Jump to content

Running Windows 9X/ME with over 4GB RAM installed WITHOUT using Windows System Files Patching or Tweaking


98SE

Recommended Posts


7 hours ago, ragnargd said:

lol. Or FIRST use your patch on NVidia-cards to use their full Memory, THEN install them. X * 2.

I was assuming 512MB Video Cards that don't need my nVidia Patch such as the 7200.

8GiB, 16GiB, 32GiB etc. are the same as 4GiB as far as Windows 9x is concerned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 18.8.2017 at 3:47 PM, 98SE said:

As interesting as it would be to start that thread now which is not on the priority list at the moment until MSFN can be salvaged first.  I have another project AM4 with XP and possibly 98SE that would need to be solved as if AMD can't install them and work properly then it will be Intel going forward for backward compatibility. 

I feel that given the impending doom of MSFN < 1 Month I have another idea to try and raise funding for 1 year of keeping MSFN up as being more vital than worrying about getting the XP xHCI drivers first.

On the subject of 9X/ME, have you, Dencorso or anyone else been successful at getting 98SE installed on a system with over 512MB without using a commercial RAM patchBasically a 98SE system with more than 1GB or more of memory installed and installing Windows 98SE from scratch and completing the setup process.  No tweaking of the Windows .INI files and absolutely no patching of the Windows VMMs or any other Windows system files?

 

And if this has been done who has done it? And on what systems?

Has it also been done (with the same above requirements) for these memory capacities installed:

2GB

4GB

8GB

16GB

32GB

64GB

128GB or higher?

Let's get back to your topic.

I use no other w9x operating system than W98SE (ME and W95 allowing a bit more memory, afaik, even though RAM plus swapfile never allow usage above 3.5 GB, no matter what, which RLoews patch is no able to break -at least he said so, if i did not get him wrong).

I never used a (aka THE RLoew ) commercial patch for all my systems, instead using W98IOPAT.EXE/HIMEMX.EXE (<-- i learned this is not Ushers method... mea culpa...), which is working for any amount of memory (i borrowed 64GB and put it into an ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 board to prove it), limiting memory for W98SE to 1GB, which is good enough for all my gaming needs.

The most memory i got stable out-of-the-box on W98SE was (and is) 1.5 GB, always on older systems using DDR400 having 3 or 4 memory slots.

When i put in 2GB on those DDR400 systems, things started to get shaky, depending on the mobo and applications used, also i could install, and the system basically booted. I never owned more that 2 * 1GB and 2 * 512MB of DDR400 memory, and my systems never supported more than that (so for the famous ConRoe865PE i would have to buy some to get to 4GB).

On boards since Intel P35 chipset, and VIA 880 <xyz>, putting in more than 1GB of Ram had my systems hang either during installation, or when i installed a graphics driver latest, so since then i used W98iOPAT.EXE/HIMEMX.EXE (which, also not widely known, is measurably faster than himem.sys on many occasions).

You probably know the thread:

So, taking the hard ~3.5 GB barrier as a technical limit of the 16bit/32bit hybrid architecture of all w9x systems, and all known tricks just making us get closer to that limit on our systems, while all the same using the same tricks allows us to (theoretically) use systems with any amount of memory, as long as we mask it to w9x ...

... i basically do not understand, what is it you want to achieve?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no 3.5GiB hard limit.

32-Bit RAM is limited to less than 4GiB due to MMIO space reserved at the top of RAM. I have a Motherboard that allows up to 3776MiB.

I have remapped RAM and gotten 98SE to run with 4094MiB.

Most Motherboards and Video Card combinations set the limit between 2.5GiB and 3.5GiB.

Maximum RAM plus Swap is limited to 4GiB, unless RAM is less than 2GiB, as the Swap File is limited to 2GiB. This assumes the Swap is not on a 32-Bit RAMDisk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyway, in practice, without the RAM Limitation Patch (and possibly some other RLoew's patches too, in case the board be relatively new), the limit is about 1.5 GiB RAM, as my list clearly shows (and, by now, I do believe the few reports of > 1.5 GiB RAM without the RAM Limitation Patch may not be really stable, at all, just undertested).
The method you use, @ragnargd, is xRayeR's... It relies on the fact that HIMEMX.EXE hides the XMS memory from windows. Then again, as soon as that RAM is really used, as in filling a XMS Ramdisk, the system will "crash 'n burn", so to say. RLoew has explained it in much more detail in various of his older posts, but, in a nutshell, that's it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I took out my pocket-calculator and my informatics ABC, and, yes, i easily admit the thing about "amount of RAM" is of course right.

This was just lazy me ignoring the effect of RAM-eating graphic-cards (as the limiting factor in practice) before the "theoretical" side.

Bear with me... :angel

@98SE

Still, now, even more that the theoretical maximum and the practical side is equally sorted out, i just don't understand where listing those data might get us to.

(My problem is, i assume, that my command of the english language is still too low to get the fine nuances.)

