Here's my configuration; remember I'm totally new to this stuff so please don't point and laugh at whatever is probably wrong 😅

CONFIG.SYS:

DOS=SINGLE DOS=HIGH,UMB Device=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.Sys Device=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B700-B7FF D=64 H=255 Device=C:\WINDOWS\se […]
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DOS=SINGLE
DOS=HIGH,UMB
Device=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.Sys
Device=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B700-B7FF D=64 H=255
Device=C:\WINDOWS\setver.exe
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOSDRV\OAKCDROM\oakcdrom.sys /D:MSCD001
DEVICE=C:\DOSDRV\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
FILES=40

AUTOEXEC.BAT:

@ ECHO OFF SET SOUND=C:\DOSDRV\SB16 SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6 SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0 SET CTCM=C:\DOSDRV\CTCM […]
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@ ECHO OFF
SET SOUND=C:\DOSDRV\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET CTCM=C:\DOSDRV\CTCM
C:\DOSDRV\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\DOSDRV\SB16\AWEUTIL /S
C:\DOSDRV\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001
SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
SET TEMP=c:\WINDOWS\TEMP
SET PROMPT=$p$g
SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS
SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND
C:\DOSDRV\CTMOUSE.EXE

(and then some crap that Win95 puts in there)

EDIT: Also I'm having some crazy problems with my AWE64, randomly when I start a game it just makes crazy loud noise that continues until I power off the system or re-run AWEUTIL /S. Thought it was because of Duke Nukem 3D due to this thread:AWE64 squealing, screeching, nails running down a chalkboard, static, hissing
but it just randomly does it when I start a game, even from a fresh boot.

I noticed while inspecting the card today that there is a wire on the board (presumably to fix a trace) so for now I attribute the random issues with it to that. I'm inclined to think that's not related to my X-wing issues though since digitized sound works in everything else, and I doubt that would make the game consistently not load. I should mention that as far as the digitized sound goes, I've tried it set to both awe32 and sb16, with the music on or off, and still no dice, but yet it works every time in the install program.

I don't know what's causing the lockup, but to hear voices and other digitized sounds, you need lots of free RAM. XWing disables digitized sound, or even all sound, depending how much RAM you have available. The lockup concerns me though, I don't know why that would be happening.
Perhaps you have an IRQ or I/O address set incorrectly in the install program? That would cause lockups, though if that's the problem then I don't know why sound would be working in the install.

This was always one of the hardest games for me to get enough conventional memory free so that all the sounds were working. I don't remember the number but it's something over 600KB you need available.
You can check your RAM situation by typing "mem /c"

You probably will need to optimize a set of Config.sys / Autoexec.bat files for this game. You can't afford to have things loaded that aren't necessary.

From memory, Win95 lets you set up specific Config.SYS and Autoexec.BAT files for each individual DOS program. It loads those optimized files when you launch the program. This lets you optimize the configuration for 1 game.
You mentioned you're running in DOS only mode - in that case, maybe what I mentioned is no longer possible. You may instead need to use a boot floppy, which contains an optimized setup for XWing.
Under MSDOS 6 and later, there's supposed to be some way to set up a boot menu so you don't need to use boot floppies. I don't know how to do that though.

I haven't messed with DOS configuration files in forever so I'm probably not the best to make suggestions.
But for this game you probably don't need the "device=setver.exe" line. I doubt XWing needs it, and it's taking some memory.
If you want to keep the line for future reference, then you can just disable it by putting "rem" in front. Any line that starts with 'rem' will be effectively disabled and won't do anything.

On the EMM386 line, there's some extra parameters there that I don't think you need. I always just used the "RAM" parameter. I don't know what the other parameters are doing, so I don't know if they're hurting anything.

