Launching MM4

folderwin
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Launching MM4

Unread post by folderwin »

I'm trying to run MM 4, he writes to me that there is not enough memory. Who can tell what kind of memory is missing and if it is operational, can it be increased?

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Goingdown
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by Goingdown »

What is mm4? Motocross Madness? Might and Magic? Mad man? Mad Max?

Run mem /c to see how much memory you have free. Most probably game wants more conventional mem free, so you should load drivers high (himem.sys, emm386.exe, dos=high in config.sys and then decicehigh or loadhigh for all drivers).

See example https://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

folderwin
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by folderwin »

Goingdown wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 5:01 am

What is mm4? Motocross Madness? Might and Magic? Mad man? Mad Max?

Run mem /c to see how much memory you have free. Most probably game wants more conventional mem free, so you should load drivers high (himem.sys, emm386.exe, dos=high in config.sys and then decicehigh or loadhigh for all drivers).

See example https://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

sorry, Might and Magic 4

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thera34
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by thera34 »

It works for me under DOS 7.1 and using QEMM (game uses extended/expanded memory as I understand). My setup is inspired from Flynnsbit's work on his Top300 collection:

A snip from my config.sys:

Code: Select all

[QEMM]
device=c:\qemm\dosdata.sys
SET LOADHIDATA=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.RF
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM BE:N FRAME=D000 ARAM=D000-EFFF ARAM=B000-B7FF RF
device=c:\qemm\dos-up.sys @c:\qemm\dos7-up.dat
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /RF C:\QEMM\QDPMI.SYS SWAPFILE=DPMI.SWP SWAPSIZE=1024
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /RF C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
SHELL=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.COM /RF COMMAND.COM /P /E:640
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /RF C:\DOS\IFSHLP.SYS 
DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /RF C:\DRIVERS\XCDROM.SYS /D:IDE-CD

Snip from my autoexec.bat:

Code: Select all

:QEMM
C:\QEMM\LOADHI /RF C:\DRIVERS\SHSUCDX.COM /D:IDE-CD /L:F /V /C
c:\qemm\loadhi /rf c:\DRIVERS\cute20\ctmouse.exe /r2
REM C:\QEMM\LOADHI /RF C:\DRIVERS\SOFTMPU\SOFTMPU /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1
C:\QEMM\LOADHI /RF C:\DRIVERS\DOSKEY20.COM /INSERT
c:\QEMM\LOADHI /RF C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE 65536 /E:65536 /B:0

Mem/c looks like:

20221228_131114-screen.png
20221228_131114-screen.png (62.99 KiB) Viewed 1070 times

Install settings with MT32 support:

20221228_130246-screen.png
20221228_130246-screen.png (46.92 KiB) Viewed 1070 times

Result:

20221228_130925-screen.png
20221228_130925-screen.png (710.93 KiB) Viewed 1070 times
Malor
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by Malor »

I probably wouldn't use that as a general configuration, however; 570K free of lower memory is quite bad. You typically want over 600K free. IIRC, there were one or two games that required something like 608K, though I can't remember which they were after so long.

I'd really expect that game to work with a clean HIMEM/EMM386 setup, rather than needing QEMM, but that might only be true on real hardware. The AO486 is an odd beast.

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thera34
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by thera34 »

Malor wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 4:49 pm

I probably wouldn't use that as a general configuration, however; 570K free of lower memory is quite bad. You typically want over 600K free. IIRC, there were one or two games that required something like 608K, though I can't remember which they were after so long.

I'd really expect that game to work with a clean HIMEM/EMM386 setup, rather than needing QEMM, but that might only be true on real hardware. The AO486 is an odd beast.

I have config.sys/autoexec.bat set up with menu and all for multiple situations (Himem only, clean, emm386, qemm, extended). Of course, I can offload some more drivers (which I have on "clean" setup) to have more conventional memory (eg. cdrom, misterfs drivers etc). However, some games are a bit picky and seem to work better or only with QEMM (Betrayal at Krondor, Might and Magic 4 etc).

20221228_193200-screen.png
20221228_193200-screen.png (24.84 KiB) Viewed 1028 times
folderwin
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Re: Launching MM4

Unread post by folderwin »

thera34 wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 5:34 pm
Malor wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 4:49 pm

I probably wouldn't use that as a general configuration, however; 570K free of lower memory is quite bad. You typically want over 600K free. IIRC, there were one or two games that required something like 608K, though I can't remember which they were after so long.

I'd really expect that game to work with a clean HIMEM/EMM386 setup, rather than needing QEMM, but that might only be true on real hardware. The AO486 is an odd beast.

I have config.sys/autoexec.bat set up with menu and all for multiple situations (Himem only, clean, emm386, qemm, extended). Of course, I can offload some more drivers (which I have on "clean" setup) to have more conventional memory (eg. cdrom, misterfs drivers etc). However, some games are a bit picky and seem to work better or only with QEMM (Betrayal at Krondor, Might and Magic 4 etc).

20221228_193200-screen.png

If I choose something other than "clean", the system does not see the hard drives

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