VOGONS


First post, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Did anyone have an issue when running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on a computer, such as a 486 with 32MB RAM installed, MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11 installed that Windows reports in the MS-DOS Prompt when typing in mem would show something like this:

Type of Memory     Total  =    Used    +    Free
------------------- --------- ----------- ----------
Conventional 640KB 64KB 576KB
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS)* 32,768 31,744 1,024
------------------------------------------------------------
Total Memory 33,408 31,840 1,600

For MS-DOS, it shows this:

Type of Memory     Total  =    Used    +    Free
------------------- --------- ----------- ----------
Conventional 640KB 32KB 608KB
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS)* 32,768 1,536 31,232
------------------------------------------------------------
Total Memory 33,408 1,568 31,840

I also found out the hard way that some games, like SimCity 2000 would say the memory is less than what's required (8MB) within Windows. Didn't realize that Windows 3.1/3.11/Workgroups was a memory hog back then. ***NOTE*** The outputs listed above are examples and may not be accurate. Will post again.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 2 of 7, by mrau

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

the memory is not hogged i believe; the system just limits the memory that it presents to the program; wfw 3.11 only runs in enhanced mode; if i understood the wiki article correctly just going back to wfw 3.1 should fix compatibility;

Reply 3 of 7, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
mrau wrote:

the memory is not hogged i believe; the system just limits the memory that it presents to the program; wfw 3.11 only runs in enhanced mode; if i understood the wiki article correctly just going back to wfw 3.1 should fix compatibility;

So that's why WFW 3.11 takes so much memory since they removed the Standard mode in favor for the 386 systems. Time to install WFW 3.1 on the system over Windows 95C (sluggish and takes most of my HDD capacity).

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 4 of 7, by mrau

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

You can opt for one of the early win95 if its not a compatibility issue - 95a on 3.5 inch disks was very nice for me on a 8mb 486 with 1mb vga; place the system on a separate small fat16 for speed; i dont know if the compression from win95 was strong but back then it seemed sluggish to me so thats probably a no-go (compared the ntfs compression always gave me a small speedup);

Reply 5 of 7, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Found out the hard way that the MS-DOS prompt utilizes the PIF file, so changing the size for the EMS and XMS did help, and I got more memory in DOS (which is a plus), and found out that there're switches to use either standard or enhanced mode (win /2 - std, win /3 - enhanced). Doom now runs.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 7 of 7, by bjwil1991

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Standard only since I also found out the game locks the system up if I want to use my Sound card that's also installed in Windows 3.1 (bug) that wasn't fixed until Windows 95 came out. Every other game does that as well.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser