OK might be a stoopid Question I have a second system with a gig and a half of ram I am planning on Dual-booting XP and 98. So does 98se with all patches and mods (Gapes SP, Tihiys Revo pack and Maximus's patch) ACTUALLY support more than 512 megs of ram or not? I mean Yeah it might show all of the ram and recognize that there is a 1.5 gigs yet does it actually use ALL of it or does it kinda bottleneck at 512?

Trying to make a really good gaming system.

I've used 2Gb successfully for a few months (on borrowed RAM, the two sticks didn't even match ). Nothing more than stock 98SE with MaxFileCache limit setting. From what I could see, it does use all of it - I had disabled the swap file and never ran into any "out of memory" errors.

I have no problems running 1gb ram, plan on boosting to 2gb as can

LLXX, did you run into any probs when you first introduced 2gb to 98se?

This has been discussed pretty thoroughly before...
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=63970

But to summarize...

There are two limitations: hardware and software.

On the hardware side, some motherboards / BIOSes simply have problems with problems with large amounts of memory. But, assuming you have a decent motherboard that can handle the amount of memory you're wanting to use, you'll run into the software limits of Windows...

You can use 512M-1GB by changing some settings in system.ini. The unofficial service pack can make these changes. It's one of the install options.

Using over 1GB is iffy. Typically, people that run over 1GB in windows 98 modify their windows settings to tell Windows not to use it all. This is pointless unless you are dual booting with another operating system that CAN see the extra memory.

Original configuration (still using it now):
1 256Mb
2 empty
3 empty
4 empty

1 256Mb
2 256Mb
3 empty
4 empty
No problems, 512Mb

1 256Mb
2 256Mb
3 512Mb
4 empty
Didn't work at first, needed MaxFileCache=524288 and then worked fine.

1 256Mb
2 256Mb
3 512Mb
4 1Gb
No problems, 2Gb.

Interesting, were you using any memory intensive prgms[ie:graphics editing]? I don't "Game" , but do alot of graphics & multitasking.

At one point I remember having several IE windows, Photoshop with a rather large image, and several Torrents running in the background. Probably around 20 processes total.

Thanx LLXX, soon as I get my other 1gb stick in I'll give er a go & report my experiences here

My multi-boot PC had problems with this until i did an edit to MaxFileCache

MaxFileCache=524288

After that it worked and when i added to 1.5 GB no problems as well.

other memory "tweaks" found here:
http://www.thpc.info/ram/vcache98.html
http://www.thpc.info/ram/ramother.html

Win95 users MUST use Vcache values, especially when using 512 Mb of RAM or more:
http://www.thpc.info/ram/vcache95.html

Thread necromancy rules!

.. anyway - after a bit of testing myself and pondering. Even after the VCache settings and the rest - my system would bork (self-restart before reaching the GUI without any messages) if I were to add more than 1GB of ram. However, I found there is a way around that without hard limiting your ram through msconfig in such a case. I thought this might help those who too might have had troubles trying to get into windows while using more than 1gb of ram despite the use of vcache tweaks.

Using a freeware tool called XMS-DISK can effectively let you use up to 3GB (1gb direct + 2gb through a ramdisk) of ram overall and use it all as well without any troubles. Unzip it into a folder such as 'ramdisk' into your c drive. Then add the following line to your autoexec.bat file:

Z: will be the drive letter it will be assigne dto so as not to interfere with your other drive lettering order. The number 262144 is to handle 256mb additional ram (256 x 1024). So if you have say 1.5gb ram , set it to 512000.

Once in windows - you'll need to set your swapfile to the new ramdisk (z:) to it's fullest size so that windows can use the ram above 1gb in the form of a ram-based swapfile (rather than disk-based).

Now, there is a drawback to using this workaround. To access safe-mode you'll need to use the step-by-step method to load your config.sys & autoexc.bat (set no to load registry and no to loading drivers). Otherwise the ramdisk will not utilize the ram above 1gb in safemode and the PC will likely self-reboot before hitting even the safemode GUI again.

