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Win9x: More than 512 MB of RAM?


TooMuchFreeTime

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Your system probably hasn't crashed with the extra ram because the unofficial service pack puts the maxfilecache string in system.ini.

I remember reading that a tweak was applied to the system.ini, just could'nt

remeber what it was..

This system was always OK at 1st with the later USP's, that is until a bunch of apps were

eventually installed over a 1 month period, then the greif started, Yet whenever I

set a win98se system up using the 1.5 usp then go to windows update I never have a problem.

1.62 was the worst for me, it would bsob within the 1st week guaranteed, & had no eyecandy

appearance tweaks like 1.5..

I'll reboot into the 98 system & post the system.ini for the

original poster later..

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RAMDISKs are available right out of the box w/ Win98... The install itself creates one to preload. All thats required is some minor config.sys autoexec.bat editing. I have to wonder why people always refer to getting "some software" to do one :blink:

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I tried installing both 98SE and ME (yes, you read right, ME) on my desktop with a gig of RAM and I couldn't even complete the install. Windows would just hang right after the first reboot when it's supposed to detect hardware. Is the only way to install it to remove RAM? Certainly there has to be a better way. Is there any install file that can be modified to set it up correctly OOB?

Thanks,

Chris.

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RAMDISKs are available right out of the box w/ Win98... The install itself creates one to preload. All thats required is some minor config.sys autoexec.bat editing. I have to wonder why people always refer to getting "some software" to do one

Because of the limitation in size I think.

Edited by eidenk
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Maybe it has to do w/ Hardware Chris, cuz I had no trouble installing 98SE on an AMD 64, Asus mobo w/ 1 Gig of ram even after multiple reboots.

But if it stalls just boot into command prompt, and edit the system.ini & add under [Vcache]:

MaxFileCache=524,288

98 does have the advantage of dos ;)

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Maybe it has to do w/ Hardware Chris, cuz I had no trouble installing 98SE on an AMD 64, Asus mobo w/ 1 Gig of ram even after multiple reboots.

But if it stalls just boot into command prompt, and edit the system.ini & add under [Vcache]:

MaxFileCache=524,288

98 does have the advantage of dos ;)

Yes, that it does. That's the one thing I really miss about NT/2k/xp, ect...the ability to perform tasks in DOS. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out.

Chris.

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You might try Gape's Unofficial Win98 SE Service Pack which claims to solve the 512 MB problem.

I don't think installing unofficial SPs that are made "*only* for WINDOWS 98 SECOND EDITION ENGLISH."

into finnish version of Windows 98 SE is a good idea...

Does anyone know HOW it solves 512 MB problem?

Well my Win98 OS booted after I installed my extra RAM but it was VERY unstable until I edited my system.ini...

Is [Vcache]: MaxFileCache=524,288 the only way to use more RAM?

BTW: I'm suprised that my topic got so many replies.

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Well my Win98 OS booted after I installed my extra RAM but it was VERY unstable until I edited my system.ini...

Is [Vcache]: MaxFileCache=524,288 the only way to use more RAM?

BTW: I'm suprised that my topic got so many replies.

Ya, it's the best[simplest] way outside of USP2, I edited my Vcache before I used USP, found it on some forum & was running 768mbs, am now running 1GB w/no probs :whistle:

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Microsoft could of retained compatibility w/ MSDOS on NT5+ if they had wished. LFN's has been shown to be doable on FreeDOS variants. Code recompiled to 32 or 64 bit. And MSDOS apps run in a "Sandboxed" Dos window. NTFS has been shown to be DOS useable by Sysinternals and others.

A 32-bit or 64-bit MS-DOS is closer to rewriting than recompiling, but

that is far from impossible, as demonstrated by Microsoft: most of

DOS is already re-implemented in 32-bits in the form of the core Win9x

VxDs. As an example, in order to provide file access to Windows

applications, KERNEL32 puts the MS-DOS function number in a register

and calls the VWIN32 VxD through an undocumented API. VWIN32

forwards the request down the chain of installed INT 21 handlers...

Your system probably hasn't crashed with the extra ram because the unofficial service pack puts the maxfilecache string in system.ini. That's kind of odd that your system crashes with all the USP's above 1.5. It is true that Windows 98 can support up to 1GB of RAM; at least for me that's true. I've heard of other people using up to 1.5gigs, and I've never seen how that's possible because whenever I tried that, I got the "out of memory" message upon bootup.

