[GreyPhound]

j7n, on Jan 7 2008, 11:47 PM, said:

GreyPhound, on Jan 6 2008, 09:29 AM, said:

Corrected.

Sorry for that one, it must have been a browser encoding thing, as that misrepresented value is correct in my original text file.

Don't the last 512 Megs start from A0000000? Originally you had Cyrillic "A" there.

Here's the original text in Russian:

Quote

Как правило, устройства AGP используют для своих нужд адреса, начиная с е0000000, то есть 3,5 Гб. Дисковому кэшу при этом можно использовать полгигабайта.

Same text in English:

Quote

As a rule, AGP devices use addresses starting from E0000000, that is 3,5 Gb. Disk cache at that can use a half gigabyte.

[Max Monroe]

BenoitRen, on Jan 6 2008, 10:19 PM, said:

Quote

I'm NOT willing to get stuck in the stone age of software if only that keeps working

You want stone age? Get a computer with an early version of DOS. That's stone age.

My oh my, someone is in a cranky mood today... We certainly can go back to the Spectrum, the punched tape, or Babbage if you wish, but let's not, shall we? I arbitrarily define as stone age version any software that does not enable me to use features considered standard these days, features that my hardware would otherwise be quite capable to perform. And most software today is a GENERATION beyond their last version that supported win98, usually more than fulfilling the criteria above. I could even live with that, I suppose. But when a properly set-up memory upgrade wrecks the runnability of a quarter of my programs, plays tricks with the audio with the rest, and the best advice I get is to shoot the ACPI too to solve all this, I start having second thoughts, pardon me.

So.

You say all this isn't very constructive? Excellent observation. Perhabs you have an idea then why is a 128MB Radeon allocating 512MB of virtual address space, given that most people's video adapters take a QUARTER of that...?

...Thought so. Thank you.

[erpdude8]

Max Monroe, on Jan 7 2008, 06:47 PM, said:

BenoitRen, on Jan 6 2008, 10:19 PM, said:

Quote

I'm NOT willing to get stuck in the stone age of software if only that keeps working

You want stone age? Get a computer with an early version of DOS. That's stone age.

My oh my, someone is in a cranky mood today... We certainly can go back to the Spectrum, the punched tape, or Babbage if you wish, but let's not, shall we? I arbitrarily define as stone age version any software that does not enable me to use features considered standard these days, features that my hardware would otherwise be quite capable to perform. And most software today is a GENERATION beyond their last version that supported win98, usually more than fulfilling the criteria above. I could even live with that, I suppose. But when a properly set-up memory upgrade wrecks the runnability of a quarter of my programs, plays tricks with the audio with the rest, and the best advice I get is to shoot the ACPI too to solve all this, I start having second thoughts, pardon me.

So.

You say all this isn't very constructive? Excellent observation. Perhabs you have an idea then why is a 128MB Radeon allocating 512MB of virtual address space, given that most people's video adapters take a QUARTER of that...?

...Thought so. Thank you.

eh don't mind Benoitren. he can sometimes act like a punk!
some of us are really fed up with his immature childish behavior; one of these days, if he "crosses the line" he might get banned from this 9x forum

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 07 January 2008 - 06:14 PM

[erpdude8]

dencorso, on Jan 2 2008, 10:46 PM, said:

Ninho, on Jan 2 2008, 11:53 AM, said:

[...]

With this in mind, let's see if I understood well : dare I ask, what you are saying amounts to Windows/VMM at startup remapping to system memory space (the 3rd virtual gigabyte) any XMS memory blocks that were allocated (in DOS presumably) before Win started ? Makes sense !

--
Ninho

Ninho:
Thanks for the heads up. I've, now, corrected my post.
But I forgot to answer your question, so I'm doing it now:
Yes, you've got it right. That's exactly what I meant.
And XMSDSK is just a good example of a program that allocates XMS from DOS (run from autoexec.bat or from config.sys), before Windows even begins to load. There are other examples, but I think ramdisks are the most useful nowadays. I think Igor Leyko didn't cover this subject in his article because it would render even more complicated a subject that, as you yourself have said, is not easy at all. But in the present thread it is unavoidable to consider the case of ramdisks, because, IMHO, they are a must for systems having more than 1GB of RAM installed.

