[cnelson14]

I have been using the UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack (not sure of version) from exuberant software on 2 home computers for a couple years. For Christmas my brother got some computer money and wants to upgrade from 512 MB of ram to at least 1 gig.

I searched the forums but didn't find a definitive answer saying that this could be done. But I did notice on the main page "http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html" that one of the first featured bullet is "Solves 512 MB of RAM problem."

Could someone give me a definitive answer as to whether UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 2.1a will support at least 1 gig of ram, and if so what is the maximum amount of ram that it will support?

Thanks,
Cee Nelson

[krick]

cnelson14, on Dec 28 2005, 04:59 PM, said:

Could someone give me a definitive answer as to whether UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 2.1a will support at least 1 gig of ram, and if so what is the maximum amount of ram that it will support?

I'm running 768MB of RAM [which is the most my motherboard supports] with no problems at all.

I've heard of people successfully using 1GB and I think I saw someone claim 1.5GB. Anything more and you're probably pushing it.

Supposedly, the theoretical limit is 4GB but I seriously doubt that will work since consumer level motherboards that could accept 4GB of memory simply didn't exist when Win98SE was developed so there was no way to test it.

Keep in mind that your results may vary depending on the quality of the motherboard, the particular chipset used on the motherboard, and the quality of the chipset drivers.

[randiroo76073]

I'm running 1gb & have run 1.5gb[borrowed a 1gb stick from friend], am currently trying to save enough up to get to 2gb, some people in this forum say that they successfully run 2gb all the time. For more info on what people say go to post: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=60251&st=30 and read , vcache setting has alot to do with running over 512mbs ram along w/your set. See my specs in signature

This post has been edited by randiroo76073: 28 December 2005 - 07:28 PM

[cnelson14]

Thank you both.

As for my system specs I am running an AMD 2700, Abit NFS-S2G motherboard which supports up to 2GB. I believe first we will buy 1 stick of 1 GB ram, maybe in the future we will buy another stick.

Thanks,
Cee Nelson

[LLXX]

krick, on Dec 28 2005, 05:46 PM, said:

I'm running 768MB of RAM [which is the most my motherboard supports] with no problems at all.

I've heard of people successfully using 1GB and I think I saw someone claim 1.5GB. Anything more and you're probably pushing it.

2Gb with borrowed RAM for 3 months with no problem here I'm going to see if I can borrow another gig and try 3GB, since that's what my mobo claims to support.

Quote

Supposedly, the theoretical limit is 4GB but I seriously doubt that will work since consumer level motherboards that could accept 4GB of memory simply didn't exist when Win98SE was developed so there was no way to test it.

The addressing limit of every CPU since the i386 was 4Gb, but the design of the PC architecture limits it to approximately 3Gb of physical memory. The upper 1 Gb is reserved for I/O ports and other miscellaneous items.

You don't need the unofficial service pack to work with lots of RAM - it's all in the MaxFileCache setting. A stock install of 98se will work as long as you set MaxFileCache=524288 or less.

[pykor]

Re: Maximum memory for W98
________________________________________________
philo wrote:
> a machine running win98 should be able to accept 1.5 gigs of ram...
> or possibly 2 gigs

That may sound good on paper but is an inaccurate assumption in todays world,
and the current day truth is that W9x is just not designed to handle more than 1
GB of ram.

That 1.5 & 2 GB assumption was often repeated from the old school of thought
where at the time they did not even have the hardware to even test that theory,
but now that we do and it's been shown over and over that old school assumption
is essentially just not true. I wish all the websites that repeat that phrase
would update their sites because it's just not a reality! The reality is if you
yourself or anyone took a thousand different 9x hardware setups, you won't see
many if any actually being able with any trusting stability to run 1.5 GB, and I
doubt you will ever see one run with 2 GB of RAM at all on a W98 machine. In
reality 99.999% of the time 1 GB is the best you can do with any piece of mind
and stability with W98, and so my advice is not to go exceed that - unless just
for testing purposes - and if you do test it's imperative to consider that you
also have complete OS partition backups for a way out of what can result out of
that instability.

1 GB of ram in 9x needs a system.ini edit to match this:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache=512000

...also for any tech wanting to test more than 1 GB of ram will need to also edit
the system.ini file to prevent windows from attempting to use more than 1 GB of
the total ram with this:

[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000

...so why even bother if you can't use it! ..unless of course you are
multi-booting on the same MB and want to use more than 1GB in W2K/WXP
I personally don't recommend more than 1GB for 9x no matter what though ..go
ahead though and try it <g>


Lots of this is covered at these other websites, but again if it's listed on any
websites pay no serious mind who advises to use 1.5 & 2 GB on 9x.
Here is some good talk about the subject though at these websites:
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#64mb
&
http://aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.htm

Rick

________________________________________________
NOTE: Info above extracted from this website

[LLXX]

pykor, on Dec 29 2005, 01:03 AM, said:

Re: Maximum memory for W98

...The reality is if you
yourself or anyone took a thousand different 9x hardware setups, you won't see
many if any actually being able with any trusting stability to run 1.5 GB, and I
doubt you will ever see one run with 2 GB of RAM at all on a W98 machine. In
reality 99.999% of the time 1 GB is the best you can do with any piece of mind
and stability with W98, and so my advice is not to go exceed that - unless just
for testing purposes - and if you do test it's imperative to consider that you
also have complete OS partition backups for a way out of what can result out of
that instability.

You are very wrong. If you read my previous post you would've seen that I was able to, for 3 months, run 2Gb of RAM on a (nearly) stock install of Win98se with absolutely no stability problems.

Quote

1 GB of ram in 9x needs a system.ini edit to match this:
[vcache]MaxFileCache=512000

The official value recommended by Microsoft, and the one which works perfectly well, is 524288 = 512 * 1024.

Quote

...also for any tech wanting to test more than 1 GB of ram will need to also edit
the system.ini file to prevent windows from attempting to use more than 1 GB of
the total ram with this:

[386enh]MaxPhysPage=40000

Why not just physically remove the RAM? That has the same effect - namely, making the area above 1Gb non-existent. What we are concerned with is whether or not Windows will use more than 1Gb, and in my experience it is definitely possible.

[randiroo76073]

Pykor, I'm not suggesting it can be done, I've done it and I can tell you it will run just fine on 1.5gb. LLXX says he has run 2gb, so its possible that far.

LLXX, I'll be interested to know if it'll go to 3gb, my current mobo will only handle 2gb but will be nice to know for future

[pykor]

Whoa!! Don't shoot the messenger ... as you will note .....

pykor, on Dec 29 2005, 02:03 AM, said:

NOTE: Info above extracted from this website

I just copied the info from another website page ... also known as Cut & Paste.

Interesting to see reactions to what he wrote both there ... and here.

[cnelson14]

I just installed the ram. A 1 gig stick of PC3200 with timings of 3-4-4-8, single channel. Booted up the computer windows loaded fine. Tried to open a game to see if the system was stable and it wasn't. Game crashed and windows froze, rebooted and tried the same thing, again a crash but system didn't freeze.

Then I changed some setting on my system.ini file. Modified [vcache] to include MaxFileCache=524288. Reboot and the same problems occurred. Then lowered "MaxFileCache=524288" to "MaxFileCache=524200" I did this because some people recommended lowering the last value a bit. Again same problems, games crash windows stays up and running.

Lastly I checked
[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000
under the system.ini file. Reboot, same problems.


I am running windows 98SE modified with UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 2.1a from exuberant software. AMD 2700, 1 gig of ram PC3200 single channel, 120 gig hard drive, ABIT NFS7-S2G motherboard, 400W power supply.


In the next hour I will be placing back in my two previous sticks of PC3200 256 MB ram, and seeing if the problems go away. If I can't seem to solve this problem, then it looks like I'll have to switch to XP

[LLXX]

Probably your mobo doesn't support that much RAM then... and you're using a highly modified version of 98se too... my success with 2Gb was on a nearly virgin install, with only MaxFileCache=524288 and some other customisations that have absolutely nothing to do with RAM (changed color scheme, explorer view settings and context menus...)

Are you using any Win95 system files? I know that is a common modification - to replace some Win98 components with Win95 components. That might be the cause of this as well.

