386max was included with some Microsoft C programming packages.

QRAM was the memory manager for 286 systems with QEMM needed a 386 or better.

I tended to use DOS 6.22 and QEMM 7.5 for gaming, Desqview/X has its own version of QEMM it needs, regular Desqview also had its own version of QEMM.

QEMM was pretty stable except on some systems when it used stealth. I never used it with DOS 7 or W9x machines. It was the best at getting the most RAM available.

I play early and late DOS era games on real 486 hardware. If you have a lot of TSR - i.e. due to Win 3.11 and many expansion cards that need a driver loaded at start - then this reduces your free conventional memory. However, some DOS games require quite a lot of free conventional memory to launch the game.

One way to free up some conventional memory is MEMMAKER, which is included in DOS. It moves TSRs from the conventional memory to some higher memory area. Even though it works ok and stable, it does not give you a big plus. QEMM frees up much more conventional memory, but some games do have a problem with it. The latest version released for DOS is v8.x, with the basic release disks v8.00 and update release disks to v8.03.

Gonduron wrote on 2022-01-28, 06:40:

The latest version released for DOS is v8.x, with the basic release disks v8.00 and update release disks to v8.03.

The latest version is 9.0x. See here f.e. https://winworldpc.com/product/qemm/9x.

Gonduron wrote on 2022-01-28, 06:40:

...Even though (MemMaker) works ok and stable, it does not give you a big plus. QEMM frees up much more conventional memory, but some games do have a problem with it. The latest version released for DOS is v8.x, with the basic release disks v8.00 and update release disks to v8.03.

You can install the final version of QEMM (v9, or "QEMM 97") in DOS, even though it had an additional new installer for Windows. It works in all DOS-based versions of Windows, from Win3 up to WinME. I suggest using a commercial boot mamanger like System Commander to allow you to switch back and forth between pure DOS and 3rd party memory managers (or even completely different operating systems), which allows quick alternatives in case they start giving you problems.

My favorite gaming config:
1. Load up DOS, get all my drivers installed, and then let Memmaker smooth it out (it really does do a far better job than we give it credit for). Do not install any other memory manager yet.
2. Install System Commander and set up a few duplicate pure DOS boot options. This allows other DOS booting options for later, such as adding QEMM, 386MAX, etc.
3. Install Windows 98SE, which becomes another entry in System Commander.
4. Using the spare DOS boot entries you popped into System Commander, now you can install QEMM, 386MAX, etc. Or create even more boot options with different config files to allow DOS to be booted with or without common memory managers for specific games.

Now you have an incredibly flexible and convenient (downright slick) DOS Box that can also run any DOS or Windows game of the time as well as having a pure DOS box with all devices available (sound, mouse, video, CDROM, etc) when you "Shut Down to DOS Mode" in Windows. And when you drop to DOS and do a "mem /c /p", you see that you still have all the memory available that MemMaker set up for you before installing Windows. And that's just in Win98SE, not including the other boot options you might have set up in System Commander. Just remember to keep the hard drive at FAT16 so everything works and plays nice.

This is the most common build config I use for retro gaming boxes for 1990s gaming. It's a very effective method of whipping up a wonderfully decent retro gaming box that can literally do it all, even allowing you to bounce around in different OS's, like DOS, Windows, and even OS/2 (again - keep it FAT16 to do this).

My other option is using swappable Compact Flash and SD cards as hard drives, which basically gives you dirt cheap SSD drives. The IDE-to-CF/SD adapters are also dirt cheap on Amazon. This provides for that much more flexibility, especially if different file systems are wanted or required. Very handy for ArcaOS, any flavor of NT, Linux, etc.

😀

I used to use QEMM back in the 90s, it always worked fine for me.
I did occasionally get QEMM crash messages, especially on my 486, but it was merely detecting crashes not causing them. My 486 wasn't stable and it would crash just as often with or without QEMM, the only difference with not loading QEMM was whether I'd get a message or not.
It's been too long since I used it to remember exactly how I set it up, but I basically just ran the OPTIMIZE utility and I was conservative with the "Stealth" feature, not sure if I used it at all.

I haven't used my current DOS machine much and haven't installed QEMM, but it's possible I could end up using it again. I need to optimize the memory usage a bit but I'd rather put some more effort into doing it manually first.

Yoghoo wrote on 2022-01-27, 22:14:

Highwinder wrote on 2022-01-27, 21:23:

In my experience, there wasn't a single DOS configuration that QEMM produced that proved to be stable. QEMM is the most crash-happy memory manager of all time, and though it's always so tempting to use it, once you start gaming with it, you'll be crashing repeatedly. DOS gaming crashes QEMM (or vice versa) with disgusting reliability. QEMM is the most exciting, miraculous, badly-needed, feature-packed, amazingly functional, brilliantly marketed DOS game crasher in computing history.