Additionally another drawback - being that the ramdisk is now using that extra ram above 1gb - your 'my computer' property sheet will only show 1gb of ram as it's allocated the rest above it for the ramdisk (now used as a RAM-swapfile).

I have "just" 384 MB ram. I use the "conservative swapfile" setting and with this amount of ram my system barely uses the swapfile. Suppose I have >1gig, what extra performance gain will a fast swapfile on a ramdrive give me?

I have 160 MB of RAM. Would limiting VCache be of any use to me?

The method I'd mentioned is for those who experience problems with running more than 1gb of ram. Whereas they'd normally have to set maxphsypage to cap the ram no higher than 1gb (thus making as if anything over never existed). Which would be a last resort if even vcache adjustments didn't help.

A swap file in effect is just emulated ram once your ram runs out. Which is normally a file on your hard disk. Paging to a hard disk is only as fast as the disk itself (slow) whereas ram is much faster. Putting the swap file into a ram disk is the same as using the ram itself. So we basically use the ram above 1gb to turn that emulated ram into real ram again with such a workaround through the use of a ramdisk.

I know what a swapfile is and how it works

My point is that if a system is not swapping, because 1gig is huge for Win98, the ramdisk is not used. This ram is just sitting there. There is no real effective difference with capping the mem with maxphyspage. It's only usefull when you run a dualboot with a os that can handle 1gig better.

No.

My apologies for assuming so noguru. I had admittedly rushed out the post due to having just woken up and was due to leave for work within a few minutes.

However, instead of using the maxphyspage setting I figured at least have the ram available for use if it does come to the case whereas it actually becomes needed. I myself have come to times when it has come rather close to reaching 1gb (50mb short of it) used during a typical game of diablo 2 (using a glide wrapper) or running some games such as quake 4 on ultra high.

I use this code



If I remember it uses only the memory needed to store what's on the virtual disk leaving the rest of the ram free.
I wonder if with this method the effect is the same...

Couple of important things we all need to know about properly using XMSDSK:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip12.htm#RAM
Please read about the /T switch under "IMPORTANT:" [red + bold fonts].

HTH

I recently upgraded my system from 512MB to 1.5GB Ram. Let me share my experience with Win98SE and 1.5GB Ram.

In the first place, posts in this forum like "I'm running Win98 with 1.5GB with no problems" and unofficial Service Pack patchnotes stating "512mb problem solved" encouraged me to buy more Ram.

After installing it, i ran into the "Insufficient memory to initialize windows." error message.
The necessary settings have been discussed here more than enough.

System.ini
[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000

[vcache]
MinFileCache=2048
MaxFileCache=65536

The MaxPhysPage setting effectively limits the Ram Win98SE can see (and use) to 1GB and the MaxFileCache Setting avoids a bug of win98's filecache with more than 512MB Ram installed. I do not need a file cache of 512MB, so i chose smaller values. Together these settings lead to a clean boot.
Running my favorite game World of Warcraft convinced me: Win98SE does not only claim to have 1GB installed, but actually uses the Ram (and let applications use it). WoW performed significantly better with 1GB than it did before with 512MB.

I, however, have been unable to get the system use 1.5GB. Removing the MaxPhysPage entry or setting it to 60000 did not work.

So, what to do with the idle 512MB Ram left? Right, a Ramdisk, put the pagefile on it, and i am done: 1GB directly usable, 512MB through the swap file located in Ram.

Sounds good in theory, in practice, things are more complicated.

First Question: Which Ramdisk? I need one which uses the 512MB ram, which windows cannot see. Windows based Ramdisks are not useful, since they use the Ram, Windows already can see. Win98's Ramdrive.sys disqualifies itself by its 32MB maximum disk size limit. So i tried XMSDSK 1.9i and SRDisk 2.09 as DOS based Ramdisks. SRDisk has no option for using the memory from top, so creating a 512MB SRDisk Ramdrive left another 512MB available for Windows.

