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Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM


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Welcome to MSFN! :hello:

 

You want a machine to recognize and use up to 1152 MiB, you can do it just with tweaking on 98SE. You want it to actually recognize and use more you've got two options: buy RLoew RAM Limitation Patch (then you can go up to somewhat less than 4 GiB) or upgrade to ME (then you can go up to just somewhat less than 2 GiB, but for free). There are no other ways.

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Welcome to MSFN! :hello:

 

You want a machine to recognize and use up to 1152 MiB, you can do it just with tweaking on 98SE. You want it to actually recognize and use more you've got two options: buy RLoew RAM Limitation Patch (then you can go up to somewhat less than 4 GiB) or upgrade to ME (then you can go up to just somewhat less than 2 GiB, but for free). There are no other ways.

 

Hi & thanks! I think I know why there are 2 RAM sticks - one @1GB and 1@512... probably (all that time ago) I knew about this problem & used the one 512mb stick for installing. Ah, well, at least my memory is working again on this problem; it's fun!

 

For what I want to run, more than 1GB is way way overkill and not needed (as I have killed the XP install to make it a pure 98se box)

 

Now, I must do something about that clanking, "flying-saucer whirring" HDD. *seeks trusty Ghost boot disk*

Edited by relayer
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Reporting back in... I'd forgotten how stubborn Win98 could be about IRQs... several hours later, I got the Soundblaster 128 (an Ensoniq/software card) and the new (for me) ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW to work at the same time. Hoping to find a real Blaster on eBay as I have two ISA slots on the board.

 

Also got the USB 2.0 working with the Win9x_USB_2_0_support_33e package. Had it on an old jumpdrive, so copied it in 1.0 then removed those drivers; rebooted and installed the 2.0 and it worked like a charm.

 

I did NOT like the Unofficial 98 SSP3 - it did some tricky things with policies and I quit fighting it and reformatted and reinstalled. I like the Autopatcher for Win98se SP2 Full package although this machine will not be connected to the Internet & a lot of the patches were for security. Saved me tons of time tracking down patches.

 

Managed to find two "brand-new" sealed-box WD 80GB EIDE HDDs. Although S.M.A.R.T. tells me the 14-yr-old WD 6GB & the 10-yr-old WD 40GB are in good condition, I'm taking no chances. Mirroring both machines onto new drives.

 

Excuse me now while I go fly a plane with my cool joystick and pedals :D

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Okay, so I'm on the fence with this one and I'm thinking about purchasing RLoew's RAM patch. I'm currently sitting at 1GB as it is and my motherboard can support 2GBs maximum. I really don't do much with the computer except for working with MS Office, IRC, Project 64, and a bit of internet browsing. So what I want to know is, would I honestly benefit from having the extra gig installed with the patch or will it basically be a worthless upgrade? I feel trying to locate 2GBs of DDR RAM and being able to test it out for only 10 minutes at a time wouldn't suit my fancy so maybe a few others who have this installed would be able to help me out here.

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The thing that changed most for me is working with pictures (using software like PrintShop Pro and LView). In all other things I usually do it was less noticeable. But my setup is peculiar since, having 3 GiB, I ended up allocating 1.5 GiB for windows and the other 1.5 GiB for a huge RAMDisk (only feasible with RLoew's non-XMS RAMDisk), in which I put the TEMP directory, and things like the Temporary Internet Files, Cookies and History, and all the things I'd like to go away on reboot. Then again, there's another aspect: Win 98SE becomes way more stable (crashes less) after adding RLoew's RAM Limitation Patch. That is quite noticeable for a day-to-day user, but may elude the casual user. VMM.VxD's memory management is not just fixed, but actually improved by RLoew's patch, in my experience. And the patch is not that expensive... what's the actual cost of one single hamburger (not cheeseburger) at the McDonald's nearest to you?

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Hear hear!

I've never regretted buying the RAM Limitation Patch.

It not only allowed Windows 98 to cope with huge amounts of memory, but made it an enormous amount more stable too.

I can almost count the number of BSODs I've had since installing it on the fingers of one hand, far better than it ever was before.

:)

Edited by Dave-H
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Hey, thanks for the information you two. I don't know how to answer your last question Dencorso since I stopped eating fast food about 5 years ago but I imagine it's a bit up there these days. I really would like to max out my Win98 machine as much as I can and maybe even start using it more as a main machine instead of a secondary one since it takes less power being a Pentium 4 as opposed to Athlon 64 X2. RLoew seems awesome as hell when it comes to making 9x a lot better so probably soon I will take the dive in and get the patch. I remember when I ran Windows 98 in 2002 with only 384MBs of RAM, seems quite paltry now. lol

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And the patch is not that expensive... what's the actual cost of one single hamburger (not cheeseburger) at the McDonald's nearest to you?

Some of us don't earn much...nor have good exchange rates...

Maybe make it free in the next 5 years?

Edited by MrMateczko
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(Which compares well with the more realistic 52.14 weeks per year,40h per week of work and US$7.25 per hour, which gives US$15120.60) .

Now, with Brazilian 13 months and Sao Paulo's US$370.00 per month, we'd have US$4810.00 per year. Then the buts begin: but the Big Mac Index (by applying it, the US$4810.00 is reduced by 35% to account to the higher costs here, becoming US$3126.50), but the Gini Coefficient and but the unemployment rate (6.0% in 2011). And Brazil has about 2/3 of the US population.

Just to keep up to date, the situation here has remained about the same (or improved minimally, if one wants to be optmistic): What then were US$3126.50, now became US$3589.50... (about 15% real gain after two years, that's not bad you'll say!)... I'll check the new Gini Coefficient and the unemployment rate and add that info later. Also it's really worth it to give a look at the new, interactive, at The Economist's Big Mac Index page. :yes:

 

The situation in Brazil didn't change much from the described above, till now. People earn about one fifth of what they'd earn in the US, and computer hardware costs about thrice their price in the US...

 

Maybe make it free in the next 5 years?

 

I wouldn't count on that.

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I actually purchased the patch last night and Mr. Loew delivered it last night to my email. He's a very pleasant person to work with and honest so no worries about him taking your money and running. I have the patch installed but I do not have RAM that will push my 98 machine past 1GB yet so that's on order. So I want to know, will I need to mess around with vcache and maxfilecache with the RAM patch or no?

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And the patch is not that expensive... what's the actual cost of one single hamburger (not cheeseburger) at the McDonald's nearest to you?

Some of us don't earn much...nor have good exchange rates...

Maybe make it free in the next 5 years?

I don't think McDonalds will ever make their hamburgers free.

@Tommy You don't need to set MaxFileCache when using my Patch in most cases.

You can still use MaxFileCache to lower it further as needed or use the /C option to set the maximum lower permanently. If you do a lot of writing to USB Keys, you may want to set it low.

The minimum is 40MB of Cache per Gigabyte of RAM.

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So I want to know, will I need to mess around with vcache and maxfilecache with the RAM patch or no?

 

No. That's the beauty of the RAM Limitation Patch - no more such fiddling is required. You install it and go on about using your system. I would do away with any such entries once the patch is in use.

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OTOH, even if not explicitly needed by Tommy's setup, I'd install the RAM Limitation Patch with the /M command-line option. It's harmless if unneeded, but I'll be already there if ever needed, and provides yet some more improvement to the memory management. BTW, there's no need to wait for the new RAM stick. Install the patch right away. It'll make your system stabler starting now. When the stick arrives, you can then add it, and it'll just work. [WARNING: It goes without saying that, of course, when adding the new stick, you must turn off the machine and, preferably, remove the cord from the wall socket, just to be sure, and then still wait for at least one minute for any caps to discharge, before adding/replacing hardware, as always.]

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Thanks for all the help, guys! Dencorso, I actually have installed the patch already and I hopped down to my local computer shop just to see if they would have any 1GB DDR sticks but sadly, they didn't. But I might have a computer downstairs that I can try out with it that has 4 slots since I have plenty of 512MB modules. I didn't use the /M switch but I can always go back and fix that. I'm excited to have more than 1GB of RAM on Windows 98. I have a HP Media Center Pavilion that this could possibly work out on. I rescue many Pentium 4 and even a few very early Dual Core computers from the local computer shop and take them home instead of watching them go for recycle. But the sad thing is, many of them only have 2 slots on the motherboard which makes them hard to push past 1GB unless you have the 1GB sticks.

 

Also about your disclaimer, I also unplug the machine from the wall and hold down the power button to help discharge the electricity going through it. It's amazing on MBs with lights on them, how long they'll stay lit, even after you pull the power cord.

Edited by Tommy
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