kjliew wrote:

There is nothing else to free.

Oh, I suppose there is. If you remove your EGA/VGA card, you can have 700 too 900KiB free for DOS programs,
assuming these locations contain usable RAM (UMB card, chipset driver etc). Not good for gaming, though.
Unless someone finds a way to relocate the VGA framebuffer and a game's associated code for it on the fly. 😉

Seriously, though, if you enter the mysterious realms of black wizardry and use Helix Multimedia Cloaking, you might get lots of DOS memory. 😁
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Netroom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Protected_M … imedia_Cloaking

Proving the concept with EMM286, 629KB free conventional memory, 2048KB EMS 4.0 memory and EMS page frame in UMB.

1Modules using memory below 1 MB:
2
3  Name           Total           Conventional       Upper Memory
4  --------  ----------------   ----------------   ----------------
5  SYSTEM      18,704   (18K)     10,688   (10K)      8,016    (8K)
6  HIMEM        1,120    (1K)          0    (0K)      1,120    (1K)
7  EMM286      70,160   (69K)          0    (0K)     70,160   (69K)
8  XHDD         2,816    (3K)          0    (0K)      2,816    (3K)
9  XDVD2        2,048    (2K)          0    (0K)      2,048    (2K)
10  COMMAND      7,168    (7K)          0    (0K)      7,168    (7K)
11  DOSKEY       4,688    (5K)          0    (0K)      4,688    (5K)
12  SHCDX33F     6,352    (6K)          0    (0K)      6,352    (6K)
13  CTMOUSE      3,552    (3K)          0    (0K)      3,552    (3K)
14  Free       669,648  (654K)    644,448  (629K)     25,200   (25K)
15
16Memory Summary:
17
18  Type of Memory       Total         Used          Free
19  ----------------  -----------   -----------   -----------
20  Conventional          655,360        10,912       644,448
21  Upper                 131,120       105,920        25,200
22  Reserved                    0             0             0
23  Extended (XMS)    132,906,960    23,142,352   109,764,608
24  ----------------  -----------   -----------   -----------
25  Total memory      133,693,440    23,259,184   110,434,256
26
27  Total under 1 MB      786,480       116,832       669,648
28
29  Total Expanded (EMS)                  2,097,152 (2,048K)
30  Free Expanded (EMS)                   2,097,152 (2,048K)
31  Largest executable program size         644,432   (629K)
32  Largest free upper memory block          24,896    (24K)
33  Available space in High Memory Area         448     (0K)
34  MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

This is possible by replacing the usual OAKCDROM, MSCDEX and MOUSE with their small memory footprint equivalents.

Jo22 wrote:

Oh, I suppose there is. If you remove your EGA/VGA card, you can have 700 too 900KiB free for DOS programs, assuming these locat […]
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kjliew wrote:

There is nothing else to free.

Oh, I suppose there is. If you remove your EGA/VGA card, you can have 700 too 900KiB free for DOS programs,
assuming these locations contain usable RAM (UMB card, chipset driver etc). Not good for gaming, though.
Unless someone finds a way to relocate the VGA framebuffer and a game's associated code for it on the fly. 😉

Seriously, though, if you enter the mysterious realms of black wizardry and use Helix Multimedia Cloaking, you might get lots of DOS memory. 😁
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Netroom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Protected_M … imedia_Cloaking

I am not sure if I understood. Netroom is another memory manager such as emm386 or umbpci?

kjliew wrote:

Proving the concept with EMM286, 629KB free conventional memory, 2048KB EMS 4.0 memory and EMS page frame in UMB. […]
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Proving the concept with EMM286, 629KB free conventional memory, 2048KB EMS 4.0 memory and EMS page frame in UMB.

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1Modules using memory below 1 MB:
2
3  Name           Total           Conventional       Upper Memory
4  --------  ----------------   ----------------   ----------------
5  SYSTEM      18,704   (18K)     10,688   (10K)      8,016    (8K)
6  HIMEM        1,120    (1K)          0    (0K)      1,120    (1K)
7  EMM286      70,160   (69K)          0    (0K)     70,160   (69K)
8  XHDD         2,816    (3K)          0    (0K)      2,816    (3K)
9  XDVD2        2,048    (2K)          0    (0K)      2,048    (2K)
10  COMMAND      7,168    (7K)          0    (0K)      7,168    (7K)
11  DOSKEY       4,688    (5K)          0    (0K)      4,688    (5K)
12  SHCDX33F     6,352    (6K)          0    (0K)      6,352    (6K)
13  CTMOUSE      3,552    (3K)          0    (0K)      3,552    (3K)
14  Free       669,648  (654K)    644,448  (629K)     25,200   (25K)
15
16Memory Summary:
17
18  Type of Memory       Total         Used          Free
19  ----------------  -----------   -----------   -----------
20  Conventional          655,360        10,912       644,448
21  Upper                 131,120       105,920        25,200
22  Reserved                    0             0             0
23  Extended (XMS)    132,906,960    23,142,352   109,764,608
24  ----------------  -----------   -----------   -----------
25  Total memory      133,693,440    23,259,184   110,434,256
26
27  Total under 1 MB      786,480       116,832       669,648
28
29  Total Expanded (EMS)                  2,097,152 (2,048K)
30  Free Expanded (EMS)                   2,097,152 (2,048K)
31  Largest executable program size         644,432   (629K)
32  Largest free upper memory block          24,896    (24K)
33  Available space in High Memory Area         448     (0K)
34  MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

This is possible by replacing the usual OAKCDROM, MSCDEX and MOUSE with their small memory footprint equivalents.

Never heard of emm286. I can't follow - what does that proof?

Hey guys

So this is weird, I have dos 6.22/windows 3.11 on a drive booting up and running great,

I installed from a cd Dos 7.1 and when it tried to load emm386 it errors with memory error system halted to prevent damage, I can Rem the emm386 line in the config.sys and the system will load but the sound card will not load without emm386.

dos 6.22 no problem dos 7.1 problem, I copied my 6.22 dos folder to this drive and the windows folder, and tried loading the emm386for both dos and windows and still getting the same error. something is wrong with the system files prevent emm386 from running in Dos 7.1, when it runs just fine on the 6.22 system.

There is no legit version of DOS 7.1 CD that comes on a CD (without Windows). I would stay away from those pirated 'hacks'.

Either install Win98/SE proper (even if you only wish to use its DOS portion) or stay with 6.22/3.11.