XMSDSK 1.9i did the trick. 1GB for Windows and another 512MB through a ramdrive usable in Win98.

Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS

Autoexec.bat
D:\DOWNLOAD\RAMDISK\XMSDSK.EXE 524288 G: /t /y

No problems at this point. Everythings ok in the device manager. 32-bit access to all drives. But the Virtual Memory Settings dialog does not offer the Ramdisk as a target drive for the page file.
So i changed that manually:

System.ini
[386Enh]
PagingDrive=G:

After a reboot, windows creates the page file on the Ramdrive. But suddenly the Virtual memory works in MS-DOS compatibility mode.

Some Sandra Performance Tests reveal:
The Ramdrive is pretty slow for a Ramdrive and has a datatransfer rate of around 100MB/s. The directly accessable Ram transfers data @ around 2.2GB/s, which is a typical value for my DDR ram @ 333Mhz.
Further performance tests with and without a ramdisk including a page file on it confirmed:
The MS-DOS compatibility mode for the Virtual Memory system does not affect other parts of the system.
All regular harddisks are still using 32-bit access and perform according to the specs of my hardware vendor.
Besides these tests, the system does not "feel" slower with compatibility mode active.

My harddrive, that used to hold the page file, a Seagate Barracuda 200GB harddrive, transfers data @ 50MB/s. The Ramdrive in MS-DOS compatibility mode performs twice as fast (i have not measured seek times, yet, but they should be higher on a real harddisk than on a Ramdrive).

A breathtaking success story, don't you agree? My 512MB ram module (50EUR) doubles the speed at which my computer accesses the swap file
Looking back, I'd just upgrade by 512MB for a total of 1GB Ram due to the cost-value ratio. Also 1GB seems to be enough for my purposes. Playing WoW and using a Browser did not lead to an extensive page file usage.

XMSDSK 1.9i is able to manage Ramdrives of a size up to 2GB. So, a setup with a total of 3GB ram should be possible. Sure enough, i have not tested this, since i do not have 3GB ram.

I hope, this report sheds some light on Windows98SE with more than 512MB/more than 1GB Ram.

Best regards
Christian Charles



edit:
Hardware used:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7N400-L capable of holding up to 3GB Ram, manual see http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherb...Name=GA-7N400-L
CPU : AMD Athlon XP 2600+
Ram Modules: 2x512MB DDR 400MHz CL 3, 2x256MB DDR 400MHz CL 3, running at 333Mhz, installed for Dual Channel operation according to the motherboard manual (double sided 512MB modules in Dimm Slots 1 & 2, single sided 256MB modules in Dimm Slots 3 & 4)
Graphics : Ati Radeon 9600XT 128MB onBoard RAM with Bios Setting AGP Aperture Size: 128MB
Harddisk : Seagate Barracude ST3200822A 3.01 200GB

During POST the Bios recognizes 1.5GB Ram and enables Dual Channel Technology.
A MemTest86 3.0 test reports no errors.
My old debian installation, which resides on the harddisk behind the 137GB limit, recognizes 1.5GB ram, as well as the Knoppix 3.4 live cdrom does.

tscharlii, i'm not joking, your story had me on the edge of my seat ... will he succeed in getting his OS to use all his hardware? This is a Microsoft OS we're talking about, so there was immediately some suspense ... I liked how you managed to raise the tension level as you took us thru the adventure ...

Very cool of you to add your experience to these forums, thanks for the good read with only 10 minutes to go to the end of my week of wage slavery, I nearly didn't leave right on the dot!!

Any description of the hardware you used? It can't go above 1Gb diretly? Have you tried increasing MaxPhysPage in small increments? Does MaxPhysPage=40001 work or immediately fail?

Might be just something about the mobo/chipset memory controller's way of handling the memory addresses... as you've probably read, I was fine with 2Gb. This is (was) an i865 chipset.

The filling of the DIMM slots might also have something to do with it...

I just tried D975XBX board with E6600 processor and 1GB RAM - and no luck, the message described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184447 appeared even if I set MaxPhysPage=30000 or MaxPhysPage=20000, and maxfilecache=522240 and smaller values - no success, Windows 98 SE never booted.

