This is contrary to what I remember. On one system I don't use EMM386.exe at all, Yet run those games that need EMS from within Windows 98.

Yeah, for me I could always use EMS without EMM386 in Windows 98SE. I think that if you use EMM386 with the NOEMS setting Windows will not provide EMS, but I haven't used NOEMS in ages: the regular RAM setting gives me enough UMBs to load everything I want and still have 600+ KB of free conventional memory.

I always used NOEMS in config.sys and never had any problems about not having EMS memory.

Try WarLords II Deluxe. It is very specific about EMS.

My Win98se offers no EMS under Doswindow/FullscreenDos. Perhaps some really critical titles work. (e.g. Turrican)
Currently I only use the CT4170 with both Win98se and Doswindow/Dosfullscreen or Dosglide under Win98se,
but some Dosgames do only work proper in real dos, or I have to switch to the GUS. (have no GUSdrivers for win98)

e.g. http://www-stud.rbi.informatik.uni-frankfurt. … dardVersion.htm

DOS-Versions: Midas error: Unable to lock virtual DMA buffer You are probably running Giant Sisters in a Win'9X DOS-box. Giant S […]
Show full quote

DOS-Versions:
Midas error: Unable to lock virtual DMA buffer
You are probably running Giant Sisters in a Win'9X DOS-box. Giant Sisters will NOT work with sound (except hardware driven GUS music)
under Windows. Simply start your computer in the full DOS mode and try it again. Please make sure your BLASTER/GUS environment settings are correct.

Doc

Doesn't EMS work even if you specify a non-0 amount of memory in the PIF file?

no EMM386.exe in the config.sys = no ems under win98se doswindow.

dr.zeissler wrote:

no EMM386.exe in the config.sys = no ems under win98se doswindow.

That logic may hold true for your system, but not for others.

Just tried it with an ordinary Windows 95 system:
TIE Fighter floppy in Pure DOS without any memory manager except himem.sys: "564K MAIN, 896K EMS required!" No go.
TIE Fighter floppy after loading up the Windows 95 GUI: Runs fine. Regardless of configuring all memory 'auto' or stating 4096K EMS manually.

That's interesting. Could it be different because of the way of the installation?
I did not use a Bootdisk with Drivers for the Win98se Installation.

I updated the config.sys and autoexec.bat of win98se recently with all the
necessary dos stuff like "himem, emm386, dos=high,umb"
Now a lot of Games run fine, but there are some critical ones, that workt
100% under plain Dos, but not under Win98se-FullscreenDos.

e.g:
EpicPinball => no smooth scrolling under Win98se-FullscreenDos.

Doc

Do you have an entry in your System.ini with the word "EmmExclude" or "NoEMSDriver"?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/275423

http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-9x-tweaks-170

During setup Win98 will remove some drivers from your Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files. Unfortunately it removes EMM386 for Win98's first time use so it can detect hardware without problems but forgets to "un-REM it".

I have added "emm386.exe ram", now I can configure EMS.

Is there any good tweak-guide for optimization of Win98se-Dos-Fullscreen ?
I changed a PII-333 to a Celeron400 and now "EpicPinball" stutters in a Fullscreen Window. 🙁

ExtremePinball is just fine, the others do not work "Pdream1+2, pinball fantasies, illusions)

Doc

dr.zeissler wrote:

My Win98se offers no EMS under Doswindow/FullscreenDos. Perhaps some really critical titles work. (e.g. Turrican) Currently I on […]
Show full quote

My Win98se offers no EMS under Doswindow/FullscreenDos. Perhaps some really critical titles work. (e.g. Turrican)
Currently I only use the CT4170 with both Win98se and Doswindow/Dosfullscreen or Dosglide under Win98se,
but some Dosgames do only work proper in real dos, or I have to switch to the GUS. (have no GUSdrivers for win98)

e.g. http://www-stud.rbi.informatik.uni-frankfurt. … dardVersion.htm

DOS-Versions: Midas error: Unable to lock virtual DMA buffer You are probably running Giant Sisters in a Win'9X DOS-box. Giant S […]
Show full quote

DOS-Versions:
Midas error: Unable to lock virtual DMA buffer
You are probably running Giant Sisters in a Win'9X DOS-box. Giant Sisters will NOT work with sound (except hardware driven GUS music)
under Windows. Simply start your computer in the full DOS mode and try it again. Please make sure your BLASTER/GUS environment settings are correct.

Doc

From what I recall, the DOS port of Turrican II needs to be run in MS-DOS mode in order for it to work on Win9x. I also recall it doing some weird things with tweaked VGA modes.