Well that's your opinion/experience. My experience is quitte different. I used it back in the day and I am still using it on one of my retro pc's. No problems running games or at least no more then running under plain MS DOS. Please give some examples of problem games so I can give it a try. Always like to tinker with those kind of problems. 😀

I have one for you. I use a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 for DOS and Win98SE gaming, a well-known sound card that is easily and reliably used for both. To use this card in pure DOS, SBEINIT.COM must be loaded as a TSR for PCI-to-ISA emulation for DOS games. However, this TSR crashes QEMM with perfection (no problems with MemMaker). Once SBEINIT is in the autoexec. QEMM just goes into a perpetual crash/reboot cycle. Crashes Optimize too. In fairness, I should mention that no QEMM fan should feel bad about this, as SBEINIT crashes Qualitas's 386MAX as well.

At the very least, MS-DOS 6.22 and MemMaker have absolutely no problem with it (actually does a great job and gives me 606k executable).

I would be extremely grateful for a solution if you've got one. And though MemMaker is doing me right with still providing me with 606k with the kitchen sink loaded up, SBEINIT.COM keeps me from using any other memory manager, and I really would like to at least have the option of running QEMM if desired.

Mucho Thanko

Highwinder wrote on 2022-02-06, 23:02:

I have one for you. I use a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 for DOS and Win98SE gaming, a well-known sound card that is easily and reliably used for both. To use this card in pure DOS, SBEINIT.COM must be loaded as a TSR for PCI-to-ISA emulation for DOS games. However, this TSR crashes QEMM with perfection (no problems with MemMaker). Once SBEINIT is in the autoexec. QEMM just goes into a perpetual crash/reboot cycle. Crashes Optimize too. In fairness, I should mention that no QEMM fan should feel bad about this, as SBEINIT crashes Qualitas's 386MAX as well.

Wish I could take a look but I am only using ISA cards in all of my DOS pc's. But looking at some posts I found with Google it seems this one really only works with emm386. To fix that you need to decompile this file (with IDA f.e.) and change the low level call it makes. Unfortunately not used assembly for a very very long time so this is a little above my current skill level.

I understand. My prized DOS box is actually an AMD 486DX4-120 (love that 40MHz bus) with an SB16 and Diamond Stealth VLB - an exact replica of my very best 486 I had built back in the day. The machine I'm playing with right now is the AOpen system in my signature, however. I took out the SB16 and put in a Live!, but that darned driver is killing my fun with the memory managers I like to play with (totally wonderful otherwise). I might just slap the SB16 back in and be done with it, or use an AOpen Cobra, which also has great pure DOS compatibility.

Anyway, thanks for responding.

Jo22 wrote on 2021-01-02, 09:17:

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. ;) Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap […]
Show full quote

Robin4 wrote on 2021-01-02, 01:05:

eL_PuSHeR wrote on 2010-09-12, 19:24:

As far as I recall QEMM was way better than MS EMM386

What does Qemm did beter, what EMM386 cant?

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. 😉
Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap interrupts and so on an was introduced with the 586 or late 486es.
http://www.rcollins.org/ddj/Jan98/Jan98.html

Anyway, neither QEMM nor EMM386 are exactly ideal for 386 PCs.
Because, they are slowed down by V86 mode.
486 or 486DLCs may or may not be affected by this performance "issue". Speaking under correction, though.

On a 386, a dedicated UMB or EMS board might be an alternative. CPU performance wise, at least.
Memory bandwidth of ISA is slower than the SIMM slot memory bandwith of a 386 chipset.

Also, QEMM seems to have issues with certain Cyrix systems.
My Media GX based system was highly unstable with QEMM 7.
With EMM386 of MS-DOS 6.2x, it ran okay, though.

Personally, I think that QEMM is neat for Virtual Machines.
Because they run better in V86 (there's no separate Real-Mode emulation needed).
And because VMs often lack emulation of UMB or EMS features.
Alternatively, UMBPCI can also be used, which uses PCI shadow memory, so no V86 headaches occur.

Hi sorry the bump, do you knlw how to check if my dx4 75 support vme and use in qemm?
thanks

theelf wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:09:

Jo22 wrote on 2021-01-02, 09:17:

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. ;) Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap […]
Show full quote

Robin4 wrote on 2021-01-02, 01:05:

What does Qemm did beter, what EMM386 cant?

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. 😉
Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap interrupts and so on an was introduced with the 586 or late 486es.
http://www.rcollins.org/ddj/Jan98/Jan98.html

Anyway, neither QEMM nor EMM386 are exactly ideal for 386 PCs.
Because, they are slowed down by V86 mode.
486 or 486DLCs may or may not be affected by this performance "issue". Speaking under correction, though.