Petr

Well, the 975 chipset support in 98se is already flaky, so I wouldn't have expected any success either.

I had no probem with 955X chipset so I supposed that it should be similar, southbridge is the same.

Petr

After reading you guys are saying i shouldn't waste my money buying more than 512mb
because Win98SE doesn't support even with the tweaks and unofficials packs.
Thanks for the heads up u saved me a few $

Is it possible and if yes very useful to force the virtual ram drive to use one full physical module and Windows the other ones?

Thanks to tsharlii for sharing his experience!

You were right, i just tried settings of 40000, 50000 and 60000.
After a lot of reboots and narrowing my personal maximal MaxPhysPage value, my system boots with values up to 48AE4(hex), while a value of 48AE5 and above leads to "Insufficient memory to initialize Windows."

A very strange number imo. Changing the AGP Aperture Size or MinFileCache and MaxFileChache values does not affect this MaxPhysPage limit on my computer.

MaxPhysPage=48AE4 yields 1161MB Ram.

I currently have 1.75GB in three sticks on my Abit NF7-S v2 board and I use them all without problems under Windows ME. Just had to set the Vcache value under 512MB as not to break DOS programs operation.

Please post your hardware configuration.

He did - In the bottom of post #20 [duplicated below]




As for myself - Windows doesn't even give a message when it failed with over 1gb ram. It just instantly reboots which is why I'd tried the ramdisk workaround and then shared my results. However, I ditched the extra ram shortly after due to wanting to wait untill I get a 4th matching stick so I wouldn't sacrifice dual-channel mode.

My config would be found within my signature.

seemingly the XMSdsk method works only To a limited extent...

Got ahold of a matching 256mb stick for a total of 4 sticks (2x512 2x256) w/ 1.5gb ram. Installed the extra 512 mb and set ramdisk accordingly. Windows will give the 'not enough memory to load windows' error without it and once in windows , win32 fails with 'out of memory' errors.

Interestingly enough to note: after win32 fails I get a whole host of failures ranging from exceptions in 'vmcpd.vxd' to exceptions in 'vmm.vxd' followed shortly after by explorer causing endlessly looping page faults in kernel32.dll. Though the common problem of the 'display adaptor being misconfigured' always shows up as well for the party.

Seems this system will only go as far as 3 sticks (1256mb -> 2x512+1x256+xmsdsk workaround) before 98 hits a brick wall. Was good in writing earlier but as said before by 'tscharlii' it may be good in theory but in practice is a different story... >_<

I will do a bit more testing later with maxphyspage and the like. Just cannot have too much downtime at once on this system as it's also my file/web server.

There seems to be a bug. If I make the virtual memory bigger than 768 MB, I end up getting the following
error message:

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

This is despite the fact that it's not RAM!

Run MemTest86+ on the system for a few hours and see what happens.

it looks like the Intel D975XBX mobo is not compatible with Win98/ME. Official downloads for D975XBX board are only for Win2000 and WinXP at the Intel support site. dont bother installing any 9xME version of Windows on an intel D975XBX or D975XBX2 mobo because they're guaranteed NOT to work.



it might be your cpu & motherboard, RJARRRPCGP. what kind of mobo does your PC have when you had this problem? newer types of mobos can no longer handle Win98/ME correctly and require Win2000, XP or newer Windows OS

I bought large ram for two reasons - standard system upgrade, and i was going to use some part of ram as RAMdisk (for TV Capturing and mainly for windows swapfile)

I've been using 1gb ram for few weeks without any trouble, no MaxPhys was needed. But i was unable to run more memory - i thought 1gb was limit. Then i tried one thing. I added 128 stick (3 slots - 512/512/128) but it doesnt work until i enabled Memory Hole in Bios. Then i was able to run 1,128 megabytes (1,150 in windows).

But recently i bougth three new memory sticks (512mb 133mhz SDRAM - they were too much expensive - i wanted to use them), so i tried to insert third one.