Speaking of RAMDisks, the max size you can create is 2Gb. see this MDGx tip on how to use RAMDisks:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip12.htm#RAM

thanks to GreyPhound and dencorso for the english translation.

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 07 January 2008 - 06:32 PM

[BenoitRen]

Quote

eh don't mind Benoitren. he can sometimes act like a punk! mad.gif
some of us are really fed up with his immature childish behavior; one of these days, if he "crosses the line" he might get banned from this 9x forum

What the hell are you talking about?

I'm so sorry I was defending Win98, which is what this entire forum is mostly about. Sheesh.

Features considered standard these days? Eh, people take anything for granted these days. I wouldn't follow the sheep. Those same sheep that fall for M$' lies every time and continue to buy software that is more than a generation behind when it comes to actual programming techniques and optimisation. People will accept anything, apparantly.

[dencorso]

erpdude8, on Jan 7 2008, 09:13 PM, said:

Speaking of RAMDisks, the max size you can create is 2Gb. see this MDGx tip on how to use RAMDisks:
http://www.mdgx.com/newtip12.htm#RAM

Hi, erpdude8!
You're right: the max size for XMSDSK is 2Gb. That's because it is FAT16, which has an upper upper limit is 2Gb. It also causes XMSDSK to behave strangely and throw errors, refusing to load, with more than 2GB of RAM installed. Although I never faced such a problem myself, I've read that, strictly for these cases, the solution is to let it load below the top of the memory, by ommiting the "/T" switch, which is otherwise mandatory for use with Windows. See the last lines of this TechArena post (#2), by Mark-Allen Perry, about it. BTW: no, it cannot be made FAT32, because its format is part of how it's coded...

This post has been edited by dencorso: 07 January 2008 - 10:57 PM

[dencorso]

diskless, on Jan 6 2008, 03:00 PM, said:

Does the WinME virtual memory manager work with Win98SE?

If so, I think this would be the only way to get 2 GB working, otherwise the most is a little more than 1.5 GB.

No. VMM.VxD 4.90.0.3000 does not work with Win 98SE. It refuses to load, even after downversion patching, as I had predicted elsewhere. But now I know for sure, because I've tried it. So this is the first known example of Win ME .VxD file that won't load in Win 98SE, despite what version it claims to be...

[Xeno86]

GreyPhound, on Jan 2 2008, 11:58 PM, said:

GreyPhound
``````````````````````
Windows 9x and lots of memory: Dotting the i's

@GreyPhound
I have a problem viewing images in the article. I get "403 Forbidden" error.

[Ludwig Von Cookie Koopa]

1. Somebody mentioned to me and many other people you can tell windows to allocate memory to the HD.

2. There is a memory leak problem that was removed that could be turned on again to slove this.

3. It should automatically work but I never reached over 1Gig margin.

4. You might have to go into the registery and edit some settings??

5. You can probably allocate memory to memory you have installed as limited storage.

6. AGP cards???? can be directed to use other memory I just forget where to. In most cases you need to tell it in the settings and it can see the extra memory it just has to reach it.

7.

BenoitRen, on Jan 6 2008, 02:19 PM, said:

You want stone age? Get a computer with an early version of DOS. That's stone age.

DOS is not stone age nore is Basic get one of those mini Super computers that schools had with the big cassette on it back when they said computers was going to get bigger.

The MicroComputer is the average Labtop/PC desktop.

Even a Super Computer is not stone age and those where the first ones. People still use Micro-computers

[dencorso]

Xeno86, on Jan 11 2008, 12:35 PM, said:

I have a problem viewing images in the article. I get "403 Forbidden" error.

Hi, Xeno86!
Download them from this link. HTH.

@everybody: Do you all want real stone age? Try the EDVAC or the ENIAC.
Then again, without them we wouldn't be here today, ain't it so?

[GreyPhound]

Xeno86, on Jan 11 2008, 06:35 PM, said:

GreyPhound, on Jan 2 2008, 11:58 PM, said:

GreyPhound
``````````````````````
Windows 9x and lots of memory: Dotting the i's

@GreyPhound
I have a problem viewing images in the article. I get "403 Forbidden" error.

Please, try this link to the source article.

[erpdude8]

You may want to take a look at this for those wanting to use Win98se with 2gigs of RAM:

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=24516

As for Max Monroe's RAM problem, try out the tips at the site mentioned above. If they work, great. If not, upgrade to Win2k or XP since they can handle large quantities of RAM pretty well.

[vick1111]

"6. AGP cards???? can be directed to use other memory I just forget where to. In most cases you need to tell it in the settings and it can see the extra memory it just has to reach it."

Anyone has a clue on how to do this and if it could be possible to address the memory problem by changing the video card memory usage?

[Max Monroe]

erpdude8, on Jan 11 2008, 10:09 PM, said:

You may want to take a look at this for those wanting to use Win98se with 2gigs of RAM:

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=24516

As for Max Monroe's RAM problem, try out the tips at the site mentioned above. If they work, great. If not, upgrade to Win2k or XP since they can handle large quantities of RAM pretty well.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the guy at that forum only says "I have discovered universal solution which is not connected with the values of MaxFileCache and MaxPhysPage. [...] I think the concept could be worth of money for multi boot users." - and that's the end of it; the solution is never revealed, nor pointed to. Thanks for the effort, anyway. As for the upgrade, I'm already multibooting XP; the idea was to try to avoid ditching win98 (hint to BenoitRen - I'm not the enemy), of which I'm quite fond, having had it as my main OS over XP.

[diskless]

I've done some tests to find out more about the relationship between XMSDSK, MaxFileCache and the number of simultaneous DOS windows. Here are the results:

Motherboard = Intel D201GLY2
Total system RAM = 1GB
IGD Aperture Size = 128MB Minimum possible (AGP Aperture)
IGD Share Memory Size = 32MB Minimum possible (Video RAM)
OS = Win98SE

Memory map for top 1 GB:
E000 0000 - EFFF FFFF System board extension for ACPI BIOS
FEC0 0000 - FEC0 0FFF System board extension for ACPI BIOS
FEE0 0000 - FEE0 0FFF System board extension for ACPI BIOS
FFF8 0000 - FFFF FFFF Unavailable for use by devices

Minimum XMSDSK = 264192 = 258MB. Windows will not boot with any less
Maximum XMSDSK = 886784 = 866 MB
Minimum MaxFileCache = 2048 = 2MB. Could use 1MB but no advantage
Maximum MaxFileCache = 624640 = 610MB with minimum XMSDSK = 264192 = 258MB
Maximum XMSDSK+MaxFileCache = 888832 = 868 MB. Only 1 DOS window possible
Address space per extra DOS window = 4MB Reduce XMSDSK+MaxFileCache accordingly
Maximum simultaneous DOS windows = 109 Limit, even if more address space available

Notes
MaxFileCache must be defined when using XMSDSK with 1GB system RAM.
ScanDisk should be run with Thorough test to make sure all clusters on RAM drive work.
A different motherboard will produce different results.
MaxPhysPage was undefined throughout.
I did not have 2GB RAM to test.

This post has been edited by diskless: 18 January 2008 - 07:40 AM

[dencorso]

diskless, on Jan 17 2008, 07:54 PM, said:

I've done some tests to find out more about the relationship between XMSDSK, MaxFileCache and the number of simultaneous DOS windows. Here are the results:
[...]
I did not have 2GB RAM to test.

Way to go, diskless, way to go! Keep on the great work!

[mykonos]

then...somebody has get to install win98 on a 2gb computer? im trying it and i cant...

[dencorso]

mykonos, on Feb 20 2008, 08:58 PM, said:

then...somebody has get to install win98 on a 2gb computer? im trying it and i cant...

It is possible to do it. Read this old post of mine. Andy Aronoff's post at techarena seems not to exist anymore, so I reproduce it here. AFAIK, Andy was the first to describe how to do it.

Andrew Aronoff <@forums.techarena.in; thread=96424; post #5> said:

Date: 13 May 2005 02:11 GMT
Re: Can't start up with 2 GB RAM
Hi, Ron.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Quote

Try reducing the MaxPhysPage parameter even further, to 30000 (=768mb) or even 20000 (= 512 mb).

As it turns out, what was keeping the PC from booting was the MaxFileCache value. I was able to boot with MaxPhysPage=38000 and MaxFileCache=30000. If MaxFileCache was above 200000, the PC wouldn't boot. Below 200000, it would boot, but running an MS-DOS program would throw the error, "There is not enough memory available to run this program." The error occurred at 40000 but not at 30000.

I'm now able to boot into W98 SE and run MS-DOS programs. That's exactly what I wanted.

regards, Andy

If that's not enough, be sure to read thoroughly all that's been posted about "Win 9x/ME with more than 512MB" (and follow the links therein), including the present thread from the begining and also these others:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=105373
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=99263
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=79756
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=59765

Good luck!

This post has been edited by dencorso: 10 April 2010 - 02:00 AM

[quasar_9000]

EGOvoruhk, on Dec 21 2007, 02:37 AM, said:

I've got 2 1GB sticks of RAM in my system. I know (or assume rather) I can't use 2GB with 98, but I need them installed because it's a multi-boot system. I installed 98 with just one of my sticks in, and then went about trying to work how to get the second one in. I began my search, and I was directed to this site for help. I finally got my system to boot with MaxPhysPage=38000 and MaxFileCache=30000, but now I have a different problem. Once in Windows, I can't get a command prompt to load without it telling me I have low memory. This also happens when trying load applications, or games

Any help would be appreciated. For now, I'm just going to start messing with the values, hoping to come across some magic, but I'm just shooting in the dark

Thanks in advance

Here is the easiest solution to limiting memory with Win98:

1. Run [msconfig].
2. Click on the [Advanced] tab.
3. Put a "check" next to [Limit memory to].
4. Then change memory value to read [512].
5. Reboot.

[mykonos]

dencorso, on Feb 21 2008, 10:50 PM, said:

mykonos, on Feb 20 2008, 08:58 PM, said:

then...somebody has get to install win98 on a 2gb computer¿? im trying it and i cant...

It is possible to do it. Read this old post of mine. Andy Aronoff's post at techarena seems not to exist anymore, so I reproduce it here. AFAIK, Andy was the first to describe how to do it.

Andrew Aronoff <@forums.techarena.in; thread=96424; post #5> said:

Date: 05/13/2005
Re: Can't start up with 2 GB RAM
Hi, Ron.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Quote

Try reducing the MaxPhysPage parameter even further, to 30000 (=768mb) or even 20000 (= 512 mb).

As it turns out, what was keeping the PC from booting was the MaxFileCache value. I was able to boot with MaxPhysPage=38000 and MaxFileCache=30000. If MaxFileCache was above 200000, the PC wouldn't boot. Below 200000, it would boot, but running an MS-DOS program would throw the error, "There is not enough memory available to run this program." The error occurred at 40000 but not at 30000.

I'm now able to boot into W98 SE and run MS-DOS programs. That's exactly what I wanted.

regards, Andy

If that's not enough, be sure to read thoroughly all that's been posted about "Win 9x/ME with more than 512MB" (and follow the links therein), including the present thread from the begining and also these others:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=105373
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=99263
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=79756
http://www.msfn.org/...RAM-t59765.html

Good luck!

The problem is...i can't get install windows98...how I modify system.ini if it was not created yet? :S