Add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS.

1DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF

Bottom Line: It worked! That 'code' DID give me EMS, but I first had to delete that I=B000-B7FF command. I remember that on my 'ol 486ses CONFIG.SYS file. I was told that it disabled the use of Monochrome region of the Video card, meaning that games that run in Black&White ( Yep, that's about ZERO.) won't work anymore. From my experience, that switch was best for 386SX-Pentium machines with a VGA-compatible Adapter with 512K-2 MB of RAM, Windows 3.xx, & MS-DOS 6.xx. It also ?SOMEHOW? allowed UMBs (Upper Memory Blocks) to be created, as long as the DOS=HIGH,UMB command was in effect.

For some reason, when I=B000=B7FF hex was there, I just couldn't run some games that do NOT use EMS memory. Case in Point: Prince of Persia v1.3, for whatever reason with the I=B000-B7FF command the game would NOT run in Windows. It would freeze/lock after starting the game, to a point where I had to restart my computer. Also, Legend of Kyrandia would freeze, too, but ONLY after quitting the game. However, POP worked fine in DOS mode! Yet, after quitting kyrandia in DOS mode my computer would reboot! So, I just removed the darn thing, which was a real drag, cause, for one thing, I lost over 20K of base (conventional) memory it dropped from 608K (in windows) to 584K afterwards. That I=B000-B7FF hex never was Windows-friendly!

Next, I lost all UMBs, with that switch gone I have 0k Total according to 'MEM!! whereas with I=B000-B7FF I had 27K total. Now I CANNOT load anything in the Upper Memory Area!!! (i.e. DEVICEHIGH command is useless) I needed way more base memory in order to run games like Master of Magic & Master of Orion. So, I did the following to the CONFIG.SYS file:

BUFFERS=11,0
FILES=30
FCBS=4,0
STACKS=0,0
LASTDRIVE=F

All this did was add about 4K of memory, which is better than nothing, but not nearly enough to play MOO and especially MoM SMOOTHLY!!! Unless there's some way to make PoP + Kyrandia work in Windows with the I=B000-B7FF hex, I REALLY need to find some other way of getting UMBs. Is there a program better (and Less Confusing!) than MSD.EXE that can scan my memory and find regions available for UMBs?? Anybody try QEMM, 386MAX, or other memory manager before? Any other memory-manager MUST provide the whole shebang!! XMS/HMA/EMS/UMB/DPMI/VCPI...

By the way, I still don't understand why Win98 will not emulate EMS memory in Windows, at least. WITHOUT having to load ANY memory-managers INCLUDING EMM386. Believe it or not, On my brother's PC I found NO indication (as far as I know) of EMM386.EXE in his CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, SYSTEM.INI, any other sys file!!! The ONLY place where I saw any reference to EMM386.EXE was in the Registry.
Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\MS-DOSOptions\EMS\. This Key is also in the same location on MY computer!! and practically identical, as well!! Yet, NO EMS for me!!! I'm NOT exactly a pro on the Registry, but there are about six strings in this key which should allow Expanded Memory, right??

Here are the specs for my brother's PC:

Motherboard Chipset is Intel 80440LX
Processor is Intel Celeron @ 400 MHz (what is that equal to a PII-350 maybe?)
32 MB SDRAM (PC66)
ATI (Mach64) RAGE PRO TURBO 2X AGP w/4 MB*
Cirrus Logic CS4614/22/24 PCI CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator(a.ka. Crystal SoundFusion(tm) CS4280-CM PCI Audio Accelerator).*
Windows 98 SE 4.10.2222 A

*Video card appears to be OnBoard (i.e. integrated inside the motherboard)
*sound card is OnBoard, too.

That's it (heh) for Now! Thank a lot!!

B000-B7FF isn't even for monochrome games, it's for monochrome video cards. You can try the memory addresses E000-EFFF as well.

Well, I got PoP to work in windows, but i had to disable the sound, at least the music works! I don't understand how that I=B000-B7FF could cause the game to freeze with sound enabled. As for Kyrandia, NO such luck. Disabled sound/music yet the game still freezes after I quit from it, and i bet it probably would still reboot after quitting in DOS, too (Though, I haven't tried it, what's the point? The music was one of the best things of the game.)

MSD.EXE said that the entire range of E000-EFFF is quote "Possibly Available .." So, I go ahead and try first I=E000-EFFF, and reboot and watch Windows freeze at the splash screen!! and DOS would just display that blinking cursor _!!! Thank Goodness, for Safe mode!!!! Next, I tried I=E000-E7FFF, then I=E000-E3FF, and I find myself going into Safe mode again and removing them because of the same problem. Its too bad that i ain't a math whiz or something so that I try ALL the hexs of E000-EFFF!

Next, I just gamble and try the range of A000-AFFF knowing that MSD might be tricking me! and after rebooting this error shows up:

EMM386: Unable to start Enhanced Mode Windows due to base memory back fill

Press any to continue...

Eeh?? So, I do what it says and my computer just shuts down!! YIKES!!!! Luckily, I was easily able to boot into DOS and delete the thing.

Now, I happen to go into msconfig.exe and under 'General' tab i click on the 'advanced' button and i see something called "EMM Exclude A000-AFFF" I check it (Even though, I really DON'T know what it will do) , and restart first adding the I=A000-AFFF switch in the CONFIG.SYS file, and guess what? that same above mentioned error message appears again!

sigh.... i've just about had enough of those cursed hexses!!! In short, E000-EFFF did NOT work, nor did any other range that MSD deemed as "Possibly Available .." Like i said before, i'm NO math whiz so I ONLY tried a few sections of those memory addresses that i could discern. Of course, i'm open to any other suggestions.