On a 386, a dedicated UMB or EMS board might be an alternative. CPU performance wise, at least.
Memory bandwidth of ISA is slower than the SIMM slot memory bandwith of a 386 chipset.

Also, QEMM seems to have issues with certain Cyrix systems.
My Media GX based system was highly unstable with QEMM 7.
With EMM386 of MS-DOS 6.2x, it ran okay, though.

Personally, I think that QEMM is neat for Virtual Machines.
Because they run better in V86 (there's no separate Real-Mode emulation needed).
And because VMs often lack emulation of UMB or EMS features.
Alternatively, UMBPCI can also be used, which uses PCI shadow memory, so no V86 headaches occur.

Hi sorry the bump, do you knlw how to check if my dx4 75 support vme and use in qemm?
thanks

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

theelf wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:09:

Jo22 wrote on 2021-01-02, 09:17:

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. ;) Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap […]
Show full quote

QEMM 7 or higher supports Enhanced V86 - you know, that feature that Ryzen totally messed up.. 😉
Enhanced V86 aka VME can trap interrupts and so on an was introduced with the 586 or late 486es.
http://www.rcollins.org/ddj/Jan98/Jan98.html

Anyway, neither QEMM nor EMM386 are exactly ideal for 386 PCs.
Because, they are slowed down by V86 mode.
486 or 486DLCs may or may not be affected by this performance "issue". Speaking under correction, though.

On a 386, a dedicated UMB or EMS board might be an alternative. CPU performance wise, at least.
Memory bandwidth of ISA is slower than the SIMM slot memory bandwith of a 386 chipset.

Also, QEMM seems to have issues with certain Cyrix systems.
My Media GX based system was highly unstable with QEMM 7.
With EMM386 of MS-DOS 6.2x, it ran okay, though.

Personally, I think that QEMM is neat for Virtual Machines.
Because they run better in V86 (there's no separate Real-Mode emulation needed).
And because VMs often lack emulation of UMB or EMS features.
Alternatively, UMBPCI can also be used, which uses PCI shadow memory, so no V86 headaches occur.

Hi sorry the bump, do you knlw how to check if my dx4 75 support vme and use in qemm?
thanks

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I want to squeeze my 486, if suport vme maybe i can get a extra fps in doom...

Using vm86 mode in my dx4 i get a slowdown of 2 to 3% compared to real mode, i did lot of benchmarks

theelf wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:39:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

theelf wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:09:

Hi sorry the bump, do you knlw how to check if my dx4 75 support vme and use in qemm?
thanks

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I want to squeeze my 486, if suport vme maybe i can get a extra fps in doom...

Using vm86 mode in my dx4 i get a slowdown of 2 to 3% compared to real mode, i did lot of benchmarks

Your 486 CPU likely support VME since it is a late one, being a DX4.

Jo22 didn't mention other important advantages that QEMM has over EMM386. I mentioned them on a similar thread about this: Re: Which memory manager is better? Memmaker, QEMM or 386max.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:50:

theelf wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:39:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I want to squeeze my 486, if suport vme maybe i can get a extra fps in doom...

Using vm86 mode in my dx4 i get a slowdown of 2 to 3% compared to real mode, i did lot of benchmarks

Your 486 CPU likely support VME since it is a late one, being a DX4.

Jo22 didn't mention other important advantages that QEMM has over EMM386. I mentioned them on a similar thread about this: Re: Which memory manager is better? Memmaker, QEMM or 386max.

I use qemm because i found more compatble than emm386

for example, with emm+dos7+fat32 never had luck with windows 3.0

but works greta with qemm

just i read about nve and im curious, really the 2% performance lost is not a big deal anyways, but i have the 486 for fun... and configure is. fun jaja

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I'm speaking under correction, but I think..

I guess it depends on the system/software.
V86 causes a notable slowdown on 386 systems, maybe early 486 systems, too.
VME was meant to address many of these issues.
The "Pentium support" sticker on QEMM package means VME support, I think.
And yes, late 486 core designs can have VME support, too.

In VMs, it's the other way round, by the way.
Virtualizers (VPC 2007 etc) need to use software-emulation when running Real-Mode code.
Like MS-DOS 6.x. Unless V86 is used inside the VM or hardware asstisted-virtualization is enabled.
So it makes sense to run EMM386 (V86) or QEMM (Enhanced V86) in a DOS VM sometimes, even if no memory shortage exists.
Of course, pure Real-Mode DOS is way more compatible and stable, normallly.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-12-30, 23:41:

I'm speaking under correction, but I think.. […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I'm speaking under correction, but I think..

I guess it depends on the system/software.
V86 causes a notable slowdown on 386 systems, maybe early 486 systems, too.
VME was meant to address many of these issues.
The "Pentium support" sticker on QEMM package means VME support, I think.
And yes, late 486 core designs can have VME support, too.