My apologies, but I am a little confused as why you would want to run your games within a dos prompt 'window' when you can just boot directly into native dos mode and have access to all of your ram etc.. your dos games will run better and faster within native dos instead of running a dos window within 98se. 98se has the best native dos that you can run

/\ It depends on the hardware. Some sound cards provide a software synth only within Windows (Yamaha's SoftSynth, for example), provide better/more compatible emulation (AWE32/64 providing MPU-401 emulation for protected mode software, EMU10K1 allowing you to use SoundFonts, plenty of PCI boards not having to deal with DDMA and TSRs) or simply providing a more convenient environment to launch your apps. Also, Windows doesn't need stuff like mouse drivers, MSCDEX or SmartDrive, as it provides all those things without eating away conventional memory from your DOS boxes.

ok,
well I would strongly suggest going into native dos and having the appropriate dos drivers for your hardware. When you say that windows doesnt need the mouse drivers and mscdex. to run a windows dosbox - thats because windows is already loading all of those drivers and utilizing memory that could be used for your game. If you check your available ram within your dosbox versus a native box. You will see a lot more available ram in the native dos mode. The goal in running dos apps is to get the most conventional and extended memory as possible out of the 640k.

If you can run Windows you probably have enough RAM anyway. Plus you often get a performance boost, the level of which depends on the application. Games like Blood were pretty much designed from the start to run in a Windows DOS Box instead of in pure DOS and benefit from running in the former, some pure DOS games also run better so you may see minor speed boosts in games like Doom.

This doesn't hold true for all cases and some software does not play nice, if at all, in the Windows environment.

ccarr690 wrote:

ok,
well I would strongly suggest going into native dos and having the appropriate dos drivers for your hardware. When you say that windows doesnt need the mouse drivers and mscdex. to run a windows dosbox - thats because windows is already loading all of those drivers and utilizing memory that could be used for your game. If you check your available ram within your dosbox versus a native box. You will see a lot more available ram in the native dos mode. The goal in running dos apps is to get the most conventional and extended memory as possible out of the 640k.

1.- Under Win9x DOSBoxes (And 3.11 for Workgroups 386 Dosboxes) VXDs will take care of CDROM and MOUSE. No need of any real mode TSR or *.SYS device driver. VXDs don't use memory in the first megabyte (conventional/upper/extended). Taken from Undocumented DOS book.

2.- Without any drivers loaded from Config/Autoexec at windows bootime you will see more ram free for DOS apps in the 1MB area. In effect, you shouldn't load any old TSR or Real Mode driver from config.sys if isn't really necessary, because in effect you will fuck your amount of conventional RAM, and the effects will persist across all your VM DOSBoxes. More details about this in the Undocumented DOS book.

3.- And there are less probabilities to get that under plain DOS + TSR & *.SYS Drivers, specially if you have not-so-friendly-with-DOS hardware like many PCI soundcards with awful big TSRs, or TSRs which require EMM386. As gold rule, if your game/app works friendly under a DOS Box, you will want to run it always under a DOS Box to take advantage of all the facilities and free conventional memory that VMM offers to DOS applications. For max performance, you will want also run these machines using VXD-only drivers for all the hardware. WDM Win98 drivers aren't DOS box friendly.

ccarr690 wrote:

ok,
well I would strongly suggest going into native dos and having the appropriate dos drivers for your hardware. When you say that windows doesnt need the mouse drivers and mscdex. to run a windows dosbox - thats because windows is already loading all of those drivers and utilizing memory that could be used for your game. If you check your available ram within your dosbox versus a native box. You will see a lot more available ram in the native dos mode. The goal in running dos apps is to get the most conventional and extended memory as possible out of the 640k.

Windows loads all that stuff out of the conventional memory it provides its DOS boxes, and extended memory is REALLY not an issue nowadays. Back in the day people used to drop down to DOS mode so their PCs with 8/16MB of RAM could run their DOS software better, nowadays we complain about the cacheable limits of old chipsets, because it is really easy to max out RAM. But no amount of memory helps if you run out of conventional RAM for DOS apps.
That being said, with a well built machine you can easily get over 600kB of conventional memory with all relevant drivers loaded in pure DOS, and as Windows' extended memory footprint is also irrelevant, as long as your games run well, you're fine. The only big issue would be GM, as without an external module or a daughterboard (which are pretty OS-agnostic), Windows drivers might provide better MIDI than in DOS for some sound cards.

alexanrs wrote:

ccarr690 wrote:

ok,
well I would strongly suggest going into native dos and having the appropriate dos drivers for your hardware. When you say that windows doesnt need the mouse drivers and mscdex. to run a windows dosbox - thats because windows is already loading all of those drivers and utilizing memory that could be used for your game. If you check your available ram within your dosbox versus a native box. You will see a lot more available ram in the native dos mode. The goal in running dos apps is to get the most conventional and extended memory as possible out of the 640k.

Windows loads all that stuff out of the conventional memory it provides its DOS boxes, and extended memory is REALLY not an issue nowadays. Back in the day people used to drop down to DOS mode so their PCs with 8/16MB of RAM could run their DOS software better, nowadays we complain about the cacheable limits of old chipsets, because it is really easy to max out RAM. But no amount of memory helps if you run out of conventional RAM for DOS apps.
That being said, with a well built machine you can easily get over 600kB of conventional memory with all relevant drivers loaded in pure DOS, and as Windows' extended memory footprint is also irrelevant, as long as your games run well, you're fine. The only big issue would be GM, as without an external module or a daughterboard (which are pretty OS-agnostic), Windows drivers might provide better MIDI than in DOS for some sound cards.

It sounds like we are in agreement. SO I am not sure where the disconnect is?