VOGONS


First post, by dukeofurl

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Odd question, but I have an unusual circumstance.

I was working on a custom Xargon level using the recently released level editor ( https://archive.org/details/xargon-edit-version-04-01-24 ). It was getting pretty deluxe, full of level scenery and objects/enemies/bonus items, and I was saving my work frequently. All of a sudden Xargon crashed saying I'd run out of free memory. Now whenever I try to load this in-progress level again through the level editor (which is built into the dos version of Xargon), it will crash instead of loading the level, saying that there is not enough free memory to continue running Xargon.

My guess is that I probably added too many things into this level as I was going along, and since dosbox had 634K of free conventional memory, I probably filled things up to this limit, and in order to re-open the level to make it simpler and reduce its memory footprint, I'll probably need another 1K of free memory or something along those lines to prevent the crash when trying to load it.

Reply 1 of 6, by Grzyb

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OS/2 VDM allows for 704 or 736 KB of conventional memory, but it limits available video modes to MDA or CGA.
Xargon seems to use VGA mode 13h, where the video memory is located at A0000h = 640 K...

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 2 of 6, by Ringding

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Seems to be doable by careful tweaking of the constants in this source code block and understanding the exact functions/limitations of these tweaks. But it is not simply a config switch and does involve compiling from source.

Reply 3 of 6, by dukeofurl

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Aww shucks, that seems beyond my abilities right now. Thanks for the replies.

Reply 4 of 6, by Grzyb

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I have some vague memory of QEMM providing 635 KB of free conventional, but I'm not 100% sure...
You can try it, if you believe that such marginal increase may be helpful.

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 5 of 6, by rmay635703

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Yep CGA/MDA allows more

Certain British dos compatible 186 machines can have way more (but not really pc compatible)

Reply 6 of 6, by dukeofurl

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Good news everyone. A friend was able to hex edit the level to remove some stuff. The need for some extra memory in order to open the level is no more.