In VMs, it's the other way round, by the way.
Virtualizers (VPC 2007 etc) need to use software-emulation when running Real-Mode code.
Like MS-DOS 6.x. Unless V86 is used inside the VM or hardware asstisted-virtualization is enabled.
So it makes sense to run EMM386 (V86) or QEMM (Enhanced V86) in a DOS VM sometimes, even if no memory shortage exists.
Of course, pure Real-Mode DOS is way more compatible and stable, normallly.

Hi, im using qemm 9.0 that is the latest one, and im checking readme, info, etc etc and i did not see nothing about vme, no options, no reference. My idea is to find options in qemm that help with the little degrade in performance compared to real mode

thanks

theelf wrote on 2022-12-31, 11:13:

Jo22 wrote on 2022-12-30, 23:41:

I'm speaking under correction, but I think.. […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I'm speaking under correction, but I think..

I guess it depends on the system/software.
V86 causes a notable slowdown on 386 systems, maybe early 486 systems, too.
VME was meant to address many of these issues.
The "Pentium support" sticker on QEMM package means VME support, I think.
And yes, late 486 core designs can have VME support, too.

In VMs, it's the other way round, by the way.
Virtualizers (VPC 2007 etc) need to use software-emulation when running Real-Mode code.
Like MS-DOS 6.x. Unless V86 is used inside the VM or hardware asstisted-virtualization is enabled.
So it makes sense to run EMM386 (V86) or QEMM (Enhanced V86) in a DOS VM sometimes, even if no memory shortage exists.
Of course, pure Real-Mode DOS is way more compatible and stable, normallly.

Hi, im using qemm 9.0 that is the latest one, and im checking readme, info, etc etc and i did not see nothing about vme, no options, no reference. My idea is to find options in qemm that help with the little degrade in performance compared to real mode

thanks

I'll check the readme files.

VME was added way back in QEMM 7 already, so it's likely not worth being mentioned as a new feature in v9 anymore.

Here's another source for VME. It's a user's comment.

"Virtual Machine Extensions are listed as added to QEMM 7 (1993) and OS/2 2.1 (May 1993 beta).
I also recall a Usenet thread about Virtual Mode Extensions in regards to OS/2 with a recommendation to use VME=no (turns it off)
because of problems scheduled to be fixed in Warp Fixpack 14. It was not working reliably for OS/2 in late 1995.

Conversely, I think Windows 3.x and 95 did not support VME."

https://www.os2museum.com/wp/sgdtsidt-fiction-and-reality/

theelf wrote on 2022-12-31, 11:13:

Jo22 wrote on 2022-12-30, 23:41:

I'm speaking under correction, but I think.. […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-30, 15:36:

The issue with VME is only relevant for modern stuff, QEMM works fine with the 486 CPU that you are using.

I'm speaking under correction, but I think..

I guess it depends on the system/software.
V86 causes a notable slowdown on 386 systems, maybe early 486 systems, too.
VME was meant to address many of these issues.
The "Pentium support" sticker on QEMM package means VME support, I think.
And yes, late 486 core designs can have VME support, too.

In VMs, it's the other way round, by the way.
Virtualizers (VPC 2007 etc) need to use software-emulation when running Real-Mode code.
Like MS-DOS 6.x. Unless V86 is used inside the VM or hardware asstisted-virtualization is enabled.
So it makes sense to run EMM386 (V86) or QEMM (Enhanced V86) in a DOS VM sometimes, even if no memory shortage exists.
Of course, pure Real-Mode DOS is way more compatible and stable, normallly.

Hi, im using qemm 9.0 that is the latest one, and im checking readme, info, etc etc and i did not see nothing about vme, no options, no reference. My idea is to find options in qemm that help with the little degrade in performance compared to real mode

thanks

You can check if VME is enabled by running the NSSI FPU benchmark (not the first CPU benchmark, the second FPU benchmark from the menu). V86 mode will slow performance in DOS by around 33% ( usually video, disk and memory speed).
For example, loading DOS7.1 and NOT loading emm386, to keep the CPU in realmode, the NSSI FPU benchmark of my Tualatin 1.3ghz is 300,000.
Loading EMM386, which puts the CPU in V86 mode, the same benchmark shows 195,000, over a 33% slowdown. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided not to add support for VME to EMM386 in Win95 or Win98 (I haven't tried the EMM386 from DOS8 aka WinME). Surprising considering how much they were in bed with Intel and that QEMM 7 added it in 1993, before the 1994 release of Dos6.2

For comparison, using an expanded memory manager that supports VME, like the latest JEMM386 v5.83:
https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/Jemm/re … eases/tag/v5.83
When running the same NSSI FPU benchmark it shows 295,000. Just under a 2% decrease in performance. The CPU is still in V86 mode but an EMM that supports VME makes a big difference in performance.