Fun with too much RAM.

[Paul Komski]

M7VIK/Athlon 1.7 using 1GB (2x512 DDR) RAM.
Radeon 7500 AGP.
No probs with my main system using dualboot 2K/XP.

IDE-0 attaches to a swap bay and I thought I'd use an old 6GB HDD to setup a multiboot of the Win9x OSes using BootMagic for training and testing purposes - using the swap bay as required.

Had to limit the amount of RAM to 512 using msconfig (advanced) in WinME in order to get the video drivers working - but that did the trick.

With Win98se, using msconfig in similar fashion, just doesnt work and one stick of RAM has to be physically removed in order to get the video drivers working. As soon as the second stick of RAM is put back in, the system screws-up or wont boot unless standard VGA is setup from safe mode. However the system still reports only 512MB installed - the limit set in msconfig just as was used with WinME.

Have also tried limiting the RAM in System.ini [vcache] MaxFileSize=40000. Thats 40MB or the max tested by Microsoft (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q108/0/79.ASP) - to no avail.

Anyone know of a software solution to limit the RAM in Win98?? I can still live with standard VGA with this setup but it would be nice to crack this nut.

BTW The correct sequence of 4in1 drivers and GART had been installed along with DirectX 8.0 from CD's that came with the hardware.

[sleddog]

What does DOS see, before Windows 98 boots? You could maybe configure a monster RAM drive, using up half of your RAM before Windows boots :)

[Paul Komski]

Nice idea - but there may be one ("monster") flaw.

It would be nice to add something like the following to Config.sys

device=himem.sys
device=d:\devices\ramdrive.sys 512000 /e

However, according to http://users.cybercity.dk/~bse26236/batutil/help/RAMDRI_S.HTM there is a max of 32767 kilobytes.

So perhaps it would have to go:-

device=himem.sys
device=c:\dos\himem.sys /numhandles=16
device=d:\devices\ramdrive.sys 32767 /e
device=e:\devices\ramdrive.sys 32767 /e
device=f:\devices\ramdrive.sys 32767 /e
.... >>
device=s:\devices\ramdrive.sys 32767 /e

Something to play with (TOMORROW) and something I have always meant to try out - LOL. ;)

[mjc]

Actually, the monster RAMdrive works very well.....just don't use the MS RAMdrive, use xmsdisk (this is a German page but the program is in English.... http://www.heise.de/ct/01/25/links/250.shtml it supports upto 4GB of RAM)

[Paul Komski]

Thanks much much mjc

Have downloaded and read the english readme. Presumably the furd19 directory is placed in the root of the C drive and the following line added to config.sys.

device=c:\furd19\xmsdsk.exe 512000

or

devicehigh=c:\furd19\xmsdsk.exe 512000

Had forgotten that, of course, windows will designate a dynamic drive letter to the drive - even though (on a first read at least) that a drive letter can be designated by using autoexec.bat in place of config.sys.

If it's all as simple as that it should be much fun.

[mjc]

Yes, that simple.....except I moved xmsdisk directly to the root and call it in Autoexec so I can assign the drive letter.

[Paul Komski]

Cant get the RAMdrive to configure from Config.sys because get "XMS manager required" error. However it does work fine from Autoexec.bat and can create a drive up to 2GB in size. A cool :cool: utility indeed.

Unfortunately neither xms (nor ems) allow the video drivers to work properly any more than limiting the RAM using msconfig did. Regardless of any RAMdrive, vcache or msconfig settings, I can only get the video to work correctly if only 512MB of physical RAM is installed.

Have tried installing drivers using just 512 and then adding 512 - in which case removing the 2nd 512 goes back to a good setup. Installing under 1024 is always bad and simply removing 512 doesnt get back the correct video until the drivers are uninstalled and reinstalled.

Have tried many combos of RAMdrive (up to 600MB) with/without the msconfig limitation and have tried various installation sequences; all to no avail. BTW, an unrelated problem is that if the RAMdrive is 600MB plus there is other system instability such as BSODs when accessing optical devices and data disks being recognised as music cds and so on!

The problem has to relate to the memory used by the AGP and may be a simple drivers or miniport problem - although they have all worked OK with WinME,2K and XP from the same installation CD. I may try some updated drivers from ATI at some point. Possibly the 7500 is just incompatible with Win98 with mucho RAM.

Thanks for the input, ideas and help anyways. I have spent enough time on a problem that I don't have to solve but would just like to understand. Of course there may well be others out there with a Win98/XP dual boot that would like to be able to use a lot of RAM and for whom a definitive answer could be helpful.

Thanks again!

[mjc]

I have had 768MB on here (couldn't keep it though, was just playing around with some RAM that needed to go elswhere) and used xmsdisk to to limit it to less than 512MB without any problems....but I am using a PCI vid card with all the AGP related stuff set to minimal or off.

It could very well be a video driver issue.

Try using just the xmsdisk to limit and have less than the 512 max for 98.....

[Paul Komski]

LOLOLOL :D :D Sorted - Would you AdamAndEve it - a bit of serendipity.

I just did a search to confirm that my math was correct that 512MB was 524288 kilobytes and came across This Page (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/printthread.php?threadid=146500) in the process.

Thus I learned that I was using the wrong line in system.ini; its not MaxFileSize but MaxFileCache under [vcache]!!!

So I set
[vcache]
MaxFileCache=261632

I kept it ultra small to be on the safe side, installed the ATI drivers, rebooted expecting the worst and everything working fine - system even booting up faster etc, etc. And with the full RAM (well 1022MB to be exact) showing up under MyComputer!

Beeeeeautiful! But I'm so glad to have discovered xmsdsk in the course of this troubleshooting. Now would it work in XP???

[Paul Komski]

Came across quite a few commercial ramdisks for XP; some of which look really interesting by loading the OS from an image file; slow boot-up obviously but then a very fast system.

However also found a freebie (RAMDISK Version 2.2 for Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows Server 2003) from compaqnet (http://users.compaqnet.be/cn181612/RAMDisk/RAMDisk.htm) and which works well (up to 64MB) on my system.

;)

Now I've got a good place for those pesky temporary internet files etc.

BTW [vcache] MaxFileCache=523264 (or 511MB) is working fine for Win98.