"Rex" wrote:

But isnt it a known fact that win98 will squeal at too
much Ram? (definately will balk over 768.)
Sometimes I fail to see why people would want to push
win98's limits on this; and if the OP is a gamer, then prudence
suggests a more qualified OS for the purpose.
I have 512 on my dual boot 98/xp and it runs anything I
toss at it. (without getting ridiculous of course)


There is a design flaw which allows Windows 95/98/Me to map an
excessively large amount of RAM for use as disk cache when there is
more than 512 mb of total RAM installed.

The total 4 gb memory address space available on 32 bit CPUs is
segmented for different purposes - Operating system, applications and
data, and the "System Arena". The System Arena has an address range
of 1 gb and addresses in this range are used by the disk cache, the
AGP video arpeture, and a number of other system functions. If the
disk cache ties up more than 512 mb of this address space then there
is not sufficient space left for the other items that need memory
addresses within the System Arena segment; resulting in "out of
memory" type errors or system crashes.

The MaxFileCache=512000 entry in the [vache] section of the system.ini
file solves this problem by preventing the disk cache from becoming
excessively large. With this limit in place Windows 9x system can
almost always be used with up to 1 gb of RAM and very often with as
much as 1.5 gb.

Many people are dual booting Windows 9x (usually 98SE) and Windows XP
on systems with large amounts of RAM for Windows XP, and it does
happen that Windows 9x will not run even with the MaxFileCache limit
in place. In those situations it is also necessary to limit the
total amount of RAM that Windows 9x can even attempt to use by placing
a MaxPhysPage entry in the [386enh] section of the system.ini file


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm