DOS and 4GB of RAM - MS-DOS

Anyone ever tried to run DOS 7.0 on a computer that has 4GB of RAM? It
doesn't seem to like it. Specifically, it seems to create a problem
with XMS.

SMARTDRV won't load, says not enough XMS available, MEM can't tell how
much XMS is being used, WFWG 3.11 won't start, sound card won't
initiate, etc. With only 2 GB of RAM, the problems disapear. I haven't
tried with 3GB yet.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that the graphic card memory
needs to be mapped within 4GB so if there are already 4GB of physical
memory installed, it creates a problem. Is that a reasonable
explanation?

On Jun 4, 1:06�am, Claud...@aol.com wrote:
> Anyone ever tried to run DOS 7.0 on a computer that has 4GB of RAM? It
> doesn't seem to like it. Specifically, it seems to create a problem
> with XMS.
>
> SMARTDRV won't load, says not enough XMS available, MEM can't tell how
> much XMS is being used, WFWG 3.11 won't start, sound card won't
> initiate, etc. With only 2 GB of RAM, the problems disapear. I haven't
> tried with 3GB yet.
>
> I suspect it has to do with the fact that the graphic card memory
> needs to be mapped within 4GB so if there are already 4GB of physical
> memory installed, it creates a problem. Is that a reasonable
> explanation?

Well, to partially answer my own question, it's still not good with
3GB of RAM.
It seems OK with 2.5GB of RAM, at least for SMARTDRV and WFWG 3.11.
Sound card still won't initiate though.
Odd.

> Well, to partially answer my own question, it's still not good with
> 3GB of RAM.
> It seems OK with 2.5GB of RAM, at least for SMARTDRV and WFWG 3.11.
> Sound card still won't initiate though.
> Odd.

strange that it works with 2.5 GB but not 3 GB....

On Jun 7, 4:34�am, teebo wrote:
> > Well, to partially answer my own question, it's still not good with
> > 3GB of RAM.
> > It seems OK with 2.5GB of RAM, at least for SMARTDRV and WFWG 3.11.
> > Sound card still won't initiate though.
> > Odd.
>
> strange that it works with 2.5 GB but not 3 GB....

Yes.

Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
actually pulling physical RAM out?

wrote in message news:2e1555da-22b3-4761-bdea-1f6ccda9bf15@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 7, 4:34�am, teebo wrote:
>> > Well, to partially answer my own question, it's still not good with
>> > 3GB of RAM.
>> > It seems OK with 2.5GB of RAM, at least for SMARTDRV and WFWG 3.11.
>> > Sound card still won't initiate though.
>> > Odd.
>>
>> strange that it works with 2.5 GB but not 3 GB....
>
> Yes.
>
> Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
> actually pulling physical RAM out?


Perhaps setting up a ramdrive
may work; with xmsdsk; and thus
limiting the amount of physical ram
available to DOS.

On Sat, 7 Jun 2008 14:12:17 -0700 (PDT), Claudehl@aol.com wrote:

>On Jun 7, 4:34?am, teebo wrote:
>> > Well, to partially answer my own question, it's still not good with
>> > 3GB of RAM.
>> > It seems OK with 2.5GB of RAM, at least for SMARTDRV and WFWG 3.11.
>> > Sound card still won't initiate though.
>> > Odd.
>>
>> strange that it works with 2.5 GB but not 3 GB....
>
>Yes.
>
>Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
>actually pulling physical RAM out?

Yes, but I forget what it is. IIRC it involved parameters on lines in
config.sys, perhaps in the himem line. Try google groups.

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Know1 (Know1@home.com) wrote:

> wrote:
> > Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
> > actually pulling physical RAM out?

> Perhaps setting up a ramdrive
> may work; with xmsdsk; and thus
> limiting the amount of physical ram
> available to DOS.

*** Except that DOS loads before XMSDSK.

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

On Jun 27, 3:33�am, ak...@chebucto.ns.ca (Richard Bonner) wrote:
> Know1 (Kn...@home.com) wrote:
> > wrote:
> > > Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
> > > actually pulling physical RAM out?
> > Perhaps setting up a ramdrive
> > may work; with xmsdsk; and thus
> > limiting the amount of physical ram
> > available to DOS.
>
> *** � Except that DOS loads before XMSDSK.
>
> � � � � �Richard Bonnerhttp://www..chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

With 2 GB of RAM, QEMM shows 2 GB of memory but with 4 GB, it only
shows 64 MB (but at least everything works normally). So somewhere
between 2 GB and 4 GB there must be a barrier.

