by DosFreak

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uhhh, the problem HAS been identified. READ THE THREAD. Certain hardware eats up the memory ranges needed by DOS/NT4/2K/XP to enable EMS. With DOS in certain situations it IS possible to reassign EMS to another memory range with limited results. (No Solution as of yet for NT) The ONLY solution so far is to disable the offending hardware. In my case it was my HPT372A IDE Controller and the integrated USB on the motherboard (KX-333R).

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Reply 109 of 117, by Red Knight

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ah but that IS the problem - how to get EMS while NT is running ... and also the common theme has not yet been indentified - there must be one thing that is causing this to occur, probably in our hardware, but we have not yet identified that thing...

btw, ur solution didnt work for me - i disabled my USB controller, but it didnt open up enough space for a page file... my point it that that solution is for one machine, im looking for a general solution to all machines, or whatever

Reply 110 of 117, by DosFreak

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There is no general solution. Other than a software patch for NT your outta luck. You have to identify what hardware is eating what memory ranges on your computer individually to figure out what hardware to disable.

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Reply 111 of 117, by Snover

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I doubt that there is only one piece of hardware that uses that memory space.
Curiously, since I never looked very closely: does the Microsoft memory analyser program show you what hardware ID is using the memory? That would go a long way to figuring stuff out.

FYI, NStriker: The Geek Squad is a pretty reputable computer repair group (err, company?) that drives around town fixing peoples' computers. It started up here in my hometown, Minneapolis, but is now in several metro areas around the U.S. including Los Angeles, New York, and, uh, San Francisco I think. (Silicon Valley in action... though I'd think there would be a LOW demand for geeks there 😉) In any case, yeah. They're really fucking expensive and not worth it if you've got knowledgable guys like us lurking in the shadows fixing stuff for free. Occasionally you can call up and have them tell you how to do something over the phone for free, but more and more I think they're starting to charge for everything. I know there is a fee for some over-the-phone things. It's ridiculous. I called them back when I had Win98SE and was looking for a solution to a DNS update problem that I was having. My call was picked up immediately by a receptionist, who then forwarded it to a tech, and he then sent it to a specialist, all quite quickly. It turned out the solution was my C:\WINDOWS\HOSTS file, and after about 10 minutes I was ready to go again. Virtual servers + slow DNS updates = lose. Anyway, yeah. I called them again a couple months ago for some twiddly problem or another (I don't remember what) and they told me that they were going to have to CHARGE me for over-the-phone support. Ridiculous. Greedy bastards. [Edit vladr: you mean, greedy geeks, right?]

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 113 of 117, by Red Knight

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found a possible workaround which you are probably familiar with - use a DOS emulator that creates virtual EMS memory within the emulation code... this is implemented by emulators such as DOSBox, in which i can play EMS games...

as far as getting real EMS to work, i still have yet to found the hardware that is sucking up the space where the page files should be.

Reply 114 of 117, by DosFreak

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Here another mobo with no EMS:

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe

Haven't tested to determine which features are eating up those memory ranges but it's likely the same as my other mobo. (USB & Controller)

Gonna look through this thread and create a doc for Deep Thought.

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Reply 115 of 117, by Phiro

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Well, to continue this thread, I have an MSI nforce and a Leadtek nforce-2 motherboard, neither of them have EMS, and looking in device manager:
00000-9ffff is system board
a0000-bffff is onboard video/agp to pci bridge
c0000-dffff is PCI bus.

So, no room for EMS anywhere. DOSBox works fine (for MoM, which is why I am here), but is slow. Still tuning it with the tips in here.

Reply 116 of 117, by MiniMax

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Hi guys, great thread!

DosFreak, if/when the document for Deep Thought is made, please include a note that for a Shuttle FN41 (AMD/nForce2 board), disabling the on-board NVIDIA Ethernet controller allows Windows XP to create an EMS memory.

More info in a post I made at nForcersHQ.
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MiniMax - "Inside every WinXP there is a little DOS program trying to get out!"

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Reply 117 of 117, by MiniMax

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Another link on the subject of EMS not always working with WinXP:

http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/emsxp.html

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