FILES=40 is excessive, at least for this game. That number controls how many files DOS allows to be open at the same time, and the higher that limit, the more RAM you lose. I don't know what it needs to be for XWing, but I'd try FILES=20.
I'm wondering if your mouse driver (CTMOUSE.EXE) can be loaded high using 'LH' (like on the MSCDEX line). If not, you don't really need a mouse for this game, so you could remove the CTMOUSE.EXE line completely. Unless you're actually playing it with a mouse.

I used to use QEMM386 to free up conventional memory, it has an "Optimize" utility which can pull some tricks to free more memory then I ever could manually. If you happen to have that program then I recommend it.

What does it show when you type 'mem /c' ?

Wow, some awesome info to check through, thank you so much shamino!

The low memory makes perfect sense; I believe the installer was telling me that the system had 570KB free, so I will definitely try to free some up. I've messed around with custom boot menus for DOS before just for fun and know where to look for reference for them, so as long as it works the same for 95's DOS 7 as it does for 6.22, that should be easy to setup.

This is the first time I've had to deal with the legendary freeing up conventional memory quest that so many DOS veterans speak of, so I appreciate the guidance 😀 I'll try out your suggestions and play around with it, and see how much memory I can free up on my own. I'll try QEMM386 if I hit a wall there.

As for IRQ or IO conflicts, it's very possible, I will have to look into it. My sound card seemed to be using pretty standard settings (220 5 1 I believe) but I shall play around with it and see what happens.

Thanks again for the reply, I'm gonna do some more tweaking and see what I can come up with!

Try using a different cdrom driver, I seem to recall oakcdrom.sys doing the same thing on my system with xwing.

I use the mitsumi driver and it works well; it takes up less memory too.

Good news, everyone!

In the configuration above I ended up having 564KB of conventional memory free at boot. I was able to set CTMOUSE.EXE to load high, though it didn't make a big difference since it's so small already. Still, every little bit helps.

device=setver.exe is apparently needed for the AWE64 drivers; it wouldn't initialize without it.

I read through this thread for some ideas: Dos 6 conventional memory tricks and ended up copying DonutKing's EMM386 line which he in turn copied from www.mdgx.com. I had to remove a couple parameters from it to get it to boot for me, but now my EMM386 line looks like this:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE AUTO RAM M3 A=64 H=128 D=256

and that got me up to 568KB free.

Then I used mem/c/p so that I could actually see what it was saying about the individual items in memory, and realized the oak cd-rom driver takes up a TON of space. It was then that I also saw badmofo's post above, so I started looking for a suitable CD-ROM driver. Badmofo recommends the mitsumi driver, and I know the Toshiba driver was also mentioned in the conventional memory thread, but I ended up trying VIDE-CDD.SYS which is what Swaaye used.

HOLY CRAP. I now have 597KB conventional memory free. Oak CD-ROM driver and this one were both set as DEVICEHIGH=, but the oak one still used a bunch of conventional memory where this one uses none. I read something about how if you don't specify upper memory regions, sometimes DOS will try to assign something to a region that doesn't have enough space, so it will just end up in conventional memory. Since the Oak driver is so big, could this be what was going on there?

Anyways, with this new driver I loaded up X-Wing. And the sounds and voices all work 😳 AND, it fixed the issue with it hanging. As Badmofo suggested, that was just a weird Oak CD-ROM problem. I'm not sure I even have the need to keep this separate boot config for X-Wing/memory-demanding games, because nothing I did really has any downsides for normal use. Really all I did was replace the CD driver, load ctmouse in high, and change some emm386 and files settings. So for now I'm just going to use that as my config and see how it goes and if it presents any issues; I have my old one backed up just in case. Hopefully this CD-ROM driver will prove to be reliable.

Thanks for the help dudes! 😁

Thank you for this 7 year old thread. I have the exact same problems with the same game, and I'm also using an AWE64. I ran into the crazy distorted sound, but only when I forget to put the CD into the drive before starting the game. I was already using VIDE-CDD, but I tweaked my config.sys as per the recommendations. What ended up making the difference was subbing out MSCDEX for SHSUCDX. Suddenly I have voices and no longer hanging!

Thanks again!