dos=umb works only with emm, and i guess dos 7.0 is larger than dos 6.0 that is why it needs dos=umb so much, as hma is only 64k (dos=high)

How does your autoexec and config look like?

What drivers do you use?

config/autoexec (look like crap, but they are modified from my K6II pc for testing... 😊 )

1[MENU]
2MENUITEM=XMS
3MENUITEM=EMS
4;MENUITEM=WIN
5MENUDEFAULT=XMS,60
6[XMS]
7device=c:\dos\himem.sys
8DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO
9device=c:\utils\cdrom.sys /d:CD0
10[EMS]
11device=c:\dos\himem.sys
12device=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram
13DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO
14device=c:\utils\cdrom.sys /d:CD0
15;[WIN]
16;FILES=40
17[COMMON]
18;DEVICE=C:\SB16\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
19;DEVICE=C:\SB16\CTMMSYS.SYS
20SHELL=COMMAND.COM /P /E:640
21;FCBS=4,0
22;FILES=30
23;BUFFERS=20,0
24;LASTDRIVE=26
25;STACKS=9,256

1@Echo Off
2SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P300 T6
3C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
4GOTO %CONFIG%
5:XMS
6C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
7SET PATH=c:\utils;C:\UTILS\UFO;c:\utils\dn;c:\dos
8SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
9c:\utils\shsucdx /d:CD0
10LH C:\utils\ctmouse.exe
11GOTO END
12:EMS
13C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
14SET PATH=c:\utils;C:\UTILS\UFO;c:\utils\dn;c:\dos
15SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
16c:\utils\shsucdx /d:CD0
17LH C:\utils\ctmouse.exe
18GOTO END
19:WIN
20win
21GOTO END
22:END

don't you need to edit some other file in dos 7 to turn off drivespace or such? I vaguely remember something...

remove
;DEVICE=C:\SB16\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
;DEVICE=C:\SB16\CTMMSYS.SYS
they are not needed for games (although i think they are already removed by ";")

also cdrom drivers take a lot so "rem" them if you don't use them

mem/c/p to see what takes so much

right.... the ; before the sb16 stuff means they don't get loaded, the way they are now they don't load or affect free mem...
the 2-part cdrom driver consumes 11kb of ram, hardly an overkill :lol
the thing that takes the MOST ram by far is DOS itself, as I write in my 1st post, it consumes 27kb.

@Dominus:

you are talking about msdos.sys , drivespace is not loaded in 7.10

this is how it looks if you boot win98se into command line

here is mine , DOS 7.1 installed from cd-rom, no windows whatsoever

Gonna check on my P166 box when I get home how much mem I have left in DOS (win98se)

You could use a "hardware" UMB driver like UMBPCI. There are various similar utilities for non-PCI machines as well.
These drivers provide UMBs without switching the CPU into protected mode.
Depending on the chipset there may be some inconveniencies, but generally it works perfectly fine with almost anything.

I will give UMBPCI a shot, but I am really using a SIS based mobo (Asus 4SAW2) with pci/vlb/isa and a 486/100 cpu...

i think you had to use msdos.sys from winme so that it was way smaller

keropi wrote:

I will give UMBPCI a shot, but I am really using a SIS based mobo (Asus 4SAW2) with pci/vlb/isa and a 486/100 cpu...

There's jemm and jemmex too...jemmex is both EMS/XMS in one driver 😀

I don't want to mess with the system so much, with jemmex or msdos.sys from win98se... I think I will do the planned AMD X5-133mhz upgrade, and wait some hours for win98se to install... then turn it into a DOS machine 😀
I am looking for something compatible, that won't annoy me much...

I did some pcpbenchin' too, with a range of S3 cards 😀

VLB 968/2MB had the highest score, of 7.7 ! (the actual reference for 486/100 like pcpbench says)
PCI Stealth 3D 3000 and 2000 both had 6.4 , and PCI 968 had 5.9...
I will stick with 3D/2000 , since is it already VESA2.0 ...

keropi wrote:

I will give UMBPCI a shot, but I am really using a SIS based mobo (Asus 4SAW2) with pci/vlb/isa and a 486/100 cpu...

Ah... well, then UMBPCI will not work (because it generally doesn't on 486 machines) but you could try your luck with URAM (can be downloaded from the UMBPCI site as well).

.... damn.... before ms released the GNU version of MSDOS7.10 , there was an unofficial build of it that was taken from win98se cd.... too bad I did not grab it back then 🤣