In case you have not enough memory in the lower 640K range the russian PTS-DOS could be a good choice. It's written in 100% assembler language and very fast. In MAX MEMORY MODE it gives you 640K free RAM after booting. It's commercial, but there exsists a demo version which is fully functional with only a 10 second delay at boot time. It has CDROM support without extra needed drivers like MSCDEX.EXE.

I have the commercial version with full sources including the fully functional demo. If you want to try, but cannot find the demo on the net anymore PM me, and I'll send it to you.

PTS-DOS in russian I dont speak russian.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(win98 @ May 26 2006, 06:50 AM) [snapback]232261[/snapback]</div>Great, helpful post!!!

The games that crash are Underworld and even Jill of the Jungle!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(duckpatch @ May 27 2006, 05:58 AM) [snapback]232523[/snapback]</div>Great, helpful post!!!
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:D I was just about to say something.
As for your computer, first of all the memory errors thing, eventhough previously answered, I can highly recommend going through your config.sys . One word: loadhigh. Always load drivers and stuff into high memory. I used to have these problems with Colonization. Damn, I miss having a DOS PC. I'm always thinking about building a dual-boot one, but then I decide against it, and two months later, I want the thing again.

With my old 486 I had the autoexec.bat and config.sys silmline and then I would always load everything into high memory. Memmaker in dos 6.22 can help if you use dos 6.22.

Yeah, 6.22 is the best anyway. Only install the 7 if you really need LFN and that stuff. I've found that the autoexec.bat and config.sys of DOS 7.1 were always loaded with crap that you didn't really need. So if you're a bit of a noob to this, I suggest 6.22, it's easier to modify for beginners.

Well I'm using FreeDos :)

Good, you should find loads of information about that. There's even some on the project site.

About DOS and memory. It's been quite a while since I fiddled about with the config and autoexec. But obviously, apart from loadhigh, there is also a question of NOT loading unused/unneccessary drivers at all, that is rem-ing them out from the config.sys file.

BTW: Ultima games generally detested Extended (?) Memory.

6.22 might also need some fine-tuning. Speaking from my own experience, here.
7.1 has got FAT-32 support, which comes in handy on partitions larger then 400 MB.