Motherboard sucesfully recognized 1,5gb, but the system never booted (although memory hole was enabled - it seems that 1mb which it has consumed helped to avoid crashing the system)

then i set MaxPhysPage=40000 and the system booted using 1Gb, the rest was unused. The largest maxphyspage that has been accepted was 45678 (nice number ). At this point i was able to run 1,1gb, but still not enough.

Then i found info about XMSDSK and it seemed to be an ideal solution (it enables large ramdrive before swapfile is enabled). This program gives great possibilities but has some limitatios.

XMSDSK MUST be installed after Emm386 is installed (UMBPCI didnt work, althougth motherboard is supported). If XMSDSK is enabled earlier system shall not boot.

If i use XMSDSK the largest memory available for windows is 786MB (or little bit more), rest must be reserved for RamDisk.

Example:
When 1gb was inserted in MB XMSDSK must use 262144kb or more, else system shall not boot.
When i used 1,5gb XMSDSK must use 786 432kb or more.

(i've been testing it recently, there is small reserve, i used 730 000kb and it still worked, but it shall take some time to test it, i suggest that smallest number shall be 720 896, 655350 didnt work)

So the result is i can use half of memory as Ramdisk (with swapfile), and second half as standard RAM.

Everything worked fine. Also i removed MaxPhysPage from system.ini and system worked (!!!).

Benchmarks and Crashtests:
(celeron 800mhz, radeon 9800pro)
Passmark - Most tests gived better performance except "large ram" test.

3dMark 2001 - 8300 - Swapfile on Ramdisk improved score by 900 points.

Oblivion - At first attempt it crashed. I've added MaxPhysPage = 3c000, enlarged swapfile from 128 to 524MB and it works. Previously in moments when game was loading areas the game has been stopped for aproximately 15 seconds. When the swapfile was moved to Ramdrive this time halved.

What makes me angry is fact that i cannot run 1gb of conventional Ram and 500mb of Ramdisk. That was my goal, but overally i am glad that i can use all capacity of ram.

Any idea how to reach my goal? (or change some settings in system.ini)

edit:
Oblivion crashed due to small swapfile. 128mb was too small for it.
The smallest size of XMSDSK is 720 896, else computer reboot itself or i get "not enough memory" message.

Effects of Swapfile size in 3d Mark:
- when swapfile was at size of 128mb test gived 15-160 frames and 8333 marks overally
- now the swapfile has 700 Mb and test gived 13-167 frames and 8200 marks overally
(quite usable for pc tunning)

Btw swapfile on Ramdrive has another effect. I need new cooling for RAM sticks Also i try to turn off "conservative" usage of swapfile, maybe it shall have some effects.

Today I tried bigger memory in GA-K8M800M-RH motherboard and the results were:

Windows 98 SE with sesp21a:
Both 1536 and 1024 MB (-64 MB shared by on-board VGA) : no boot, black screen
In safe mode: the popular "Not enough memory message".

Windows Me with latest mesp202:
The system booted well both in normal and safe mode, all simple tasks, like logging to Novell server, copying files by Total Commander etc. were OK.
Everything worked even if I changed MayPhysPages to 50000 and 60000 just the memory on system properties has increased.

Problems started when I tried to run MS Hardware Compatibility test - they got frozen or had other problems with 1536 MB, with 1024 MB, even with 768 MB of physical memory. Only with 512 MB it was possible to run them.

Changing MayPhysPages had absolutely no effect, both in Windows Me and in Windows 98 SE - just the memory on system properties has changed.

The result of these tests is that it is not safe even to insert more than 512 MB to the motherboard.

Maybe that is the reason of my problems with D975XBX boards previously, I had 2 1 GB sticks only. Now I got one 512 MB DDR2 stick for testing so I may try it - but it is too time consuming, I'll see.

