Configuring memory for playing certain games

[T-R-A]

MEMMAKER did ask about Windows 3.1, but I don't know what it did regarding that. I wish I did, because I just don't like knowledge of my own vintage computer's setup being obscured/taken away from me, after I've spent months setting up everything myself so that I know what is what and where it is.

You're being a little paranoid about what it (or any memory-manager) does. It's only probing higher memory (above 640K) that isn't being utilized for anything significant to relocate other things to it. A lot of space between the 640K to 1MB section is wasted in an "unoptimized" system. Only issue I've ever had with it was some older VGA drivers for Win3.1 (easily solved). And as for all the other config.xxx and autoexec.xxx files you've got...once you determine your system is fine, get rid of them. They're just sitting there eating up HDD space---and on small drives, that's always a concern. If you're running a slower system, run a defragmentation utility after everything checks out and you've deleted files you don't need... especially if you're not using a permanent swapfile for Windows.

 

[Bill-kun]

The next game I want to get running is The Dagger of Amon Ra, CD-ROM. I tried running it, and even with MEMMAKER doing what it did, the game says it cannot run because it needs 12K more of memory. Preventing GUEST from loading will provide that. GUEST.EXE is the program for interacting with the Zip drive; I don't know why Iomega called it "Guest."

Anyway, The Dagger of Amon Ra was advanced enough that its installation program includes the option of making a boot disk for memory allocation during booting to make the game runnable. Unfortunately, when I try to use that option it keeps saying it fails after it formats the floppy.

 

[Bill-kun]

Another question though. As a side note, I also have the Dell 286 at my parents' house. Here is the output from MEM /C from it. It says there are 0 total bytes in upper memory. What piece of hardware determines that number? If I get XMS memory chips for this computer, will that give it UMB as well?

Modules using memory below 1 MB:

Name Total = Conventional + Upper Memory
-------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 63,261 (62K) 63,261 (62K) 0 (0K)
COMMAND 4,992 (5K) 4,992 (5K) 0 (0K)
EXPLOSIV 5,760 (6K) 5,760 (6K) 0 (0K)
GMOUSE 9,376 (9K) 9,376 (9K) 0 (0K)
DOSKEY 4,144 (4K) 4,144 (4K) 0 (0K)
GUEST 25,472 (25K) 25,472 (25K) 0 (0K)
Free 542,208 (530K) 542,208 (530K) 0 (0K)

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total = Used + Free
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Conventional 655,360 113,152 542,208
Upper 0 0 0
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 0 0 0
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total memory 655,360 113,152 542,208

Total under 1 MB 655,360 113,152 542,208

Largest executable program size 542,032 (529K)
Largest free upper memory block 0 (0K)

 

[Svenska]

As a side note, I also have the Dell 286 at my parents' house. Here is the output from MEM /C from it. It says there are 0 total bytes in upper memory. What piece of hardware determines that number? If I get XMS memory chips for this computer, will that give it UMB as well?

Not directly. On an 8086/8088 or 286, you have to provide memory between 640K and 1M to get any UMBs. It depends on your mainboard and BIOS settings whether this is possible at all and how much you can gain. It is not trivial to set up, and not always possible.

It is always possible to use XMS to provide EMS and/or UMB memory using EMM386.EXE or QEMM, but this relies on hardware features or the 386 (or newer). Older processors simply cannot do this on their own, they require the hardware (i.e. mainboard or expansion card) to provide these features.