Claude

Claudehl@aol.com wrote:

> On Jun 27, 3:33=EF=BF=BDam, ak...@chebucto.ns.ca (Richard Bonner) wrote:
> > Know1 (Kn...@home.com) wrote:

> > > wrote:
> > > > Is there anyway to limit how much memory is available to DOS, without
> > > > actually pulling physical RAM out?

> > > Perhaps setting up a ramdrive
> > > may work; with xmsdsk; and thus
> > > limiting the amount of physical ram
> > > available to DOS.
> >
> > *** =EF=BF=BD Except that DOS loads before XMSDSK.
> >
> > =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BDRichard Bonner

> With 2 GB of RAM, QEMM shows 2 GB of memory but with 4 GB, it only
> shows 64 MB (but at least everything works normally). So somewhere
> between 2 GB and 4 GB there must be a barrier.

> Claude

*** I would think that might be a QEMM limit. What version are you
using?

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

On Jun 4, 1:06 am, Claud...@aol.com wrote:
> Anyone ever tried to run DOS 7.0 on a computer that has 4GB of RAM? It
> doesn't seem to like it. Specifically, it seems to create a problem
> with XMS.
>
> SMARTDRV won't load, says not enough XMS available, MEM can't tell how
> much XMS is being used, WFWG 3.11 won't start, sound card won't
> initiate, etc. With only 2 GB of RAM, the problems disapear. I haven't
> tried with 3GB yet.
>
> I suspect it has to do with the fact that the graphic card memory
> needs to be mapped within 4GB so if there are already 4GB of physical
> memory installed, it creates a problem. Is that a reasonable
> explanation?

I have successfully run DOS 7.0 with 3328 MB of memory recognized by
HIMEM.SYS.

You are right, the video card memory interferes with the memory above
2 GB, and depending on how much video RAM your card has, it decreases
the available amount of DOS RAM below 4 GB by that corresponding
amount.

Does anyone know of a ramdisk for dos which supports MORE than a 2 GB
as its maximum? With 64K cluster size and FAT16, we should be able to
support up to 4 GB as a DOS ramdrive. Can anyone hack XMSDISK or
SRDISK to support 64k cluster sizes?

On Jul 14, 4:46�am, ak...@chebucto.ns.ca (Richard Bonner) wrote:

> > With 2 GB of RAM, QEMM shows 2 GB of memory but with 4 GB, it only
> > shows 64 MB (but at least everything works normally). So somewhere
> > between 2 GB and 4 GB there must be a barrier.
> > Claude
>
> *** � I would think that might be a QEMM limit. What version are you
> using?
>
> � � � � �Richard Bonnerhttp://www..chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/- Hide quoted text -
>
I believe it's QEMM 97 (9.01). It looks like there's something like
that for both DOS and QEMM, they just handle it differently.

Claude

wrote in message
news:f848e05a-9cf2-4dd3-847c-34e205539116@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

> Does anyone know of a ramdisk for dos which supports MORE than a 2 GB
> as its maximum? With 64K cluster size and FAT16, we should be able to
> support up to 4 GB as a DOS ramdrive. Can anyone hack XMSDISK or
> SRDISK to support 64k cluster sizes?

The 2GB partition limit is imposed by the maximum number of clusters and the
largest cluster size.
The size of a cluster must be a power of 2 and less than 65,536 bytes--this
results in a maximum cluster size of 32,768 bytes (32K).
Multiplying the maximum number of clusters (65,525) by the maximum cluster
size (32,768) equals 2 GB.

cheers,

Lance

Sorry for bringing up this old thread but it was still missing a real solution.

Setting up a ramdrive did not work for me, but the idea of eating mem is the right thing to do and this tool did it for me:
http://www.freora.de/downloadbereich...ownload/gid,6/

Add a call to BS_RAM9X.EXE without any arguments to the end of your autoexec.bat

The included readme.txt is in German but as I said, just run this without any args. Will give no output. Add /a to get an info screen.

Tested to work with both Win98SE and PQ DriveImage on a dualcore AMD with 4GB ram.

Regards

I can't find where to download BS_RAM9X.EXE, the site is all in German, which I don't understand.

Claude

@Claude: Use the "Translate a web page" section at http://www.google.com/language_tools

What's your setup like? If you get it to work, please post back with the exact steps you followed. Thanks!