Petr

some tweaks for XMSDSK users:

Put these lines in your autoexec.bat (this is example)
lh c:\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 720896 Y: /c1 /t /y
label Y: Scorpion

Drive shall no longer be labeled as "MS-Ramdrive" and this allows you to adress ramdrive from Virtual memory manager in "This computer" > "properties" - no need to manual edit system.ini (in some cases manual editation caused "windows protection error - restart")

Also it will add some features in "This computer" window if you open properties of your ramdrive - "Compression Menu" and also it appears in FAT32 Converter. None of new procedures is not supported by XMSDSK driver - it will crash computer to blue screen of death.

Is there any possibility to format XMSDSK drive to FAT32 (just curious, maybe it shall help with some troubles)

If it's not FAT32, so what is it?

"Properties" of my "ramdrive" shows me "FAT"

16.00

Yes it is just FAT16. Thats makes no trouble when i use it as swapdrive, but if i want to use it for newer aplications it may cause trouble.

What is also very positive is that if system crashes, Scandisk shall find no (or very few) lost data on Hdd.

Btw some friends of mine asked me to do this "tweak" with swapfile on ramdrive on their computer, but most of them use WinXP. I have no experience with XP. Shall XMSDSK start and shall XP put its swapfile on drive with FAT16?

2000/XP, 98SE + ME all support FAT16 + FAT32.
Therefore you can place your 9x swap file [called paging file in 2000/XP] on any FAT16 or FAT32 drive/partition.

Try to load XMSDSK from config.sys [example]:

INSTALLHIGH=c:\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 720896 Y: /c1 /t /y label Y: Scorpion

instead of loading it from autoexec.bat, or the other way around if you load it from config.sys.
Replace INSTALLHIGH with INSTALL if you don't load any upper memory manager [UMBPCI, EMM386, QEMM386, RM386 etc] from config.sys.
Reboot see what happens.

If you allocate too much RAM for xmsdsk RAMdisk, your computer performance will decrease significantly, or you may even experience errors/lockups with some apps/games.

If you are experiencing random errors with scandisk [scandskw], maybe you should consider disabling [some] overclocking features, i.e. bring back FSB or RAM timings to normal values.

HTH

nt4 doesnt support fat32 only fat16

Sorry, forgot about NT4.

I usually recomend this tweak only for computer with 1,5 GB of ram or more, maintaining that 1gb shall remain as standard memory. in these cases it can boost acess to swapfile 10x and upgrade overall systen performance by 12 percent. Pretty nice trick for people with large ram

WinNT4 by itself cant recognize FAT32. NT4 users will need a 3rd party driver to access FAT32 volumes

true but it cant be installed on a fat32 partition,
just like you have to install drivers for the mouse to get the scrollwheel to work
and drivers for usb support

so i've been tweaking for some time and here are some results:
At my last attempt i was trying to set standard ram to 1gb and XMSDSK ram to 512mb, but the system was unable to boot with this setting. the best setting was 800mb of ram and 720mb of xmsdsk

althought my attempts to use UMBPCI failed i recognised one positive thing.

when i used UMBFILL.COM during boot sequence i was able to run windows normally with desired memory setting. It has more advantages as i realized. Whats lilltle bit strange is that i am using it with emm386.exe (no replacement worked due to SCI IRQ bus driver which cannot be disabled)

Performance test diagnose program recognized 25 percent speed upgrade in "Large RAM" test and overally is for system more comfortable to use two memory sticks as ram, and the third one as ramdisk.

Try to disable swap file. It worked for me when I had 768MB for a few days.

no reaction when disabling swapfile...

Btw i have diagnosed one thing...

i have 1,5 Gb Ram.

MaxPhysPage=40000
xmsdsk 524288

This setting is not correct. Few megabytes shall not be used as standard Ram. when i opened system properties Ram size was 1.022 Mb. Then i tryed another setting:

MaxPhysPage=45000 (or edit this line completely out from system.ini)
xmsdsk 524288

Ram in system properties was set to 1.026 Mb.

This small memory area remained unused in windows mode which means some trouble when accessing memory - slowing it down in better case, crashing system in worst case.