DOS Games Discussion

[Obi-Juan]

Hi, all.

Last night I finally took the plunge and created a DOS 6.22 and XP Pro dual-boot system with an extra box I had laying around. Everything is fine except that in the 15 or so years since I last messed with DOS, I've forgotten how to free up EMS memory. I searched the forums before posting, but it seems like each issue is unique.

Below you'll find my autoexec.bat and config.sys files. I welcome any and all comments, since memmaker.exe isn't giving me what I need.

Autoexec.bat
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /L
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS

LH /L:2,27952 MSCDEX /D:IDECD000

Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM AUTO X=D400-D7FF
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=30
DOS=UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
FCBS=4,0
DEVICEHIGH /L:2,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DOS=HIGH
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /p

DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE.SYS /D:IDECD000 /UDMA /Q

I tried setting a few of the DEVICEs to DEVICEHIGH, but that didn't seem to help. Please, I'm at 582k but need to eak out just a bit more!

Thanks,
Steve

[dosraider]

[Obi-Juan]

I had a feeling I didn't need Smartdrive. Thanks, I'll give that a shot and let you know.

[dosraider]

Also :
replace your CDdriver with one of those, they are very small and swell working:
cddrivers.zip - 0.04MB

There are 4 drivers in the zip, put them in c:\dos\, that's how to configure them:
Config.sys:
DEVICEHIGH=c:\dos\cd1.SYS /D:banana

If CD1.SYS doesn't work,
change to
cd2.sys
cd3.sys
or cd4.sys
But cd1.sys works with 99.99% of the drives.


Autoexec.bat:
LH c:\dos\mscdex.exe /D:banana /L:D

[Obi-Juan]

Ok, I've made the following changes, though I wonder if I was too literal:

Autoexec.bat
rem C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /L
rem @ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L:D
rem MSCDEX /D:IDECD000

Config.sys
rem DEVICE=C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048 /verbose
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=30
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
FCBS=4,0
rem DEVICEHIGH /L:2,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
rem DOS=HIGH
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /p
rem DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE.SYS /D:IDECD000 /UDMA /Q

DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D:IDECD000 /D:banana

Mem.txt
Modules using memory below 1 MB:

Name Total = Conventional + Upper Memory
-------- ---------------- ---------------- ----------------
MSDOS 14,301 (14K) 14,301 (14K) 0 (0K)
HIMEM 1,120 (1K) 1,120 (1K) 0 (0K)
EMM386 4,144 (4K) 4,144 (4K) 0 (0K)
CD1 28,880 (28K) 28,880 (28K) 0 (0K)
COMMAND 2,928 (3K) 2,928 (3K) 0 (0K)
MSCDEX 27,952 (27K) 0 (0K) 27,952 (27K)
Free 619,776 (605K) 603,904 (590K) 15,872 (16K)

Memory Summary:

Type of Memory Total = Used + Free
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Conventional 655,360 51,456 603,904
Upper 43,824 27,952 15,872
Reserved 0 0 0
Extended (XMS) 66,999,504 275,664 66,723,840
---------------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Total memory 67,698,688 355,072 67,343,616

Total under 1 MB 699,184 79,408 619,776

Largest executable program size 603,808 (590K)
Largest free upper memory block 10,960 (11K)
MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

[dosraider]

Not brilliant, but that's the best you will get with EMS memory.

You could make a startup menu:

Config.sys:

[MENU]
menuitem=NOEMS, Standard, no EMS
menuitem=NOCD, No CD no EMS
menuitem=EMS, EMS enabled
menudefault=NOEMS,20

[NOEMS]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=30
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
REM FCBS=4,0
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /p
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D:IDECD000 /D:banana

[NOCD]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=30
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
REM FCBS=4,0
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /p
REM DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D:IDECD000 /D:banana


[EMS]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048
BUFFERS=10,0
FILES=30
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=E
REM FCBS=4,0
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /p
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\CD1.SYS /D:IDECD000 /D:banana


Autoexec:


PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\;C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
goto %config%
:NOEMS
:EMS
LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L:D
Goto end

:NOCD
REM LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L:D
goto end

:end
mem

With the NOEMS startup you should get something as:

EMS takes a lot of upper mem blocks.
The menudefault=NOEMS,20 gives you 20 secs to choose , rem that out if you want.
So when you don't need it, use the NOEMS option.
Alsdo REM the FCBS, it's rarely a dosprog needs those, should you get an error, simply un-REM it.
Also make a c:\temp to use as ... temp dir -_-

Damn that was long ago I made a startup menu, hope I didn't screw up....

[Edit]
BTW,
No mouse?
No sound?

[Obi-Juan]

Oh yeah, sound drivers! I kept forgetting about them because the TIE Demo kept saying it didn't have enough memory for music and speech. I"ll work on that and post as needed.

EDIT:

Hrmm, this was an old spare case and apparently it has onboard sound. If I'm reading things correctly, it's an SIS AC97 setup. Guess I need to check BIOS for legacy support?

[dosraider]

Sound Blaster Legacy emulation and AC97?
........... Ough, good luck with that, you gonna need it.

[Swede78]

I stumbled upon a really really great musician named Ronald Jenkees recently. Listening to his music, I was reminded of Purple Motion's music from way back in the day when I loved to watch "DEMOS". I found these demos again, but they don't run on my modern computer (XP Pro).

I was wondering if anyone's gotten these to work lately? They're 15 years old, and this post reminded me of all the trouble and fun I went through tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat so that they would have enough memory to run.

Is it possible to run these demos without going as far as loading DOS???

Thanks,
Swede

[Swede78]

aahhh ha. I should've known to look at you tube. You can find all the demos there. It'd still be nice to have the real demo running at full screen on a computer with power.

[dosraider]

On XP it depends of your hardware, if you have an onboard soundchip:
Dosbox or VDMSound to get sound in dosprogs.
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