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From: tanida@forseti.css.gov (Tom Tanida)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: Using Extended Memory for Expanded Memory
Message-ID: <683@esosun.UUCP>
Date: 10 Apr 91 17:08:38 GMT
References: <14235@hacgate.UUCP> <1991Apr8.000814.1146@saturn.uucp> <1991Apr9.023303.6000@pimacc.pima.edu>
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Reply-To: tanida@forseti.css.gov (Tom Tanida)
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In-reply-to: ppugliese@pimacc.pima.edu

In article <1991Apr9.023303.6000@pimacc.pima.edu>, ppugliese@pimacc writes:
>In article <1991Apr8.000814.1146@saturn.uucp>, martin@saturn.uucp (Martin J. Schedlbauer) writes:
>> In article <14235@hacgate.UUCP> ferris@tcville.HAC.COM () writes:
>>>
>>>Wing Command has some additional functions only available through
>>>expanded memory, and I'd like to get at them, but I don't have expanded
>>>memory, I have extended memory.  The manual mentions setting up your
>>>extended memory to emulate expanded memory to get around this.
>> 
>> If you have a 386 and more than 1MB of memory you can use one of several
>> Memory Managers. MSDOS 4.01 and Windows 3.0 supply EMM386.SYS to do that.
>> QEMM from Quarterdeck and other commercial memory managers for the 386
>> allow you also to convert all extended to LIM 4.0 expanded memory. In
>> addition they also let you load TSR into memory outside the regular 640k
>> of DOS given you more 'conventional' memory.
>> 
>> If you have a 286 you'll need a expanded memory board - sorry :(
>> 

>There are also expanded memory emulators for 286 machines. One such is called
>TURBO-EMS & will even let you emulate expanded memory on disk! I cant remember
>the publisher though. PHIL


The problem I had with my 286-12 (4 Mb) was that it was just too damn slow
trying to emulate expanded memory.  I used the expanded memory
emulator available in the 2nd Edition of PC Power Tools by PC
Magazine.  This is a TSR that takes over 64K (to provide a
simulated 64K bank of expanded mem).  Hence, in order to get Wing
Commander's full potential, I had to unload all TSRs except this one,
reboot DOS 3.3 with a line in the CONFIG.SYS reading 'buffers=8'
(which caused it to intensively access the hard drive as it loaded)
just to barely reach (by about 20 bytes or so) the 580K minimum for
WC's full music/graphics.

The problem is that the music ran OK, but the game's title screen ran
incredibly slow (it'd take a good 10 seconds to draw *one* frame).   I
can't even imagine a 386 running at 3 times the speed still being
reasonable unless it uses a different method in it's emulation- but
most of the emulators I've seen do the same thing.  So for a 286, I'd say
forget it for sure.  I looked into expanded memory boards as somebody
at Origin told me that WC II would not support extended memory either
(I think Origin ought to think twice about supporting only expanded
memory in the age of protected mode), but they were a bit pricey just
for a game (then again, that what's I got my AdLib for).
  
-Tom