I found UMBINFO.COM useful, but it annoyed me being in German, so I translated it to English. Attached for anyone else interested.
How nobody here has mentioned using 4dos as the command shell.
That was the standard back then for gaming because it could use higher memory and if you had the right video card, could even get you past 640kb free base memory (it was very dodgy and not very usable)
either way 4dos was instrumental at getting some of the more demanding games to work
IT back in 94, Worked for Compaq/Novell Reseller.
Moved up to Compaq in Dublin, Worked for Novell for 6 year, Blackberry, Agfa, Now local Hospital
Inventory : Compaq Presario CDS 524, Deskpro 4000n, Proliant ML350G1, modern Dell's
stijnvanbeselaere@gm wrote on 2025-08-12, 18:00:How nobody here has mentioned using 4dos as the command shell.
That was the standard back then for gaming because it could use higher memory and if you had the right video card, could even get you past 640kb free base memory (it was very dodgy and not very usable)either way 4dos was instrumental at getting some of the more demanding games to work
I mentioned it on the previous page.
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I also try to announce retro-relevant stuff on on Mastodon.
Searched the entire thread, and then overlooked the one post that has it.. sorry bout that!
IT back in 94, Worked for Compaq/Novell Reseller.
Moved up to Compaq in Dublin, Worked for Novell for 6 year, Blackberry, Agfa, Now local Hospital
Inventory : Compaq Presario CDS 524, Deskpro 4000n, Proliant ML350G1, modern Dell's
stijnvanbeselaere@gm wrote on 2025-09-03, 08:22:Searched the entire thread, and then overlooked the one post that has it.. sorry bout that!
No worries. Everyone has an off day.
Internet Archive: My Uploads
My Blog: Retrocomputing Resources
My Rose-Coloured-Glasses Builds
I also try to announce retro-relevant stuff on on Mastodon.
And we get more of those when we get older 😀
IT back in 94, Worked for Compaq/Novell Reseller.
Moved up to Compaq in Dublin, Worked for Novell for 6 year, Blackberry, Agfa, Now local Hospital
Inventory : Compaq Presario CDS 524, Deskpro 4000n, Proliant ML350G1, modern Dell's
I can't recall if anyone here has mentioned it yet, too lazy atm to look/read through it all, but...
FYI.
When using the SHELL command in config.sys to enlarge the environment size, ie ... /E:1536
It comes in handy to load TSRs using INSTALL= or INSTALLHIGH= from config.sys since then they'll still use the small, on boot, environment size and not the enlarged size which will get used when loading TSRs from command line or from AUTOEXEC.BAT.
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DivByZero wrote on 2025-05-18, 21:50:I found UMBINFO.COM useful, but it annoyed me being in German, so I translated it to English. Attached for anyone else interested.
Thank you! I did same in reverse for use!umbs.sys, by the way, because the English annoyed me.
It didn't fit an otherwise entirely German installation of MS-DOS 6.2.
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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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I really should do a proper post here one day on my setup, but I got a config working on my physical 486 where I boot in real mode, and from that single config, I get every game working, all the known problematic ones, by using launch scripts per game that load things as needed, then unload on close to return to stock. I dynamically load/unload jemm to pull in EMS support for things that need it, and return to real mode afterwards. I unload mscdex when games don't need cd support, and load it back in after. I push out memory heavy gravis drivers and the like to free up to 620kb of conventional memory as needed, all of which can be undone when games close. Since I'm running in real mode, I can use at-slow for speed throttling for 286 games and the like. There are some tricks in there, like deliberately eating 2kb of memory during startup, then freeing it, to create a small hole that swallows environment block buffers, to stop memory fragmentation when trying to unload drivers within a batch script before loading a game, but it's all pretty straightforward. Pretty sure nobody has done it before, since unloading jemm for ems support never worked on a 486 until I debugged it with the creator earlier this year. I use it on a machine that runs launchbox for dos, so my kids can just boot, pick any game from the list, and play. No rebooting or having to know which memory config to select at startup. It is possible to "have it all", just takes a bit of setup work.