What I DO think is, that a more detailed listing, is i.e. @ruthan did for the 865 sort of boards, would be of great help for old and new users alike, as everyone has its specific needs, and in the end, besides the patches, it all boiles down to the right choice of $things... Perhaps in the new stickied topic about "Modern Mainboards" started by @Tommy a more detailed approach could get us there?

(and yes, ethusiastic new users like ruthan and 98SE missed some discussions and therefore attempted things and started discussions that were already closed books for the old boys, but yeah, at least i still get occasionally overwhelmed by the treasures of MSFN hoarded in one big unsorted dragon-heap of gold sooo big the arkane jewel can easily get lost... unless you are a dragon... and even then... :hello:)

Edited by ragnargd
98SE isn't a "new" user by any means - i did't mean that, but that's what comes up when stupid people write in a foreign language...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ragnargd said:

I took out my pocket-calculator and my informatics ABC, and, yes, i easily admit the thing about "amount of RAM" is of course right.

This was just lazy me ignoring the effect of RAM-eating graphic-cards (as the limiting factor in practice) before the "theoretical" side.

Bear with me... :angel

@98SE

Still, now, even more that the theoretical maximum and the practical side is equally sorted out, i just don't understand where listing those data might get us to.

(My problem is, i assume, that my command of the english language is still too low to get the fine nuances.)

What I DO think is, that a more detailed listing, is i.e. @ruthan did for the 865 sort of boards, would be of great help for old and new users alike, as everyone has its specific needs, and in the end, besides the patches, it all boiles down to the right choice of $things... Perhaps in the new stickied topic about "Modern Mainboards" started by @Tommy a more detailed approach could get us there?

(and yes, ethusiastic new users like ruthan and 98SE missed some discussions and therefore attempted things and started discussions that were already closed books for the old boys, but yeah, at least i still get occasionally overwhelmed by the treasures of MSFN hoarded in one big unsorted dragon-heap of gold sooo big the arkane jewel can easily get lost... unless you are a dragon... and even then... :hello:)

Just for the sake of this thread (which by the way was not created by me but my messages were consolidated and put into this new thread).

Anything above 512MB using 98SE without any commercial Program or commercial Ram patch or modifying the .INIs or any of the Windows system files found in the Windows 98 installation folder.  Those are the only requirements.  But I've been able to test 8GB now so if any updates on 8GB or higher stable methods with the above requirements are met you can also list those users.

I'm focusing on the Z68 and higher chipsets since most 9X/ME users are below this have been proven to work already using DDR2 which is easier to use the 512MB memory chip trick and possibly add an additional 64MB up to 256MB memory chip without stability issues.  So all AGP graphics cards aren't going to be possible on these except PCIe and PCI based graphics cards.

Stability is the key to ensuring the method is fool proof and not just being able to boot into 98SE as it if crashes then it would be a pointless method. So if you're seeing Windows error pop ups booting into 98SE's desktop that is a sign it failed.

So if anyone has any recommended "stability" testing programs or methods I will apply them to see if they pass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 20/08/2017 at 0:30 PM, 98SE said:

Anything above 512MB using 98SE without any commercial Program or commercial Ram patch or modifying the .INIs or any of the Windows system files found in the Windows 98 installation folder.

Yes, i have that.

First Machine:

CPU: Intel Pentium III 450MHz

Mobo:Abit BH6 v1.1

RAM:768MB SDRAM

GPU: Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 PRO

Sound: SB AWE64 Gold

HDD: Samsung 20GB

 

Second Machine:

CPU: AMD Sempron 2400

Mobo: Matsonic MS8167C v7.0

RAM: 1GB DDR400 @333

GPU: GeForce 6800GT 256MB AGP

Sound: CMI8738SX 4-ch

HDD: Maxtor 120GB

 

Third Machine:

CPU: Intel Core2duo E6400

Mobo: ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA

RAM: 1GB DDR400 (2x512 - Dual Channel)

GPU: GeForce 7800GT 256MB PCIE

Sound: Sound Blaster Live! SB 100

HDD: WD 640GB SATA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first Machine is passable as far as RAM is concerned.

The truly unmodified RAM limit is not 512MiB as Microsoft says. It is around 768MiB, more or less, depending on how many DOS Boxes you want to open at the same time and type of Video Card Driver.

The Second and Third Machine need the File Cache to be limited to be stable. How is this implemented?

The Third Machine also needs a Patched Hard Disk Driver to work with more than 137GB of the 640GB Drive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You didn't set the Maximum File Cache, either in SYSTEM.INI, in the Control Panel, or by other means?

If you didn't, can you open more than a few DOS Boxes

If you are referring to the original generic VIA RAID Driver that claimed >137GB Support, it has a bug in it that can cause a specific block of Sectors to appear bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, rloew said:

can you open more than a few DOS Boxes

Let me please reformulate this question: tell us please how many DOS Boxes can you open before getting a Fata Exception 0E, and when you eventually do get it, in which VxD does it happen?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought we talk about Windows.

If I'd care about DOS i would install DOS.

Usually i don't need more then one dos box, maybe two or trhee sometimes and that's perfectly stable.

Anyway, i will test it, later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...