🚀 go-pugleaf

QEMM386 and 386MAX do essentially the same thing, load some TSRs into "High
RAM" area, namely the space between 640k and 1MB that's not being used.  The
latest versions of both programs are made so that it can work with MS Windows
3.0, but I believe both only allow TSRs to be loaded high in real or standard
modes (you can use the 386 Enh mode if you don't let these programs relocated
your TSRs into High RAM, although I've read some press that people have been
able to load TSRs high and run in 386 Enh mode as well, but I haven't seen it
work yet.  Your mileage may vary :-).  You can help these programs free up
more space by shifting any drivers or hardware that uses this space in high
RAM so that more space is continuous to load those bigger TSRs.  Neither of
these programs will relocate TSRs into expanded or extended memory (at least
I haven't read anything to the contrary yet).

I've read about a program called NetRoom which works to relocated TSRs
(specifically Novell's IPX and NETx drivers) into High RAM, expanded or
extended memory.  I've also heard that this program is worthless (from
someone who tried it).  It's supposed to work on any machine (not just
386 machines) with expanded memory.

Back to your problem, I would say it makes a big difference in the space you
use in High RAM and what order the TSRs are loaded.  For example, I use QEMM386
(and very happy with it, it also has the advantage of having desqview take
advantage of any leftover High RAM space available and XMS area for the
multitasking program) on our typical machines (an AST Premium 386SX/16 with
4MB RAM).  We have VGA on these machines and ARCnet cards on them. Since the
ARCnet cards use High RAM addresses, we changed the location of the address it
uses from the default D000 to CC00 (closer to the end of the address space used
by VGA) so that we have 64k available to QEMM386 (the space between D000, the
end of the ARCnet card address, and E000, the beginning of the EMS page frame).
Assuming that no hardware is being loaded into this High RAM area, you should
have better than 64k in High RAM.  Of course, I'm also assuming that your
machine's memory conforms to the LIM 4.0 spec, otherwise you won't be able
to acheive the same effect (I was disappointed that the AST Bravo/286 machines
that we picked up a year and a half ago were using LIM 3.2 memory specs instead
of the 4.0 specs... :(  ).

Good Luck

Bob
-- 
   Bob Kusumoto                               |    Find the electric messiah!
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