640K damit!

ok i have had trouble running games that use the 640K base in RAM. this is a surprise because the system i am using is a older 486, dos 6.22, win3.11 based system. so can someone send me a easy to use 640k memory manager. what gets me is almost none of that ram is touched by my newer systems, i can run old DOS games even in win98/ME if i use a copy of win95 dos. any help will be good,

easiest is to make a bootdisk containing only the bare needs for the game to run,

the hard thing though is if you need stuff like the cdrom or other driver needing things,

a very stripped config i've used is

autoexec.bat

(empy appart from som sb16 related stuff)

config.sys
DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE RAM HIGHSCAN
BUFFERS=30,0
FILES=30
dos=UMB
LASTDRIVE=Z
FCBS=4,0
dos=HIGH
devicehigh=a:\mouse.sys

(and then som sb16 related stuff)

ie you do a format /s from dos and then copy himem.sys and emm386.exe (do a search for them, don't remember if they are in the dos folder or windows) and mouse.sys (normally in c:\mouse\) to the disk and create a config.sys containing the rows above.

then reboot with the disk in and you'll hopefully get a dospromt with some more free mem.

think i get something over 610 kb free of basemem with the sb16 stuff so without it should there be even more free.

well i dont have a sound card in it yet so not much to worry about.

Find an old version of QEMM. 634K free every time. Best to make a non-QEMM and QEMM start-up though, every once in a while some cheap program will have a gripe with the way QEMM loaded something. It's never happened to me or anybody else I know, but I heard one guy complain, so...

Without any external memory managers / memmaker:

Config.Sys:

Absolutely necessary lines:

DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF

You can also add:

FILES=30 (or 40)
BUFFERS=10,0
STACKS=9,128 (don't set to 0, you might need 'em)
FCBS=4,0

(then use DEVICEHIGH to load CDROM driver and other drivers which you shouldn't have)

AutoExec.Bat:

use LH (LOADHIGH) to load all the drivers you need, MSCDEX, Mouse, SmartDrive (good), Doskey (if you really want).

On a normal PC, 615-620K guaranteed, which is always enough.

On a normal PC, 615-620K guaranteed, which is always enough.

Not exactly. Getting 620K is usually impossible no matter how little you load, and some games require additional things to be loaded to function properly. A few of the older games I had required over 620K, which is why I had to get QEMM.

Well, very few games require you loading any additional stuff but the game, and even fewer will need more than 610K, that's true, but I accept the fact that there may be such games.

Where I don't agree with you is that 620K is generally impossible. I have Win98 (DOS 7.10) and in pure DOS mode I get 622K of free conventional mem, and 26K of free upper mem (and if I really wanted I could edit two lines and get 625K/40K respectively, but I never felt the need).

Don't forget that QEMM is basically a memory manager just like EMM386, and in most cases they are interchangeable. I've heard people many times say that QEMM can give 630K and more (I've never seen EMM386 doing that), but I never investigated it long enough to learn its indepth features, again, due to the lack of need.

Yup, get QEMM, it's the best way.

Full set of drivers loaded and 634k available, just like the man said.

Last version I had was 8 IIRC, don't even know where the disks are now, been a while since I needed it.

640k should be enough for anyone

/me reads above posts
/me feels pounding migraine and pukey feeling in stomach coming on
/me runs to the bathroom

Can anyone tell me where to find Qemm? I too am in need of running some old games in dos, and always run a few Kb short.

The company that manufactured QEMM is Quarterdeck, but I don't even know if they continue it, and if they do, I doubt they still sell the old DOS version. Your best bet would be a computer store that deals with old technology or an auction site like Ebay.

Can anyone tell me where to find Qemm? I too am in need of running some old games in dos, and always run a few Kb short.

I could send you QEMM, DOS version 7, I think, but I think that techincally it's warez, and this forum doesn't like warez... Anyway, if you really want, you can email me at dr_st_games@hotmail.com (or reply here, if the moderators allow this) and we'll arrange something.

But no matter what people here tell you, it's so unnecessary, and definitely spending time and money to search for it in stores would be insane, since you can get just enough with standard DOS tools.

There are rare cases with specific computer hardware where EMM386 has problems providing upper mem, and I don't know whether QEMM helps with such cases.