FreeDos, low conventional memory

Discussions about using non Windows and Linux guests such as FreeBSD, DOS, OS/2, OpenBSD, etc.
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TheMonkeyLlama
Posts: 2
Joined: 4. Mar 2019, 20:09

FreeDos, low conventional memory

Post by TheMonkeyLlama »

Hi, i installed FreeDos today wanting to play some games like doom and duke nukem 3d however when i tried to play doom i was confused to see how slow it was. So i typed in "mem" (as you need like 640k conventional memory to play games smooth) and i got theese results:
Memory type         Total      Used        Free
---------------------------------------------------
Conventional         638k  |    29k  |     610k
Upper                 96k  |    27k  |      69k
Reserved             289k  |   289k  |       0k
Extended(xms)    583,200k  |   552k  | 522,648k
I've also tried putting the mode to MAX Ram on startup and changing the fdconfig.sys (which didn't help). So is there any way to fix this or something?
Last edited by socratis on 5. Mar 2019, 01:06, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Enclosed the information in [quote][pre] tags for better readability
andyp73
Volunteer
Posts: 1631
Joined: 25. May 2010, 23:48
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Assorted Linux, Windows Server 2012, DOS, Windows 10, BIOS/UEFI emulation

Re: FreeDos, low conventional memory

Post by andyp73 »

TheMonkeyLlama wrote:So i typed in "mem" (as you need like 640k conventional memory to play games smooth)
Even on a physical machine running FreeDOS you won't be able to get to the point of having all 640KB of conventional memory free. There are things such as the interrupt vector table that can't be moved.

What you are more likely running into is a problem with virtual machines and games not making great bed fellows. Games typically want full unrestricted access to fairly high performing hardware. The virtual machine, and particularly the vGPU, are never going to give you that.

-Andy.
My crystal ball is currently broken. If you want assistance you are going to have to give me all of the necessary information.
Please don't ask me to do your homework for you, I have more than enough of my own things to do.
michaln
Oracle Corporation
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Re: FreeDos, low conventional memory

Post by michaln »

Can you explain how much conventional memory you expected to see in DOS?
TheMonkeyLlama
Posts: 2
Joined: 4. Mar 2019, 20:09

Re: FreeDos, low conventional memory

Post by TheMonkeyLlama »

andyp73 wrote:
TheMonkeyLlama wrote:So i typed in "mem" (as you need like 640k conventional memory to play games smooth)
Even on a physical machine running FreeDOS you won't be able to get to the point of having all 640KB of conventional memory free. There are things such as the interrupt vector table that can't be moved.

What you are more likely running into is a problem with virtual machines and games not making great bed fellows. Games typically want full unrestricted access to fairly high performing hardware. The virtual machine, and particularly the vGPU, are never going to give you that.

-Andy.
Ok, Thanks! I think I'm going for dosbox emulation if so.
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