VOGONS


First post, by Nemo1985

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I mean other than it's mandatory with sb emu, unlucky.

I'm trying it on my 486 build but with disappointing results, it won't make the microsoft mouse driver (v9.01) that I recently began to use loaded in upper memory, it won't let windows 3.11 to run.
I did a test and yes compared to the version (xmgr+emm386) I use provides a bit more convetional memory (645.376 vs 640.640) which is wasted because the mouse driver loads in conventional memory, but that's it, the upper memory block is far inferior (72kb vs 134kb of the other configuration).

Am I doing anything wrong with the switches? If not, what's the point of use jemmex?

Reply 1 of 11, by jtchip

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JemmEx is open-source, which means anyone can modify it, subject to the terms of its licence. It's a good thing that it is otherwise the only option SBEMU has for port-trapping for real-mode software is the closed-source QEMM as EMM386 cannot trap I/O ports below 100h, which means no ISA DMA and hence no DMA-driven PCM audio.

It also means FreeDOS can ship an open-source EMM as part of the distribution.

Reply 2 of 11, by Nemo1985

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So I'm messing with jemmex lately, I begin to appreciate it if used just on dos stuff.
I have a doubt, msd shows me those free upper memory blocks:

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But the umbpci tool tells me to use: C800-EFFF
I'm not completely sure C800 is right, can anyone please confirm?
I'm indeed experiencing issues with dos stuff.

Reply 3 of 11, by mkarcher

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I guess the UMBPCI tool is old enough to assume that the VGA ROM is always 32K in size, but around 1999, VGA ROMs started getting bigger. The MSD picture seems to indicate that your VGA card has a 50K ROM (or you have another card, like the XTIDE BIOS). If you want to manually specify the UMB RAM range, use CD00-EFFF instead.

Reply 4 of 11, by Jo22

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MSD isn't exactly a good tool here. CheckIt v3, NSSI or Dr. Hardware are more detailed.

Btw, instead of freeing UMBs and uploading TSRs it's also possible to use tools like Helix Netroom 3.
They do something rather smart and move BIOS and VGA BIOS into Extended Memory.
What remains in Conventional Memory or UMA is a small stub that does communications with the outsourced code.mIt's like a remote control, if we will.

Helix' Cloaking technology does something similar with modified versions of Logitech mouse driver and MSCDEX.
They do appear as if they would be taking up less than 5KB, while the big code runs past 1 MB.

In comparison to this, the conventional approach used by open source and freeware tools seems very brutally simple.
The utilities supplied by FreeDOS are minimalistic and lack a lot of features often.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 5 of 11, by Nemo1985

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mkarcher wrote on 2024-10-26, 18:25:

I guess the UMBPCI tool is old enough to assume that the VGA ROM is always 32K in size, but around 1999, VGA ROMs started getting bigger. The MSD picture seems to indicate that your VGA card has a 50K ROM (or you have another card, like the XTIDE BIOS). If you want to manually specify the UMB RAM range, use CD00-EFFF instead.

Thank you I'm going to try it.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-10-26, 19:36:
MSD isn't exactly a good tool here. CheckIt v3, NSSI or Dr. Hardware are more detailed. […]
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MSD isn't exactly a good tool here. CheckIt v3, NSSI or Dr. Hardware are more detailed.

Btw, instead of freeing UMBs and uploading TSRs it's also possible to use tools like Helix Netroom 3.
They do something rather smart and move BIOS and VGA BIOS into Extended Memory.
What remains in Conventional Memory or UMA is a small stub that does communications with the outsourced code.mIt's like a remote control, if we will.

Helix' Cloaking technology does something similar with modified versions of Logitech mouse driver and MSCDEX.
They do appear as if they would be taking up less than 5KB, while the big code runs past 1 MB.

In comparison to this, the conventional approach used by open source and freeware tools seems very brutally simple.
The utilities supplied by FreeDOS are minimalistic and lack a lot of features often.

I also tried umbinfo but it wasn't reliable... I don't have checkit but I can use nssi. does it has a specific view for the umb? Because the only thing I could find is in bios details->rom monitor and I have C000-CC7F 50kb bios.
I've never heard about Helix Netroom 3 but it seems interesting, I have enough memory free though, I'm trying to simplify the configuration instead of adding layers because there are some quirks, I don't know if it's due to the cheap ecs motherboard or if the p4 is a bit too new to work on dos reliably.

Reply 6 of 11, by Harry Potter

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Well...I'm sorry I can't help, but I have a similar situation on my Win98SE tower at my mother's house. It has a P4/1.60GHz processor and 1GB Ram but can't run DOS in Windows mode on it at all. 🙁 Also, I can't get sound to work in DOS mode at all. Even the Command Prompt doesn't work from Windows. I plan to try UMBPCI on it next time I'm there and see what happens. BTW, on my system, QEMM's MANIFEST saw 64k unused that EMM386 didn't, and IIRC, 32k of it worked from an include on EMM386's command line.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 7 of 11, by Harry Potter

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BTW, I had other compatibility issues in DOS mode, also: some TSRs/drivers didn't like others. For a short while, Windows wasn't booting up properly, so I had to use a DOS USB driver, and one of its issues was that it didn't run properly under QEMM, so I had to make an alt boot disk just for that.

Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter
Working magic in the computer community

Reply 8 of 11, by Grzyb

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AFAIK JEMMEX still lacks GEMMIS support, so no Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced mode.

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 9 of 11, by Jo22

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Grzyb wrote on 2024-10-27, 01:00:

AFAIK JEMMEX still lacks GEMMIS support, so no Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced mode.

That's what I remember reading, too.
The author had been informed about this, I think, but doesn't seem to care.
It's possible that he doesn't like Windows like so many DOS programmers of the day, but that's pure speculation.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 10 of 11, by Nemo1985

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It's well known that jemmex is incompatible with any windows version (even windows 3.11) as I stated on my first post.
That being said with windows it's only mandatory to use himem.sys while an emm is not necessary.

Reply 11 of 11, by Jo22

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Windows 3.0 also needs WINA20.386 which is part of the MS-DOS 5 disk set (for example).
For 386 Enhanced Mode, I mean. Real-Mode and Standard-Mode of Windows 3.0 don't need it.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//