LoneCrusader wrote:

Rudolph Loew's Windows 9x RAM Limitation Patch

Burn it with fire.
[386Enh]\MaxPhysPage=20000, [vcache]\MaxFileCache=65536 and [vcache]\MinFileCache=65536. Last two digits can be different, the goal is - vcache must not use reserved memory in the 4th GB area (c0000000-ffffffff). Reserved areas can be seen in the device manager (View\Resources by type\Memory), the first entry after C0000000 limits the maximum vcache size.

Gamecollector wrote:

LoneCrusader wrote:

Rudolph Loew's Windows 9x RAM Limitation Patch

Burn it with fire.
[386Enh]\MaxPhysPage=20000, [vcache]\MaxFileCache=65536 and [vcache]\MinFileCache=65536. Last two digits can be different, the goal is - vcache must not use reserved memory in the 4th GB area (c0000000-ffffffff). Reserved areas can be seen in the device manager (View\Resources by type\Memory), the first entry after C0000000 limits the maximum vcache size.

No thanks. All those "tweaks" floating around the net such as this never worked for me. I'll stick with the RAM Patch, which always works and never has to be "tweaked." In fact, I consider it to be the only "right" way of fixing the RAM issue.

Besides, this has no bearing on the current problem. I have already established that the problem is directly video related.

Try to test the X850xt with another games more demanding than Warcraft 2, just to be sure.

Keep in mind that there are 2 version of warcraft 2, try with the battlechest version to see if its something related to dos, the game.... or the Card. If the battlechest version works, at least you can keep the card and use the game under windows anyway.

LoneCrusader wrote:

In fact, I consider it to be the only "right" way of fixing the RAM issue.

Considering that practically nothing requires 3584 MB of RAM in Win98SE (and certainly not WarCraft II), I would say using HIMEMX to limit the RAM to be a much better idea.

Besides, this has no bearing on the current problem. I have already established that the problem is directly video related.

But how can you say it's not a bug specifically triggered by the combination of the X850 and the Limitation Patch?

In fact, I've seen at least one guide that suggested using HIMEMX to resolve a problem with video card drivers.
http://www.flaterco.com/kb/W98.html

Emu10k1 wrote:

Try to test the X850xt with another games more demanding than Warcraft 2, just to be sure.

Keep in mind that there are 2 version of warcraft 2, try with the battlechest version to see if its something related to dos, the game.... or the Card. If the battlechest version works, at least you can keep the card and use the game under windows anyway.

I set up another machine with similar hardware and another X850 XT PE to verify that it wasn't a motherboard or other hardware issue. This setup had the same results so I'm confident there is nothing wrong with the card itself. I also tried an X800 XT PE with the same results. Thanks for the reminder about the Battle.NET edition, I had forgotten about that one as I never played it. I'd prefer to get the classic DOS version running if I can though.

Jorpho wrote:

Considering that practically nothing requires 3584 MB of RAM in Win98SE (and certainly not WarCraft II), I would say using HIMEMX to limit the RAM to be a much better idea.

First let me say that I DO appreciate your posting here and trying to help me, even though it would seem we're not going to see eye-to-eye. I really don't mean to be rude, but I'm not interested in whether anything "requires" or "needs" 3584MB of RAM under 98SE. Why would I "limit" the RAM available when I can use rloew's patch and make all of it available and usable? I don't care whether or not anything "requires" or "needs" it, the point is that it is there, it works, and is available in the event I decide to run a program that CAN make use of a large amount of RAM (later 9x-compatible games such as WarCraft III, Rise of Nations, etc. for example), OR I decide to set up a multi-boot system with Windows XP or another OS on the same machine.

I'm sorry about the rant, and much of it is not even directed at you per se, but it seems like on every forum I visit other than MSFN people have this attitude about Windows 9x where they always say "it doesn't need this" or "it doesn't need that" or "why would you want to run it on that" or "why do you need that much RAM/CPU/HDD whatever" or "why don't you find an old P3 machine to run it on" or "why do you want to run that program on such an outdated operating system" and on and on ad nauseam. I get sick of hearing this rubbish... What business is it of anyone else's what hardware or software or operating systems I or anyone else choose to run in whatever combinations?

/rant

Jorpho wrote:

LoneCrusader wrote:

Besides, this has no bearing on the current problem. I have already established that the problem is directly video related.

But how can you say it's not a bug specifically triggered by the combination of the X850 and the Limitation Patch?

Because the exact same problem still persists even if I uninstall the RAM Limitation Patch and reduce the RAM to 512MB.