[Gape]

* Try much lower MaxFileCache setting.

128 MB:

MaxFileCache=131072

* Also try to decrease AGP Aperture Size from BIOS.

Quote

This problem may occur more readily with Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) video adapters because the AGP aperture is also mapped to addresses in the system arena. For example, if Vcache is using a maximum cache size of 800 MB and an AGP video adapter has a 128-MB aperture mapped, there is very little address space remaining for the other system code and data that must occupy this range of virtual addresses.

[cnelson14]

Ok, placed back in the old ram, 2 sticks of PC3200 with 256 MB each. Everything works fine.

Note: I did not modify my system.ini file, so it is still set with
"[vcache]
MaxFileCache=524288"

and

"[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=40000"


Gape and LLXX, I'll try those fixes tomorrow.

Thanks,
Cee Nelson

This post has been edited by cnelson14: 30 December 2005 - 01:47 AM

[randiroo76073]

On a side note to Gapes reply, my mobo has onboard video thats limited to 64mb ram, I have not tried adding an AGP card to it yet as I am trying to max out my ram first[2gb]. In some of the post I have seen in other forums they are running 98se on 64bit systems, so I would have to guess that hardware also has something to do with it.

[pykor]

There is a page a Microsoft titled:
"Out of Memory" Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed

They suggest the following:

To work around this problem, use one of the following methods:

• Use the MaxFileCache setting in the System.ini file to reduce the maximum amount of memory that Vcache uses to 512 megabytes (524,288 KB) or less. For additional information about how to use the MaxFileCache setting, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  108079 32-Bit File Access Maximum Cache Size
  
• Use the System Configuration utility to limit the amount of memory that Windows uses to 512 megabytes (MB) or less.For additional information about how to use the System Configuration utility, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  181966 System Configuration Utility Advanced Troubleshooting Settings
  
• Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB or less.

Also, go into BIOS and change the AGP memory setting to 64Mb as opposed to 128MB or 256Mb


Reading this article was very interesting, and at the end has "A NOTE FOR GAMERS"

However, I found this part rather interesting....

Quote

The default value of ConservativeSwapfileUsage was 1 in Win95, and 0 in Win98 and WinME. Therefore, this recommended tweak reverts a portion of the Win98/ME improved memory management system back to the way Win95 did things. (That’s what sounded like such a bad idea at first, because Win98 or ME is generally far superior to Win95 with regard to memory management.) A valid question, though, is whether it is a good (that is, useful) idea for systems that have grown past the RAM size originally contemplated as typical when Win98 was created. For many computers, the answer seems to be: Yes, it is.

According to MS Knowledge Base article 223294

[Fiodor]

I Have Win98SE working with 2Gbt memory ram on board.
Config system.ini is:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache=292754

[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=3C0000

In this configuration Windows 98 really see 960Mbt RAM and this enough, so do not prevent load another installed operation systems.

[LLXX]

Fiodor, on Dec 31 2005, 07:13 PM, said:

I Have Win98SE working with 2Gbt memory ram on board.
Config system.ini is:
[vcache]
MaxFileCache=292754

[386enh]
MaxPhysPage=3C0000

In this configuration Windows 98 really see 960Mbt RAM and this enough, so do not prevent load another installed operation systems.

Of course that would work... you're just limiting the amount of RAM it can use.

[erpdude8]

Check out the TweakHomePC pages on tweaking Win9x systems w/ 512 Mb of RAM or more:
http://www.thpc.info/memory.html
http://www.thpc.info/ram/vcache98.html
http://www.thpc.info/ram/rammisc.html
http://www.thpc.info/ram/ramother.html

[pykor]

Which is better for a system with 2 memory slots:

A. 2 sticks of 128MB SDRAM (PC133)

B. 1 stick of 256MB SDRAM (PC133)

Is there a performance hit for the system to address both slots for the memory vs. only one slot?

As for price, I see that option B is cheaper than option A

[randiroo76073]

Less expensive is better, but it depends on mobo support of ram, if mobo will support 512mb go with 256mb[naturally] as you can always kick it to 384mb or 512mb later. Also make sure you place ram in slot 1[usually closest to cpu]