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Msdos 6.22 memory issue

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First post, by rain

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Hi i try to run some old games on dos real hardware. But games gives me errors about low memory. Mobo has 16 mb edo ram. So games like prince of persia 2 shadow of flame should work but it isnt. Thanks for replies

-386-4MB-

Reply 1 of 9, by dominusprog

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I believe these old games require EMS memory.

DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/DOS_memory_management
http://dosdays.co.uk/topics/dos_memory.php

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A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Creative AWE64 Value ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 2 of 9, by rain

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where to get emm386.exe ?

-386-4MB-

Reply 3 of 9, by dominusprog

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rain wrote on 2024-09-13, 09:41:

where to get emm386.exe ?

You have to put this line in CONFIG.SYS. EMM386 located under C:\DOS or C:\WINDOWS\COMMANDS.

Duke_2600.png
A-Trend ATC-1020 V1.1 ❇ Cyrix 6x86 150+ @ 120MHz ❇ 32MiB EDO RAM (8MiBx4) ❇ A-Trend S3 Trio64V2 2MiB
Creative AWE64 Value ❇ 8.4GiB Quantum Fireball ❇ Win95 OSR2 Plus!

Reply 4 of 9, by rain

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Same thing not working

-386-4MB-

Reply 5 of 9, by Cyberdyne

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You can use EMSMAGIC for those games that need EMS. Never failed me. Only thing that crashes with that is Windows 1.x/2.x.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.
PS. If I upload RAR, it is a 16-bit DOS RAR Version 2.50.

Reply 6 of 9, by javispedro1

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Why are you all assuming EMS? I'd bet that "2.5K of base memory" simply means conventional memory. Read any of the DOS memory management tutorials. Run memmaker. Etc. etc.

Reply 7 of 9, by Jo22

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rain wrote on 2024-09-13, 09:59:

Same thing not working

You can try changing order..

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
DOS=HIGH, UMB
FILES=30
BUFFERS=60
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE

Good luck! 😁

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Reply 8 of 9, by kmeaw

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If it is still not working, please show the output of the "mem /p/c" command - it will help figuring out what is using the base memory.

Reply 9 of 9, by dormcat

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dominusprog wrote on 2024-09-13, 09:18:

I believe these old games require EMS memory.

The user's manual of the original DOS version was not very easy to find; a quick Google search would return the manual of the Win9x edition with much higher system requirements:

The attachment PoP2_Win9x.jpg is no longer available

Found a CD Collection manual later, but those OCR text made me a bit hesitant of its authenticity:

The attachment PoPCC.jpg is no longer available

Confirmed with the German manual:

The attachment PoP2_German.jpg is no longer available

So "640K RAM" meant the game could technically start without EMS. The manual didn't bother to explain how to setup "2MB of RAM for digital sounds (voices, sound effects)" however; it should at least tell the user the least amount of conventional and EMS required.

kmeaw wrote on 2024-09-13, 10:50:

If it is still not working, please show the output of the "mem /p/c" command - it will help figuring out what is using the base memory.

IMHO this was the very first thing the OP should have done. It's clear that OP has an optical drive so a corresponding line of MSCDEX.EXE exists in AUTOEXEC.BAT, and we can expect possible additional TSR like sound card and mouse drivers, packet driver for NIC, and even Doskey. Without "DOS=HIGH,UMB" "DEVICEHIGH=" "LH", all of them would reside in the conventional memory.

rain wrote on 2024-09-13, 09:41:

where to get emm386.exe ?

Em, no offense, but I'm a bit surprised to see someone, who has been hanging out at VOGONS for 11 years and owns a Socket 3 486 build for 6 years, haven't heard of EMM386.EXE. You could at least search your own computer with

C:\>dir emm386.exe /s /a

In addition to revise your CONFIG.SYS like Jo22 suggested, you might want to share your AUTOEXEC.BAT as well.