There are inherent problems with multi-gigabyte amounts of RAM on

the 32-bit 386+ architecture. A maximum of 4 GB is directly addressable,

and at the time that architecture was designed, no-one ever imagined

that more than a tiny fraction would be actual, physical RAM. It was

expected that advanced operating system would use it for providing

virtual memory - that is, paging/swapping.

Windows 9x reserves the top 1 GB of the address space for the

kernel (VxDs), at least 1 GB for DLLs, VMs, XMS, DOS-extended

and Win16 applications, and at least 1 GB for the "private" arena

of the current Win32 process. Also, hardware devices - especially

modern graphics adapters may require hundreds of megabytes.

I suspect that VCACHE tries to map those huge quantities of

unused (and unneeded) physical RAM into the 1 GB kernel address

space (or possibly the shared DLL/DOS/Win16 area) - eventually

running out, not of memory but of space to map it into - which can

be reasonably expected to render the system unstable.

The good news is that even 384 MB, which I have, is more than enough

and I don't recall running out of memory while I had 128 MB either.

If you have too much money on your hands and want to spend it on

hardware, go for something more useful. Do you have a 15000 rpm

SCSI disk yet? How about a SDLT drive for backups? (I have 73 GB

10000 rpm disk and haven't partitioned it all...)

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NEVER a issue here with 98SE

[boot]

oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon

shell=Explorer.exe

system.drv=system.drv

drivers=mmsystem.dll power.drv

user.exe=user.exe

gdi.exe=gdi.exe

sound.drv=mmsound.drv

dibeng.drv=dibeng.dll

comm.drv=comm.drv

mouse.drv=LMouse.Drv

keyboard.drv=keyboard.drv

*DisplayFallback=0

fonts.fon=vgasys.fon

fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon

386Grabber=vgafull.3gr

display.drv=pnpdrvr.drv

[keyboard]

keyboard.dll=

oemansi.bin=

subtype=

type=4

[boot.description]

system.drv=Standard PC

mouse.drv=Logitech

keyboard.typ=Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard

aspect=100,96,96

display.drv=SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600SE Edition 128MB

[386Enh]

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

DMABufferSize=64

ebios=*ebios

woafont=dosapp.fon

mouse=*vmouse

device=*dynapage

device=*vcd

device=*vpd

device=*int13

keyboard=*vkd

display=*vdd,*vflatd

EMMExclude=C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF

Paging=on

[NonWindowsApp]

TTInitialSizes=4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22

[power.drv]

[drivers]

wavemapper=*.drv

MSACM.imaadpcm=*.acm

MSACM.msadpcm=*.acm

MSVideo.VfWWDM=vfwwdm.drv

wave=mmsystem.dll

midi=mmsystem.dll

[iccvid.drv]

[mciseq.drv]

[mci]

cdaudio=mcicda.drv

sequencer=mciseq.drv

waveaudio=mciwave.drv

avivideo=mciavi.drv

videodisc=mcipionr.drv

vcr=mcivisca.drv

MPEGVideo=mciqtz.drv

MPEGVideo2=mciqtz.drv

[vcache]

MaxFileCache=524288

[MSNP32]

[Password Lists]

***********************

[drivers32]

msacm.lhacm=lhacm.acm

VIDC.VDOM=vdowave.drv

MSACM.imaadpcm=imaadp32.acm

MSACM.msadpcm=msadp32.acm

MSACM.msgsm610=msgsm32.acm

MSACM.msg711=msg711.acm

MSACM.trspch=tssoft32.acm

vidc.CVID=iccvid.dll

VIDC.IV31=ir32_32.dll

VIDC.IV32=ir32_32.dll

vidc.MSVC=msvidc32.dll

VIDC.MRLE=msrle32.dll

VIDC.IV50=ir50_32.dll

msacm.iac2=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IAC25_32.AX

msacm.msaudio1=msaud32.acm

VIDC.MPG4=mpg4c32.dll

VIDC.MP42=mpg4c32.dll

VIDC.YUY2=msyuv.dll

VIDC.UYVY=msyuv.dll

VIDC.YVYU=msyuv.dll

msacm.sl_anet=sl_anet.acm

msacm.l3acm=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\L3CODECA.ACM

msacm.voxacm160=vct3216.acm

VIDC.YVU9=lvcodec2.dll

VIDC.I420=msh263.drv

VIDC.IYUV=iyuv_32.dll

[TTFontDimenCache]

