From: poe@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games,rec.games.misc
Subject: DR-DOS USERS : MAXIMIZE YOUR MEMORY!!
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:23:56 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Fellow DR-DOS users,

There have been a few recent posts by people needing more memory
in DR-DOS 6.0. Here are a few tricks I've learned. If you know
of any more, please mail them to me, or post them on the net.

1:Use Expanded Memory Wisely
About the only thing that I use EMS for is games. Lotus 1-2-3 is the
most significant application that I know of that uses EMS. The problem 
is, you need to set up enough for any occasion, but if you don't use
it, it is wasted. The solution is to know how much EMS to have, and to
make the most use of it most of the time. Falcon 3 is the most EMS
hungry game that I know of, and I can't imagine any game, using
more than 512KB, so I set up 1024KB and use SUPERPCK in EMS. When
any program wants EMS, SUPERPCK will loan up to half the cache.
also, if you have room, make SUPERPCK load high, but use the qualifiers,
not the DR-DOS generic method. The cache will take 0KB (yes, ZERO) 
conventional memory in most cases. This is opposed to the massive 
memory hits you'll get by putting SUPERPCK in XMS. Be aware that the
cache seems to be slower in EMS, but still plenty fast.

in CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE = EMM386.SYS /K=1024...
in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
SUPERPCK /A+ /&U+

2:Include obsolete reserved regions
In some situations, you may have memory reserved by DOS that you will NEVER
use. One example is Hercules graphics. I NEVER,EVER use it. It can be made
available to DOS through EMM386.SYS by including the region (B000-B7FF)
I'd really like to know of more reserved memory regions that can be used.
Please mail me or post any others.
in CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE = EMM386.SYS /I=B000-B7FF...

3:Get the best HIDOS tradeoff.
If you check with MEM or QEMMs MFT, you may notice that there are very small
regions taken up by "DOS DATA STRUCTURES" or something like that. These
may be breaking up what would otherwise be large contiguous RAM regions.
If so, try HIDOS=OFF. More of DOS goes low, but you might free up enough
room for a large TSR, resulting in a net gain in conventional RAM.
in CONFIG.SYS
HIDOS = OFF

4:SSTORDRV.SYS!
Easily the hardest thing to work around. SSTOR is supposed to load itself
high, but I get better results if I use HIDEVICE. Another thing: If your
SSTOR drives use the entire partition, you don't need to swap drive letters,
so don't load DEVSWAP in CONFIG.SYS. It also is supposed to load high, but
that's RAM for other TSRs!
IMPORTANT:Make sure that SSTOR is the 2nd line in CONFIG.SYS, immediately
after EMM386.SYS
in CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE = EMM386.SYS ...
HIDEVICE = SSTORDRV.SYS
rem DEVICE = DEVSWAP.COM

4:Load TSRs and DEVICE drivers in the right order.
If you can spend lots o' time, try loading TSRs and device drivers in
varying orders, maximizing RAM. You can mix TSRs and DEVICE drivers
by loading TSRs in CONFIG.SYS instead of AUTOEXEC.BAT. The one possible 
drawback is that I don't think you can unload a TSR if it was loaded
in CONFIG.SYS. Any comments on that?


That's about it for now, please respond with any other tips!
Hope it helps
Thanks
Phil
POE@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games