i think there was another EMS manager that could do all of this, can remember the name

Jemmex/Jemm386 (part of FreeDOS). It can be loaded/unloaded from the CLI.
http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=jemm386
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/fre … emm386/jemm386/

There's also a very old utility called emm286 that can create EMS from XMS without placing the CPU in protected mode and works on pre-386 CPUs; the problem with it is it can't use UMBs for the frame page and thus can only create the page in conventional memory which severely reduces its utility. If you have a program that requires EMS on a 286 and doesn't use more than about 530k conventional memory, it could be useful. It also can be loaded/unloaded from the CLI as far as I remember.
http://www.pcorner.com/list/UTILITY/EMM286.ZIP/INFO/
http://www.pcorner.com/list/UTILITY/EMM286.ZIP/EMM286.TXT/

Sounds like an Ultima Underworld spell: "Create EMS"

Thank stamsad.
I'm trying to load Jemmex with LOAD NORAM using the command line but I keep getting a "XMM already installed" error.

All I need is simulated 16MB of EMS from my XMS without loaded UMB or activating XMS once more.
Any idea?

Jemmex is a combination of XMS and EMS driver. If you have himem.sys already loaded it won't work. 2 suggestions:

1. don't load himem.sys, use only jemmex
or
2. if you want to keep himem.sys, use jemm386.exe instead of jemmex.exe. Jemm386 is just the EMS driver.

It works but with a major problem. It completely disables UMB but enabled EMS.
Games don't seem to work either...
Ah.. never mind.

http://www.emsmagic.com

Nifty modern and free program.

Cyberdyne wrote:

http://www.emsmagic.com

Nifty modern and free program.

Nice find! I didn't know about that one. Looks like it doesn't need virtual386 mode, and the frame page is very flexible. But because of those 2 things, it's also likely to be slower on real older hardware than emm386, qemm and the like. It;s also not compatible with 286 because it uses 32-bit code.

Amazing! Thanks you so much Cyberdyne.

This is an absolute must for people who want to load EMS memory without EMM386 and already use UMBPCI.
It even loads itself into UMB if there is 64KB free UMB block.

There's also a very old utility called emm286 that can create EMS from XMS without placing the CPU in protected mode and works on pre-386 CPUs; the problem with it is it can't use UMBs for the frame page and thus can only create the page in conventional memory which severely reduces its utility. If you have a program that requires EMS on a 286 and doesn't use more than about 530k conventional memory, it could be useful. It also can be loaded/unloaded from the CLI as far as I remember.]

It also supports no DMA Transfers (Slow)