I have two problems. one is that my DOS installation is not recognizing but about 520 kb of my RAM when i try to play games. this computer was originally a Windows XP computer, but is currently being used by Linux and DOS/Windows 3.0. I have used DOS on this computer before, and it has recognized all of the RAM when i tried to play DOS games that require xms/ems, but now it says i have insufficient RAM when i truly have enough RAM to play several of the games at the same time. my next problem, is when i try to play games such as Kings Quest 1 and 2 i get garbled squares made up of black and white pixels placed (seemingly) randomly on the screen in place of real text. any help on both of those problems would be appreciated, i really want to break out these old games i've stumbled upon.

"DOS installation is not recognizing but about 520 kb of my RAM" No, it's telling you that you have insufficient conventional memory available - a little different. Pretty much DOS 101 - you need to configure your DOS startups to load drivers, resident programs and even DOS itself into UMA & HMA. You also have the option of using a bootdisk to load a minimal configuration, but DOS6 onwards has a multi config feature which allows you to setup and choose from a variety of boot scenarios using the hard drive. Are you running in plain DOS, or launching from within Win31? I'm not insensitive, I just don't care.

See if any of your games have instructions for making a boot disk for running the game. Some DOS games required well over 600Kb of low memory to start and/or run. Skip

i have tried both through DOS and through Windows. Most of my games have bootdisk programs, but I can't seem to find any blank or unneeded floppy disks at the moment. thanks for the link, jboy!

Generally speaking, DOS games may not run properly if launched from within Win3xx - as well, you have fewer resources available if Win is running. Windows 3.0? There are better choices Don't really need a bootdisk if you are able to setup the (DOS6xx onward) multiple configuration feature (a great innovation) - although if your unfamiliar with DOS conventions, it might prove easier to go that route. Also be advised that the path names to files on your system are likely different than those provided in the link examples I'm not insensitive, I just don't care.

i figured that last bit. I know there are better, but the latest disk i have is 3.1, and i don't want to search for it. instead, i've been using 3.0. or, I've been using 3.1 and my 3.0 disks are hidden somewhere... I don't really have much use for Windows anyway, really.