Jorpho wrote:

In fact, I've seen at least one guide that suggested using HIMEMX to resolve a problem with video card drivers.
http://www.flaterco.com/kb/W98.html

That page specifically begins the "Problems installing Nvidia drivers" section with this

Infinite problems getting the Nvidia drivers to install without everything becoming FUBAR are actually just a symptom of generalized memory-configuration-related instability that is triggered by having more than 512 MiB of RAM. (emphasis mine)

This "instability" is exactly what you get when you try to use all the various SYSTEM.INI tweaks floating around the net and/or HIMEMX to CIRCUMVENT the actual problem that is FIXED by rloew's patch. I was never even able to get a 9x system to BOOT using the SYSTEM.INI tweaks, let alone get to the Desktop and attempt to install a video driver. No such tweaking is required with the RAM patch - you install it and get on with enjoying your system and your life. It patches the underlying memory handling code to support larger amounts of RAM rather than attempting to bypass the problem by hiding RAM from Windows.

LoneCrusader wrote:

What business is it of anyone else's what hardware or software or operating systems I or anyone else choose to run in whatever combinations?

Oh, you can run whatever you want and I can hardly tell you otherwise, but when you come along with questions about such combinations, you're pretty much inviting them to become someone else's business. Also, language like "I consider it to be the only 'right' way" kind of comes across as dismissing any other conceivable alternative as the "wrong" way.

Jorpho wrote:

But how can you say it's not a bug specifically triggered by the combination of the X850 and the Limitation Patch?

Because the exact same problem still persists even if I uninstall the RAM Limitation Patch and reduce the RAM to 512MB.

Fair enough; that is a much better starting point. I'd be curious though if less than 512 MB makes a difference.

This "instability" is exactly what you get when you try to use all the various SYSTEM.INI tweaks floating around the net and/or HIMEMX to CIRCUMVENT the actual problem that is FIXED by rloew's patch. I was never even able to get a 9x system to BOOT using the SYSTEM.INI tweaks, let alone get to the Desktop and attempt to install a video driver. No such tweaking is required with the RAM patch - you install it and get on with enjoying your system and your life. It patches the underlying memory handling code to support larger amounts of RAM rather than attempting to bypass the problem by hiding RAM from Windows.

Yes, fine, you sound very pleased with it. Unfortunately, no one else seems to have any ideas, and it's not like downloading and trying HIMEMX is particularly difficult to do.

Alternatively: isn't this a DOS program? What happens if you restart in MS-DOS mode and run the game? If it's using DOS4GW, then DOS32a is also a possibility. UniVBE might also be worth looking into.

I agree with dropping back real dos, at least for testing. System as "new" as yours may be bit of a pain to get going with sound but just a generic Win98 bootdisk will be enough to get the game running with no sound which is enough for testing.
On a side note I also prefer the DOS version of the game but moving around the map is WAY too fast on my P3 1Ghz so ended up using battle net version anyway which doesn't have the same problem

I have the same card and tested it under win98 and dos7.1:

Under win98: see dos4/gw then back to desktop.
under plain dos7.1: dos4/gw crashes with general protection fault. 0Dh
This machine has 3gb ram (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x in autoexec.bat)
CPU= AthlonXP 3200 (reduded via bios to 650 Mhz)

Next machine i tryed:
Athlon Thunderbird 1300 Mhz
Geforce Ti 4200
1512 MB ram
Dos7.1 and Win98

the game runs fine in win98.

in dos it hangs after war2.exe (enter) because i have not mscdex installed.

But there is no Protection fault.

Maybe it is really GFX Card related?

Update:

-reduced the ram to 512 mb (removed other memory sticks)
- changed ATI X850 XT PE with Geforce256DDR

Still getting general protection fault

maybe the geforce1 card makes also problems in Warcarft II ?
or it is motherboard related (asus a7n8X-X)

update 2: now tested the geforce4ti (which works in other pc) in Dos and there it still crashed.

but in windows98 it runs:

Geforce256DDR with 512MB in win98 = run
Geforce4TI4200 with 512MB in win98 = run
Geforce4TI4200 with 2048 mb (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x.exe) in win98 = run
X850XT PE with 2048 mb (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x.exe) in Win98 = crash
x850XT PE with 512 mb in Win98 = crash

it seems the X850xt pe does not support the resolution of the blizzard intro video.

iirc there was dos program that could gives list what resolutions that supported by graphic card.
is there any certain resolution that X850pt doesn't support but it was supported by other cards?
or the warcraft 2 using non-bios method to set the video mode?

i don't know... but the game crash at that moment when the Video should be played.

I think the best for the Threadstarter is to use another Graphics Card, or to try Dosbox to play Warcraft II

Joey_sw wrote:

iirc there was dos program that could gives list what resolutions that supported by graphic card.
is there any certain resolution that X850pt doesn't support but it was supported by other cards?
or the warcraft 2 using non-bios method to set the video mode?

That's sort of why I was thinking UniVBE might be a good idea, but then again I don't think it supports a card as new as the X850.