0 4=2 4

0 5=3 5

0 6=4 6

0 7=4 7

0 8=5 8

0 9=5 9

0 10=6 10

0 11=7 11

0 12=7 12

0 13=8 13

0 14=8 14

0 15=9 15

0 16=10 16

0 18=11 18

0 20=12 20

0 22=13 22

Process PID CPU Description Company Name

Idle 0x0 83.07 System Idle Process

DDHELP.EXE 0xFFF7C58F 0.20 Microsoft DirectX Helper Microsoft Corporation

KERNEL32.DLL 0xFFCF7E2B Win32 Kernel core component Microsoft Corporation

MSGSRV32.EXE 0xFFFFA593 Windows 32-bit VxD Message Server Microsoft Corporation

MPREXE.EXE 0xFFFFBB23 WIN32 Network Interface Service Process Microsoft Corporation

VSMON.EXE 0xFFFFD68F 1.18 TrueVector Service Zone Labs Inc.

ATI2EVXX.EXE 0xFFFC047F

mmtask.tsk 0xFFFF82F3 Multimedia background task support module Microsoft Corporation

EXPLORER.EXE 0xFFFC50D7 Windows Explorer Microsoft Corporation

AVGCC.EXE 0xFFFDE9E3 AVG Control Center GRISOFT, s.r.o.

ZLCLIENT.EXE 0xFFFDA853 0.59 Zone Labs Client Zone Labs Inc.

SYSTRAY.EXE 0xFFFD331B System Tray Applet Microsoft Corporation

WMIEXE.EXE 0xFFF39A07 WMI service exe housing Microsoft Corporation

AVGAMSVR.EXE 0xFFFD2C8B AVG Alert Manager GRISOFT, s.r.o.

TASKMON.EXE 0xFFFD23E3 Task Monitor Microsoft Corporation

AVGEMC.EXE 0xFFFD1D03 AVG E-Mail Scanner GRISOFT, s.r.o.

IEXPLORE.EXE 0xFFF7EB33 Internet Explorer Microsoft Corporation

GTA_SA.EXE 0xFFF4AD87 13.78

PROCEXP.EXE 0xFFF1500F 1.18 Sysinternals Process Explorer Sysinternals

Process: GTA_SA.EXE Pid: FFF4AD87

Type Name Handle Access

Device DINPUT 0x58 0x00000000

Event Grand theft auto San Andreas 0x10 0x001F0003

Event 0x64 0x001F0003

Event 0x6C 0x001F0003

File D:\GTASAN~1\MODELS\GTA3.IMG 0x14 0x00001021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\FEET 0x8C 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\GENRL 0x94 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\PAIN_A 0x98 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SCRIPT 0x9C 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SPC_EA 0xA0 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SPC_FA 0xA4 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SPC_GA 0xA8 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SPC_NA 0xAC 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\SFX\SPC_PA 0xB0 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\MODELS\GTA3.IMG 0xBC 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\MODELS\GTA_INT.IMG 0xC0 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\MODELS\PLAYER.IMG 0xC4 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\DATA\PATHS\CARREC.IMG 0xC8 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\DATA\SCRIPT\SCRIPT.IMG 0xCC 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\MODELS\CUTSCENE.IMG 0xD0 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\STREAMS\MH 0xDC 0x00000021

