Installing DOS flight sim to advanced system.

[Bazango]

I am running Windows 98 with a Diamond Monster Fusion (3dFX) video board and I am trying to install version 5.0 of Microsoft Flight Simulator. There are many settings issues involved. The most discussed by this piece of software is "expanded memory".

What kind of mess am I looking at in trying to install this sim on my system? Is it possible to do without ruining the settings for my other software, especially my other sims?

As I write this it occurs to me that the Installation Wizard may take of all this, I have been trying to install this program under DOS. I will try it.

[fishboy]

Make sure you have enough free conventional memory if you are going to try to play that in DOS. I would first see if you could play it in a dos box rather then true dos. If your conventional mem is below 560 or something like that I believe you will have a problem playing MSFS5.0. Can can install QUEMM which is an old dos memory manager which will give you more mem (try memmaker also)

[Bazango]

OK. What exactly meant by conventional memory? I have 32MB RAM, but I can forget what other areas of memory there are. Is this virtual memory? How can I find out how much "conventional memory" I have?

[philipg]

conventional memory is the first 640kb of memory in a computer otherwise known as dos memory. This is the memory that programs load into first before they are executed or reassigned to the expanded memory which is the memory above 1+ MB. Without enough conventional memory alot of programs simply can't run so in your config.sys and autoexec.bat you must load all drivers and such into the expanded memory to make room for the dos apps.

the syntax for hight memory is:

config.sys would be:
devicehigh=c:\xxxxxxxx
don't load himem.sys into high memory since it needs to run in conventional memory

autoexec.bat would be:
loadhigh or lh

good luck.

[fishboy]

to determine the amount of conventional memory you have, from dos go to c:\ and type mem. You will see the amount of conventional memory on the upper left.

[StarWatcher]

Banzango I ran across this thread over at Agn3d, hope it helps.

http://bbs.agn3d.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/011724.html

[This message has been edited by StarWatcher (edited 07-16-99).]

[Bazango]

Thanks all. I'll print this up and have a look.

Can anyone speak to the risks of changing these settings? And what about video compatability. The setup part of this sim does not offer my board as an option. Sound options are also kind of dated

[fishboy]

Set the video display to standard vga. Their should not be any problems. Remember this gave is NOT 3dfx so the 3D portion of this card wont even kick in. Ive played this game fine in the past with these settings

[Bazango]

Yes, I think I see. Sometimes hardware functionality requires software functionality.