Jorpho wrote:

Oh, you can run whatever you want and I can hardly tell you otherwise, but when you come along with questions about such combinations, you're pretty much inviting them to become someone else's business. Also, language like "I consider it to be the only 'right' way" kind of comes across as dismissing any other conceivable alternative as the "wrong" way.

I suppose I see where you are coming from there, but on the other hand I don't make a habit of asking questions without doing a good deal of experimenting myself. I've been using rloew's RAM patch for 6 years now and have never had one single problem with it. Granted I have not used it in this exact hardware combination, but I know from experience that it is stable and certainly not the first thing to suspect when a problem arises. Maybe other methods are not "wrong" per se, but, IMO, other methods are "workarounds" where rloew's patch is a "bugfix."

At any rate, I will continue to experiment both with my original configuration and with only 512MB of RAM and no RAM patch for a control.

Jorpho wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

But how can you say it's not a bug specifically triggered by the combination of the X850 and the Limitation Patch?

Because the exact same problem still persists even if I uninstall the RAM Limitation Patch and reduce the RAM to 512MB.

Jorpho wrote:

Fair enough; that is a much better starting point. I'd be curious though if less than 512 MB makes a difference.

I seriously doubt that less than 512MB would change it, but if it comes down to it I will attempt that configuration to rule it out.

Also though, keep in mind that the older WarCraft I is working properly, so that seems to indicate it is a very specific difference or "bug" of some kind, rather than being a more general "too much memory" or other "too much/too fast hardware" type issue.

Jorpho wrote:

Alternatively: isn't this a DOS program? What happens if you restart in MS-DOS mode and run the game? If it's using DOS4GW, then DOS32a is also a possibility. UniVBE might also be worth looking into.

chinny22 wrote:

I agree with dropping back real dos, at least for testing. System as "new" as yours may be bit of a pain to get going with sound but just a generic Win98 bootdisk will be enough to get the game running with no sound which is enough for testing.
On a side note I also prefer the DOS version of the game but moving around the map is WAY too fast on my P3 1Ghz so ended up using battle net version anyway which doesn't have the same problem

Now we're getting somewhere. Running the game in pure DOS printed an error to the screen that never gets displayed in Windows.

DOS4GW Error wrote:

DOS/4GW Professional error (2001): exception 0Dh (general protection fault) at 3E58:000024D7 TSF32: prev_tsf32 6B14 SS 180 […]
Show full quote

DOS/4GW Professional error (2001): exception 0Dh (general protection fault) at 3E58:000024D7
TSF32: prev_tsf32 6B14
SS 180 DS 3E68 ES 198 FS 0 GS 0
EAX 0 EBX 1 ECX 0 EDX 1
ESI 40 EDI 4010 EBP 378 ESP 33C
CS:IP 3E58:000024D7 ID 0D COD 0 FLG 10202
CS= 3E58, USE16, byte granular, limit CA8F, base 115820, acc 9B
SS= 180, USE16, byte granular, limit 1FFF, base 150F80, acc 93
DS= 3E68, USE16, byte granular, limit 886F, base 1222B0, acc 93
ES= 198, USE16, byte granular, limit 3F, base 154000, acc 93
FS= 0, USE16, byte granular, limit 0, base 16, acc 0
GS= 0, USE16, byte granular, limit 0, base 16, acc 0
CR0: PG:0 ET:1 TS:0 EM:0 MP:0 PE:1 CR2: 0 CR3: 0

Yeah, the DOS version does scroll ridiculously fast on another P4 3GHz machine of mine. I basically adapted to clicking directly wherever I wanted to look on the minimap rather than attempting to scroll... 🤣

Sammy wrote:

I have the same card and tested it under win98 and dos7.1: […]
Show full quote

I have the same card and tested it under win98 and dos7.1:

Under win98: see dos4/gw then back to desktop.
under plain dos7.1: dos4/gw crashes with general protection fault. 0Dh
This machine has 3gb ram (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x in autoexec.bat)
CPU= AthlonXP 3200 (reduded via bios to 650 Mhz)

Next machine i tryed:
Athlon Thunderbird 1300 Mhz
Geforce Ti 4200
1512 MB ram
Dos7.1 and Win98

the game runs fine in win98.

in dos it hangs after war2.exe (enter) because i have not mscdex installed.

But there is no Protection fault.

Maybe it is really GFX Card related?

Sammy wrote:

Update: […]
Show full quote

Update:

-reduced the ram to 512 mb (removed other memory sticks)
- changed ATI X850 XT PE with Geforce256DDR

Still getting general protection fault

maybe the geforce1 card makes also problems in Warcarft II ?
or it is motherboard related (asus a7n8X-X)

Sammy wrote:

update 2: now tested the geforce4ti (which works in other pc) in Dos and there it still crashed. […]
Show full quote

update 2: now tested the geforce4ti (which works in other pc) in Dos and there it still crashed.

but in windows98 it runs:

Geforce256DDR with 512MB in win98 = run
Geforce4TI4200 with 512MB in win98 = run
Geforce4TI4200 with 2048 mb (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x.exe) in win98 = run
X850XT PE with 2048 mb (reduced to 512 via bs_ram9x.exe) in Win98 = crash
x850XT PE with 512 mb in Win98 = crash

it seems the X850xt pe does not support the resolution of the blizzard intro video.

I see you came to the same conclusions as I did. As I mentioned above, WarCraft I works though. Do you have it to test on your X850 to see if you can reproduce my results?

Joey_sw wrote:

iirc there was dos program that could gives list what resolutions that supported by graphic card.
is there any certain resolution that X850pt doesn't support but it was supported by other cards?
or the warcraft 2 using non-bios method to set the video mode?

Sammy wrote:

i don't know... but the game crash at that moment when the Video should be played.
I think the best for the Threadstarter is to use another Graphics Card, or to try Dosbox to play Warcraft II

Jorpho wrote:

That's sort of why I was thinking UniVBE might be a good idea, but then again I don't think it supports a card as new as the X850.

Reverting to a 9800 XT is always an option, but I plan to keep trying to sort this out for now. I prefer not to run DOSBox on a 9x system that shouldn't need to do so, but I guess it's a viable "last option."

Maybe the error I posted above will shed some light on the problem, if anyone knows how to interpret it...

The only thing you can try to test various Dos4/gw versions...

maybe you can replace dos4/gw with dos32a.

and on your machine you can setup a dualboot with 98, and xp.. and run doxbox on xp (and nglide if you wanna play 3dfx games)

Sammy wrote:

The only thing you can try to test various Dos4/gw versions...

maybe you can replace dos4/gw with dos32a.

and on your machine you can setup a dualboot with 98, and xp.. and run doxbox on xp (and nglide if you wanna play 3dfx games)

How do I replace the embedded DOS4GW inside WAR2.EXE with a later version? I believe the game comes with 1.97, and I know a 2.01a exists...

I tried DOS32A previously on a different machine (prior to obtaining the DPMI memory limiter I mentioned in my first post) to attempt to cure the DOS4GW crashes with more than 2GB of RAM. It did work, but for some reason threw unrelated or irrelevant errors on exiting the game. I will try it again; if DOS32A will solve the video card issue then I will use it but a fix for DOS4GW would be preferable.

Did you by chance have the original WarCraft I to run a test with on your X850 and see if it works like mine does?

I do not own Warcraft I , sorry.
But why it should not run ?

I think the Blizzard intro-Video has a special Graphics-Mode, not supported by X850...

I don't think that it is really a Problem of dos4/gw, because when i change video cards the game run in windows, but in dos i have still the dos 4 gw error message.
I was just a last hope.

Maybe Warcraft 2 tries to idenify the Graphics Card and detects a false one.
Or it can't handle 256 mb Memory on VGA-Card.

Who knows?

I think the best way to play is still dosbox.

I've heard that on fast CPU the scrolling is to fast to play the game.

With dosbox you can set the right cpu-cycles.

Sammy wrote:

I do not own Warcraft I , sorry.
But why it should not run ?

It should; I just hoped that someone else could replicate the strange situation where the older WarCraft I is working and the later WarCraft II is not.

Sammy wrote:

I think the Blizzard intro-Video has a special Graphics-Mode, not supported by X850... […]
Show full quote

I think the Blizzard intro-Video has a special Graphics-Mode, not supported by X850...

I don't think that it is really a Problem of dos4/gw, because when i change video cards the game run in windows, but in dos i have still the dos 4 gw error message.
I was just a last hope.

Maybe Warcraft 2 tries to idenify the Graphics Card and detects a false one.
Or it can't handle 256 mb Memory on VGA-Card.

Who knows?

You're probably right about the special video mode, however it is worth noting that the intro for WC1 plays fine, but it may be a different resolution etc.

I assume DOS4GW is crashing because of the "video mode" problem. The question is does the card really not support it, or is there some conflict between DOS4GW and the card...?

I do not see any errors running WC2 in DOS with the 9800 XT card, which also has 256MB of onboard graphics memory.

Sammy wrote:

I think the best way to play is still dosbox.

I've heard that on fast CPU the scrolling is to fast to play the game.

With dosbox you can set the right cpu-cycles.

I hope to actually fix the problem rather than do a workaround. Don't get me wrong, DOSBox is a great project, but I prefer to run real DOS and real Windows 9x whenever possible. I already adapted my play to the fast scrolling bug years ago... 🤣