File D:\GTASAN~1\AUDIO\STREAMS\MH 0xE0 0x00000021

MappedFile fileAllocatorMutex 0x50 0x00000000

MappedFile DirectInput.{5944E681-C92E-11CF-BFC7-444553540000} 0x74 0x00000000

MappedFile VIDEOMEMORY 0x90 0x00000000

MappedFile rpcrt4sharedmem 0xC 0x00000000

Mutex OleCoSharedStateMtx 0x34 0x001F0001

Mutex OLESCMSRVREGLISTMUTEX 0x38 0x001F0001

Mutex OLESCMGETHANDLEMUTEX 0x3C 0x001F0001

Mutex OLESCMROTMUTEX 0x40 0x001F0001

Mutex OleDfSharedMemoryMutex 0x44 0x001F0001

Mutex ScmWIPMutex 0x48 0x001F0001

Mutex DirectInput.{89521361-AA8A-11CF-BFC7-444553540000} 0x54 0x001F0001

Mutex MPRMutex 0x5C 0x001F0001

Mutex 0x60 0x001F0001

Mutex 0x68 0x001F0001

Mutex 0x70 0x001F0001

Mutex DirectInput.{5944E682-C92E-11CF-BFC7-444553540000} 0x78 0x001F0001

Mutex DDrawWindowListMutex 0x7C 0x001F0001

Mutex OLESCMLOCKMUTEX 0x8 0x001F0001

Mutex __DDrawExclMode__ 0x80 0x001F0001

Mutex __DDrawCheckExclMode__ 0x84 0x001F0001

Mutex AMResourceMutex2 0x88 0x001F0001

Process GTA_SA.EXE(FFF4AD87) 0x4 0x001F0FFF

Semaphore 0x18 0x001F0003

Semaphore 0x1C 0x001F0003

Semaphore 0x20 0x001F0003

Semaphore 0x24 0x001F0003

Semaphore 0x28 0x001F0003

Semaphore CdStream 0x2C 0x001F0003

Semaphore DocfileAllocatorMutex 0x4C 0x001F0003

Thread GTA_SA.EXE(FFF4AD87): FFF0DF93 0x30 0x00000000

Thread GTA_SA.EXE(FFF4AD87): FFF7F9CF 0xB4 0x00000000

Thread GTA_SA.EXE(FFF4AD87): FFF1B75F 0xB8 0x00000000

Thread GTA_SA.EXE(FFF4AD87): FFF1AD4F 0xD8 0x00000000

Processor #1 : AMD Athlon XP (Model 8) / D02EA3B4

Platform : Socket A (Socket 462)

Vendor String : AuthenticAMD

CPU Type : Original OEM Processor (0)

Family : 6 (7)

Model : 8 (8)

Stepping ID : 1 (1)

Brand ID : - (-)

APIC : ----

HT Log.CPU Cnt : ----

Name String : AMD Athlon XP 2400+

Internal Clock : 2004.54 MHz

System Bus : 267.27 MHz DDR

System Clock : 133.64 MHz

Multiplier : 15.0

L1 I-Cache : 64K Byte

L1 D-Cache : 64K Byte

L1 T-Cache : ----

L1 Cache : ----

L2 Cache : 256K Byte

L2 Speed : 2004.54 MHz (Full)

MMX Unit : Supported

SSE Unit : Supported

SSE2 Unit : Not Supported

SSE3 Unit : Not Supported

MMX2 Unit : Supported

3DNow! Unit : Supported

3DNow!+ Unit : Supported

Host Bridge : 1106:0305.03 [VIA Apollo KT133]

South Bridge : 1106:0686.40 [VIA VT82C686B]

VGA Device : 1002:4151.00 [ATI RADEON 9600 Series]

Memory Size : 768M Byte

Memory Clock : 133.64 MHz

: 68,2,M:4001,D:2C51,R:0001

Edited by kartel
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Vcache is the Windows disk-caching virtual device driver. RAM used by vcache can't be used by applications. So setting Vcache to 524,288 means that there is still 524,288 RAM available for apps.

That may have been true for Win95, but the Win98 version of VCACHE is a lot smarter about

adjusting the size of its cache dynamically, and will not hold on to RAM needed for other

purposes. An additional improvement is the capability of running programs directly from the

cache (without first "reading" the program into some other place in memory).

The problem is just that neither VCACHE nor other parts of the system was designed for

the quantities of RAM in question. As I suggested in my previous message, it may have

to do with address space limitations - somewhat similar to the 640 K limit of DOS, if you

remember.

Also, there are other issues than system stability. Such as performance:

bigger is not always faster - especially not if the data structures and algorithms

are optimised for a much smaller cache. Imagine how long it might take to search

half a GB of data for a random disk block if done inefficiently - imagine searching

the whole cache only to find that you have to read the block(s) from disk -

imagine how fragmented a typical file system is... How the data is organised

and accessed can make a great difference.

But I'm only speculating. Has anyone actually tested?

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