I only have this from the GoG version 1.07 CD, using the bundled DOSBox 0.74 - which is using FreeDOS, but not JEMMEX.

In the GoG DOSBox config log 'stdout.txt' there is a line: "Memory sizes above 31 MB are NOT recommended."
Not sure if they mean the total memory or just the EMS size, but I have had other programs failing with too much memory;
the effect is usually a wrap-around that makes it look like too little memory. There could be some error printout/log somewhere if that is the case?

Googling for Arena & Freedos combined use, it seems to be an issue in Linux as well, but with some error messages.

The game lists some compatibility issues in the quick-reference document, with other types of memory managers: 386MAX, Multimedia Cloaking, O/S 2, QEMM (before version 7.0) - so maybe there is something JEMMEX related?

Rwolf wrote on 2023-05-17, 13:41:

I only have this from the GoG version 1.07 CD, using the bundled DOSBox 0.74 - which is using FreeDOS, but not JEMMEX. […]
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I only have this from the GoG version 1.07 CD, using the bundled DOSBox 0.74 - which is using FreeDOS, but not JEMMEX.

In the GoG DOSBox config log 'stdout.txt' there is a line: "Memory sizes above 31 MB are NOT recommended."
Not sure if they mean the total memory or just the EMS size, but I have had other programs failing with too much memory;
the effect is usually a wrap-around that makes it look like too little memory. There could be some error printout/log somewhere if that is the case?

Googling for Arena & Freedos combined use, it seems to be an issue in Linux as well, but with some error messages.

The game lists some compatibility issues in the quick-reference document, with other types of memory managers: 386MAX, Multimedia Cloaking, O/S 2, QEMM (before version 7.0) - so maybe there is something JEMMEX related?

I also suspect JEMMEX, that's why I want to know if someone has succeeded making Arena work under FreeDOS, which uses JEMMEX by default...
JEMMEX allows to limit the amount of XMS and EMS memory that it makes available to the programs. I already tried that and it didn't work for "Elder Scrolls: Arena".

In the end, it was fixed by loading SMARTDRV in CONFIG.SYS like this:

1DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
2DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
3DEVICE=C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER
4DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF
5DOS=HIGH,UMB
6FILES=30

Yep, SMARTDRV was the key to bring the compatibility up to pair with the Vertex86 DX!

Lemmings 2 works, Elder Scrolls: Arena works, etc.

If you want more Conventional memory in DOS, you can move SMARTDRV after EMM386 and load it hi. Also, supplying HIGHSCAN to EMM386's command line sometimes buys more memory but sometimes causes compatibility issues. Try them out! 😀