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First post, by Intel486dx33

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I am working on my 486dx4-100 computer.
It has 16mb ram and 256kn cache.

I want to play this game called FalconCD but I do not have enough conventional memory.
I edited autoexec.bat and config.sys to load everything “high”
But it is not enough.

How can I fix this so I can play this game ?

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Reply 1 of 12, by Caluser2000

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For a start reduce the file and buffer entries to 10

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Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 2 of 12, by gdjacobs

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The resident SB16 drivers are mostly unnecessary. The only things I know of that used them were Creative's own playback and record utilities.

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Reply 3 of 12, by darry

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gdjacobs wrote on 2020-05-26, 01:29:

The resident SB16 drivers are mostly unnecessary. The only things I know of that used them were Creative's own playback and record utilities.

That creative stuff was bloatware. No wonder nobody used it . Makes you wonder why they bothered writing the stuff .

Reply 4 of 12, by Jorpho

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How about, y'know, reading the manual?

A Google search for "falcon 3.0" "config.sys" (with quotes) turns up the game's manual on Steam which suggests an autoexec.bat with just the mouse driver and a config.sys with

device=c:\windows\himem.sys
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe 2048 ram
dos=high,umb
buffers=30
files=30
stacks=0,0

Apparently the game doesn't require the CD-ROM after installation, which will save you plenty of conventional memory.

There are probably more elegant setups, of course.

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-05-26, 01:29:

The resident SB16 drivers are mostly unnecessary. The only things I know of that used them were Creative's own playback and record utilities.

If I'm not mistaken, anything that used CT-VOICE.DRV required those drivers. Elfland in particular comes to mind. See also http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/12/s … -dos-games.html .

darry wrote on 2020-05-26, 02:10:

That creative stuff was bloatware. No wonder nobody used it . Makes you wonder why they bothered writing the stuff .

Presumably it provided a quick and easy API to play back audio for those who couldn't be bothered to find a better solution.

Reply 5 of 12, by darry

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-26, 04:50:
How about, y'know, reading the manual? […]
Show full quote

How about, y'know, reading the manual?

A Google search for "falcon 3.0" "config.sys" (with quotes) turns up the game's manual on Steam which suggests an autoexec.bat with just the mouse driver and a config.sys with

device=c:\windows\himem.sys
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe 2048 ram
dos=high,umb
buffers=30
files=30
stacks=0,0

Apparently the game doesn't require the CD-ROM after installation, which will save you plenty of conventional memory.

There are probably more elegant setups, of course.

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-05-26, 01:29:

The resident SB16 drivers are mostly unnecessary. The only things I know of that used them were Creative's own playback and record utilities.

If I'm not mistaken, anything that used CT-VOICE.DRV required those drivers. Elfland in particular comes to mind. See also http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/12/s … -dos-games.html .

darry wrote on 2020-05-26, 02:10:

That creative stuff was bloatware. No wonder nobody used it . Makes you wonder why they bothered writing the stuff .

Presumably it provided a quick and easy API to play back audio for those who couldn't be bothered to find a better solution.

Few enough games needed it to definitely run the bloatware on demand when needed, not in autoexec.bat config.sys, IMHO (maybe there are more than I think and I've just never stumbled upon them) . Too bad multiple boot menu weren't an option until DOS 6.0 . DEVLOD was a thing in 1991 .

I can understand why it could have been useful in the Sound Blaster 1.0 era, but by the time the SB Pro was out in 1991, there were Sound Blaster programming books and and sound middleware options (Miles Sound System/ Audio Interface Library , for example) available . I guess Creative felt they needed to update their sound drivers to handle the new SB Pro's capabilities as they would have needed to provide them anyway for backwards compatibility with the already released games that needed the said drivers .

Reply 6 of 12, by dr_st

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Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-05-25, 23:10:

I edited autoexec.bat and config.sys to load everything “high”
But it is not enough.

How can I fix this so I can play this game ?

1. Remove the Creative drivers (CTMMSYS, CTSBPRO and SBMIDI).
2. Add /E switch to MSCDEX so that part of it loads into EMS.

Problem solved.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-26, 04:50:

If I'm not mistaken, anything that used CT-VOICE.DRV required those drivers. Elfland in particular comes to mind. See also http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/12/s … -dos-games.html .

Nothing in that blog entry says anything about requiring those drivers, unless I am blind.

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Reply 7 of 12, by 1541

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Instead of MSCDEX.EXE you could also try SHCDX33F.COM as a substitute:

LH C:\DOS\SHCDX33F.COM /D:OPTICAL

LASTDRIVE=F (instead of "Z" should also save a few bytes)

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  • Filename
    shcdx33f.zip
    File size
    36.82 KiB
    Downloads
    55 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by 1541 on 2020-05-26, 14:35. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 8 of 12, by canthearu

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The easiest way to fix your problem would be to change CONFIG.SYS

Change:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM

to

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

At the moment, your system is using 64kb of upper memory address space for the EMS page frame. If you specify NOEMS, you can use the EMS page frame space to load additional software high, freeing up conventional memory.

The other posters here have good ideas with using different software to reduce memory requirements, but the easiest fix would be to get rid of the EMS emulation (but keep UMB). You would need to change this back to the original settings if you have software that needs EMS memory (actually not that common)

Reply 9 of 12, by dr_st

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No. It's best to do what I said and remove the useless SB drivers. Some games do need EMS, but I have yet to hear of any that actually need those drivers. Which means, that even if they do exist, there are likely far far fewer of them than games that need EMS.

Also, MSCDEX can use EMS to save about 10-15KB, so the net gain would be less than 64KB. Essentially it would be the same as with removing the SB drivers, and the resulting configuration would be compatible with wider range of software.

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Reply 10 of 12, by Jorpho

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dr_st wrote on 2020-05-26, 08:17:

Nothing in that blog entry says anything about requiring those drivers, unless I am blind.

Fine, to be more precise: CTMMSYS was at least needed on the SB16 and later cards for games that needed CT-VOICE.DRV. See for instance the AWE64 manual:
https://www.manualsdir.com/manuals/70337/crea … 64.html?page=34

Maybe older sound cards don't need that driver or (more likely) that blog post is a little incomplete. But if you're looking for games that require CTMMSYS, the list there would be a good place to start.

In any case, we can agree that the vast majority of games do not require it, and certainly not Falcon 3.0.

Reply 11 of 12, by dr_st

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I will have to reserve judgment, since my DOS system is currently quarantined away from me at my parents' house, so I cannot test it. However, I would not take what's written at the manual at face value. The Nerdly Pleasures blog clearly talks about CT-VOICE.DRV being a loadable driver and does not mention CTMMSYS as a requirement at all. The only games on that list that I played are Prehistorik and Titus the Fox, and I don't recall any missing audio, even though I never loaded any Creative drivers.

Now I'm curious and hopefully someone can verify this on actual hardware.

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Reply 12 of 12, by gdjacobs

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darry wrote on 2020-05-26, 05:25:

Few enough games needed it to definitely run the bloatware on demand when needed, not in autoexec.bat config.sys, IMHO (maybe there are more than I think and I've just never stumbled upon them) . Too bad multiple boot menu weren't an option until DOS 6.0 . DEVLOD was a thing in 1991 .

This. Load them on demand. Wasn't there also a utility which converted .SYS files to .COM and then allowed the use of LH?

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder