[rfsapiens]

Hello,

I recently upgraded my system to an AMD64 Atlhon 64 with an ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA (which I inform that works very well in Win98SE- you only have to disable onboard UAA) and 2GB of DDRII Ram.I use this PC with triple boot - Windows XP, 98SE and Vista.Everything was ok until I put all RAM in my PC witch made my PC unbootable in 98SE.I solved this issue by changing MaxFileCache and MaxPhysPage parameters in the system.ini file and also by adding a Virtual Ramdrive of 1.6GB with XMSDSK (the remaining RAM is 400MB).And everything is fine.The system boots in Windows98SE although I have a few bugs just like the audio sometimes doesn't play at all for some instants (I have a SB Live 5.1) and the worst thing is that I can't open any DOS prompt window or app in Windows 98SE because it says: "Out of memory.Close some programs and try again".Since I'm using almost all of my RAM to virtual drive, the remaining ram is less than 512MB but It doesn't go anyway... Limiting the Windows RAM to 512MB in msconfig doesn't work also and messing with the MaxFileCache and MaxPhysPage parameters in the system.ini file doesn't solve this issue neither disabling Virtual Memory.Since my Windows 98SE is in Portuguese, R. Loew patch doesn't work (it says Unknown VMM file) even if I extract the VMM and VCache files from the english version of Win98SE.

The actual paramters that I have is:

MaxPhysPage=1FFFF
MaxFileCache=65535

and limit windows memory to 256MB

This made my windows to stop the lock ups but I can't run DOS. I want using DOS in this partition and I cant.
What can I do to solve this issue?

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.


P.S.: Sorry for my bad and confusing english

This post has been edited by rfsapiens: 29 March 2008 - 12:08 AM

[Offler]

try to add umbfill from umbpci package as last file to your autoexec.bat. it will fix memory grabbing from Win. also i never encountered system with so much ram - i have 1,5gb ram. try to set maxfilecache to 32kb or fewer.

This post has been edited by Offler: 29 March 2008 - 01:00 AM

[dencorso]

There are lots of previous posts on that. Read at least this and this. I'd use MaxFileCache=29696 (with ChunkSize=512) and and XMSDSK of 262240 KB for starters. If everything works with these settings, you can test with bigger and bigger virtual disks, until the problem reapears. And don't forget to keep us posted on your findings. HTH

This post has been edited by dencorso: 29 March 2008 - 02:48 AM

[rfsapiens]

Offler, on Mar 29 2008, 01:59 AM, said:

try to add umbfill from umbpci package as last file to your autoexec.bat. it will fix memory grabbing from Win. also i never encountered system with so much ram - i have 1,5gb ram. try to set maxfilecache to 32kb or fewer.

Hello,

First of all thanks for your reply.I tried adding the umbfill command in my autoexec.bat but it didn't solve the problem.I still cant open DOS windows.

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.

[rfsapiens]

dencorso, on Mar 29 2008, 03:45 AM, said:

I'd use MaxFileCache=29696 (with ChunkSize=512) and and XMSDSK of 262240 KB for starters. If everything works with these settings, you can test with bigger and bigger virtual disks, until the problem reapears. And don't forget to keep us posted on your findings. HTH

Hello,

Thanks for your reply.
I tried the settings you have told and with MaxFileCache at this value Windows 98 returned me a BSOD which I couldn't start the system at all.About of XMSDSK subject, all I can say is that the result of changing RAMDrive to 256MB or 1.6GB is irrelevant since the simptoms are the same with the exception that I can delete VCache and MaxPhysPage settings with a bigger RAMDrive (1.6GB) and with a smaller RAMDrive (256MB) I have to use the settings.What else can I do?

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.

[dencorso]

Well, you can try xrayer's outstanding new solution (link). Good luck!

[RetroOS]

Hi rfsapiens,
Have you tried using your original settings without XMSDSK?

DOS sessions (Virtual Machines) use address space in the 3GB-4GB range along with the Windows Kernel Ring 0 code.
AFAIK, XMSDSK also uses some of this space for index tables.
To add to this, PCI cards use mapped address space here and also AGP cards.
Since your mobo uses AGP, you should reduce the AGP Aperture size.
With 2GB of RAM, you might have to use a 64MB Aperture.
Some mobos go as high as 512MB which would consume half of the System Arena (3GB-4GB).
Try halving the AGP Aperture size, for example, 256MB>128MB, 128MB>64MB, however, do not go below 32MB since most AGP cards will fail at 16MB.
You can find the AGP Aperture size in the BIOS settings.

Put simply, your DOS VM errors mean that the Windows System Arena is full.
Please post your results.

Also, do read the topic that dencorso referred to in the previous post.
I used posted information on MSFN to reliably get 1.5GB working with Windows 98SE (1.125GB usable in Windows)

[niknak]

rfsapiens
Welcome - I to had problems using 2GB RAM with 98SE. Even now I can only open 2 DOS boxes in 98SE. Every system seems to behave differently so be prepared to experiment. If you only need DOS install that only - it works well I used an old 8GB HDD and used the DOS files from Win 98SE.

I found it best to install 98SE with only 512MB RAM installed adding all requires drivers - I used autopatcher to update the system. Then I added the extra RAM. Cutting a long story short I am using xmsdsk RAM drive 1310720MB in size. Virtual memory is OFF. AGP bios setting is 4MB this will depend on your video card as to what works. System.ini settings are
[386Enh]
Paging=off

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=32768

The vcache setting is the only one that allows me to have 2 DOS boxes. Win 98 is stable

I have just read xrayer's HimemX page and will try that to see what happens

[rfsapiens]

Hello,

I solved the issue because I used R. Loew memory patch.But now i have a problem.I've installed more memory into this pc and it now has 3GB of RAM but I can't work anymore with windows 98. It locks in the explorer and tells me that there isn't enough memory to run..... (I used patchmem v 3.2) Note: It runs fine in safe mode but if I put only 2gb into my pc then patchmem will work correctly and so I can use windows 98 fully. What can I do?

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.

[rainyd]

Simply using just 2 GB of RAM or contact with patch creator and informed him about problem (maybe he can resolve that issue).

[Tarun]

Just run 98 in a VM under Vista or XP. Check out VirtualBox to get a VM.

[rloew]

rfsapiens, on Sep 7 2008, 02:49 PM, said:

Hello,

I solved the issue because I used R. Loew memory patch.But now i have a problem.I've installed more memory into this pc and it now has 3GB of RAM but I can't work anymore with windows 98. It locks in the explorer and tells me that there isn't enough memory to run..... (I used patchmem v 3.2) Note: It runs fine in safe mode but if I put only 2gb into my pc then patchmem will work correctly and so I can use windows 98 fully. What can I do?

With the best regards,

Rfsapiens.

I was unable to match your handle to anyone on my Customer List. All purchasers of Version 3.2 were notified of an update to Version 5.0 in April.
Version 5.0 will work with International Versions of Window 9X.
If you are using the Demo of Version 3.2, it should only work in Safe Mode, it was designed not to work in Normal Mode.
The Patch will work with 3GB but there are more Programs that have problems when you exceed 2GB.
If you still have problems with Version 5.0, contact me for further assistance.

Rudolph R. Loew