Ask in Marvin. This is for Windows games on modern systems.

Yeah, well... let's see if some mod can move it there, it'd be annoying to have a thread there and here...

Unless you are using DriveSpace compression, there is no reason whatsoever to have DRVSPACE.SYS in your config.sys at all. (DriveSpace has no purpose in this era of cheap, gigantic hard drives.)

I also limited the RAM first to 512 MB and then to 720 MB

Yes, Windows 98 gets unstable with more than 512 MB of RAM. This has been discussed in your previous threads. Crashes (even ones referring to "not enough memory") are entirely expected.

How exactly are you "limiting" the RAM?

I'm limiting the ram to 768 MB by adding

1MaxPhysPage=30000

under the [386Enh] section of the System.ini file.

From here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/184447

EDIT: On further investigation, it seems that removing "noems" from the emm386.exe line does indeed remove that error aswell, but some games return to their "out of memory" state while others run again under Windows aswell.

Elia1995 wrote:

From here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/184447

Strange, that they would include that reference. That might solve problems related to Windows startup, but that won't solve other problems.

See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/253912 .

Jorpho wrote:

Elia1995 wrote:

From here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/184447

Strange, that they would include that reference. That might solve problems related to Windows startup, but that won't solve other problems.

See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/253912 .

Yeah, I tried both of the methods in that one aswell before the MaxPhysPage one.... they didn't solve the out of memory issue, only the MaxPhysPage one "almost" solved it, but caused that new Explorer crashing thing

I just tried removing the DRVSPACE.SYS line and now Windows 98 doesn't even boot, BSoDs at the startup... good thing I have a dual boot with XP so I can just fix it... here, fix'd that one 🤣

EDIT: I just tried to use the "win" command from the real-mode MS-DOS mode. It just hangs there.... CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't even work, I have to hard reset.

Do you mean to say you're actually using DriveSpace..? You clicked something that said "Windows can compress this drive", or something to that effect? I wouldn't have suggested removing it from your config.sys if I thought there was some possibility you were actually using it; I can't remember the last time I heard of someone using it, or even how to switch it off. It is a pretty terrible idea for a large number of reasons. I don't know if it's necessarily responsible for any of your current problems, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Since I want to experiment everything and check everything, I just removed the second stick of DDR ram from the motherboard and bingo no more issues.
The games start and Explorer doesn't crash anymore with the "noems" parameter in config.sys, but I can't keep it like that with just 512 MB of ram... Windows XP deserves at least 1 GB and some XP games don't like to be executed with less than 1 GB of ram.

According to this experiment, we need to limit 98's ram amount, but none of those three ways seem to work properly...

About DriveSpace, I don't use it, but it crashes nonetheless when I removed it from config.sys, perhaps with only one 512 MB stick of ram wouldn't crash anymore, but I can't keep that PC at 512 MB due to XP games demand...

Moved.

People have been grappling with this same problem for a very long time now.
>512MB with Windows 98...

I like to use HIMEMX, which is a replacement for HIMEM.SYS; it has a /MAX switch which you can use to limit the RAM when Windows starts up. (You may see people mention it alongside JEMM, a replacement for EMM386, but JEMM does not work with Win9x, so leave that alone.)

Other people like to use XMSDISK to create a RAM drive that consumes all but 512MB of RAM.

So if I want to use this HIMEMX, do I have to put it in the config.sys instead of the HIMEM.SYS line ?

Like DEVICE=C:\HIMEMX\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE ?

How do I set it up properly in the config.sys to limit it to 512MB of ram only ?

Did you try looking at the documentation to figure it out for yourself? Like the readme.txt that says

1To see its usage just run HIMEMX.EXE

As in

1HimemX is a device driver that is loaded in CONFIG.SYS.
2Please place DEVICE=HIMEMX.EXE [options] before any driver using XMS.
3
4options: [/MAX=####] [/METHOD:xxx] [/HMAMIN=n] [/NUMHANDLES=m]
5 [/VERBOSE] [/NOABOVE16] [/X] [/LOG]
6
7  /MAX=#####      limit memory controlled by XMM to #####K
8  /METHOD:xxx     Specifies the method to be used for A20 handling.
9                  Possible values for xxx:
10                  ALWAYSON    Assume that A20 line is permanently ON
11                  BIOS        Use BIOS to toggle the A20 line
12                  FAST        Use port 92h, bypass INT 15h test
13                  PS2         Use port 92h, bypass PS/2 test
14                  KBC         Use the keyboard controller
15                  PORT92      Use port 92h always
16  /HMAMIN=n       Specifies minimum number of Kbs of HMA that a program
17                  must request to gain access to the HMA (default: 0Kb)
18  /NOX2MAX32      No limit for XMS 2.0 free/avail. memory reports (default)
19  /NUMHANDLES=m   Specifies number of XMS handles available (def: 48)
20  /VERBOSE        Gives extra information
21  /NOABOVE16      Do not use INT 15h function E801h to detect >64M
22  /X              Do not use INT 15h function E820h to detect >64M
23  /X2MAX32        Limit XMS 2.0 free/avail. memory report to 32M-1K
24  /LOG            Logs the driver activity to the screen

DEVICE=C:\HIMEMX\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE /MAX=512 ?

Didn't seem to do anything on first try :\

😢 Why don't you look again?

1/MAX=#####      limit memory controlled by XMM to #####K

/MAX=512 would limit memory to half a megabyte.

MAX=50012 ? I suck at byte conversions 🤣

Elia1995 wrote:

MAX=50012 ? I suck at byte conversions 🤣

512 * 1024 = 524288 would be the correct amount I believe.

ok, I'll try that, thanks