I REALLY need a better memory diagnostic program besides MSD!! One that could actually tell what software, hardware, etc. is using (or might be using!) a given memory address(es). And more importantly (at least to me) , one that could examine my memory and find regions available for use as Upper Memory Blocks (UMBs). BTW, Msinfo32.exe is NOT a good alternative to MSD! the hexses are longer and thus more confusing, and it does NOT do the latter.

Something is wrong with your system if you can't use B000-B7FF or E000-EFFF.

I have just recently "rediscovered" the joy of getting an old game running, so I might be wrong, but I do not think that EMS (EMM386.EXE) and Win9x can co-exist. Can't you not just reboot in pure DOS and a "doctored" CONFIG.SYS that loads EMM386.EXE?

MSD worked fine me when I hunted for a region to include.

Or - try downloading OLDDOS.EXE. Once it has unpacked itself, you will have MEMMAKER.EXE, a Microsoft EMS optimizer.

Please see my post here for and example of what I got to work.
--
MiniMax

EMS works in Windows 9x just fine. Did it all the time on my old laptop.

I've always found EMM386 to be quite buggy (It's Microsoft's) and i always used QEMM386 on my ms-dos days. The main con is that EMM386 is free while QEMM is not and it can be difficult to configure properly. But in the long run, it ran much better than EMM386. 😎
One other thing: On certain computers, setting a DMA buffer value for EMM386 -> DEVICE=EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000:B7FF D=128 (or 256) seems to help stability. If your computer is very picky about memory regions, you should try bypassing all video-related memory addresses altogether. DEVICE=EMM386.EXE RAM X=A000-CFFF D=128 but you could easily end up with no memory space for loading programs high (UMBs).

Snover wrote:

Something is wrong with your system if you can't use B000-B7FF or E000-EFFF.

Evidently, I assume that by 'system' you are refering to my computer (i.e internally: the hardware) which could be an issue entirely separate from Windows 98, correct? "Something" is just way too vague for me to comprehend, how 'bout some concrete suggestions/advice, etc. BTW, is this 'old' laptop slower than a PIII-550 MHz w/ 64 MB SDRAM, and 8 MB SGRAM video card?

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

On certain computers, setting a DMA buffer value for EMM386 -> DEVICE=EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000:B7FF D=128 (or 256) seems to help stability.

Do you have any idea exactly which kind of computer(s) require this parameter D=?(DOS Help.com doesn't really help!) Also, what do you mean by stability? (i.e. how/what does it stabilize)I tried X=A000-CFFF D=128 and like you said I got 0k UMBs, and was back to the stagnant 588K base memory that i had before, which I just can't seem to increase. BTW, why or how is EMM386 buggy?

It wouldn't hurt to set a D=64 or D=128 setting always. It just reserves some space for DMAs. For stability i mean EMM386 just tended to hang under certain situations or when used in conjunction with poorly written software. Using a DMA setting sometimes minimised this.
The X=A000-CFFF setting is quite EXTREME and just for testing purposes. That's another reason why i loved QEMM on my ms-dos days. It came with the handy Manifest app, which displayed a nice map of memory to see.
Just try excluding just the video bios area -> X=C000:C7FF
NOTE: Most videocards newest bioses are GREATER than 32KB, so you may need to exclude a bigger memory area, such as X=C000:CFFF. To find out which area is being used, check video card properties under windows Hardware Manager. For my GeForce4 Ti4200 card isn't showed in it, brr, it only shows 32bit addresses and just one A000:BFFF address which, i think, it's just VGA video memory.

For example when you watch intro of "Big Red Adventure" there is a lot of talking there and on fast computers it just plays the beginning of the sentence and then you hear a loud noise.

When you set D=64 whole talking is perfect in that intro.

I tried D=64,128, & 256, yet I still can't play Legend of Kyrandia properly having that same problem I mentioned before. (i.e. after i QUIT from it locks/freezes, it displays the illegal operation box as it would except this a DOS game, of course.) From that point, (if i'm lucky!) I can press CTRL+ALT+DEL and 'ol BSOD shows it's mug, with some insane Fatal Exception OE error. Usually, though, it freezes once the illegal operation box appears, and i can only shut off my computer; being that the darn thing doesn't have a RESET button!! One more thing, when the illegal operation comes up, I can NEVER press the <<Details>> button; if I even try that's when my system totally freezes, and I'm forced to shut it off. ONLY when I instantly press CTRL+ALT+DEL can I get the Blue Screen of Death, otherwise it freezes like an icicle.

As for DOS mode, as i stated before for some odd reason when i QUIT the game right away my system REBOOTS. I'm about 100% sure that it's locking up because of the I=B000-B7FF switch (worked fine before i put that in!!) but i'm NOT going to remove it 'cause ONE game isn't working, and moreover, I lose a whole slew of conv. memory if I do. I've went into the SETUP.EXE of the game, and told it NOT to use XMS memory OR HMA memory, also I told it to use MCGA/VGA < 256k video RAM instead of VGA 256+ video RAM, but you know what it did NOTHING!!! I've tried just about everything I can think of, I don't how/why I=B000-B7FF causes the game to lock. So, that's it, for now.

Legend of kyrandia uses XMS. So why do you want to force it to use EMS?