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From: mcastle@mcs213f.cs.umr.edu (Mike Castle {Nexus})
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Need More DOS Memory!
Message-ID: <2248@umriscc.isc.umr.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 91 07:10:21 GMT
References: <24473@netcom.COM> <22256@hydra.gatech.EDU>
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In article <22256@hydra.gatech.EDU> ccastdf@prism.gatech.EDU (Dave) writes:
>Finally, there are many utilities you can use to increase YOUR memory.  I think
>hram1.zip on simtel would be your best bet.  It can give you up to around
>900k if things go right.  It requires EMS.

Well, a friend of mine has, from a straight C:\> something on the order of
637K free for a program.  How did he do this?  Lots of experimenting.

His current setup is:  386/33 w/ 4Megs, DOS 3.3 (important), Hercules monochrome
card (important), QEMM 5.11 (nice).

First, DOS 4.00 eats up a LOT more memory than does 3.3.  The best that I can
do is 550k free.  I've considered down-dating from 4.0 to 3.3, but haven't 
really decided yet.  This is my first "private" computer, and it came with 4.0,
so I don't have enough experience with 3.3 to see if I would miss any features.

Second, having a lower quality video card, certain memory managers can "steal"
the memory mapped to the card, and "give" it to DOS.  hram, I believe, and do
this with Hercules and CGA, I believe.  I'm not sure about EGA, and VGA is 
right out (from what I remember from looking at the package, anyway).  QEMM 
comes with a program called VIDRAM which can do the same thing.  It can,     
however, steal memory from VGA, but you can nolonger do hi-res (if any) 
graphics.  You make your choice.

QEMM (and vram, which can be obtain from the same place as hram (yes, same 
people wrote them)) can allow you to load device drivers and tsr's into
high memory (actually, not sure if it's vram or not, but it's in one of the
to packages.  Just look for similiar names).  This can sometimes free up a 
significant amount of memory for dos apps.

Some thing else you might want to look at might be DRDos from Digital Research.
There have been a few write ups in recent issues of PC Magazine and PC/Computing
that you might like to read (PCMag v10n3, 12feb1991; PC/Computing v3n10 oct90).
DRDos has the ability to load part of itself into high memory, as well as tsrs
and drivers, with out the need for other memory managers (this is from memory,
if you want the details, read the articles).  I'm not sure how compatible this
is (this is a REPLACEMENT for MS-DOS, not something that goes ontop of it) or 
what kind of hardware requirements there are.

Of course, MS-DOS 5.0 is supposed to have some of these features, plus some.
Then again, it may just be vapor-ware.

The hram/vram packages are available on Simtel-20 and clones in the SYSUTL
directories, if your interested in looking at those.

I know I haven't given too many specifics, but I hope I've given you some things
to look into.  Again, PCMag and PC/Computing have been having quite a few
articles on this kind of stuff, so you might stop at you local libary and 
look at some of the more recent (last 4 months) issues.  I'm sure other mags
have similiar articles.

Disclaimer:  I don't work for either mag, they're just the only 2 I receive 
             (actually, the only 2 Ed had to offer :-).

Good luck!
-- 
Mike Castle (Nexus) S087891@UMRVMA.UMR.EDU (preferred)       | XEDIT: Emacs
                mcastle@mcs213k.cs.umr.edu (unix mail-YEACH!)| on a REAL
Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly, and be right | operating
all the time, or not work at all, and be right twice a day.  | system. :->