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No more "out of memory" errors! (was: how comment out audio...)
>For those Windows 3.1x users who weren't following the earlier thread,
>commenting out the ThinkPad audio drivers from system.ini will save 182K of
>sub-1M memory. I used to get constant "out of memory" errors until I did
>this, now I haven't seen one for months.
>
I used to get lots of "out of memory" errors as well with Win 3.1 on my
Thinkpad.
But not any more! AND, I still have the Thinkpad audio drivers loaded
(as well as a ton of other junk) !!!!
How did I do it? I am using a small shareware utility called "MoreMem".
It works great. I got it via anonymous ftp to ftp.cica.indiana.edu in
the win3/utils directory (moremem.zip, or something almost identical to
that). I liked it so much I even registered it (the author is asking $10;
more than worth it to me!!).
Basically, the reason folks get "out of memory" errors is because they
have run out of memory below 1meg. Every time you fire up a program in
windows, windows needs to alloc a PSP in <1meg memory. A PSP takes about
400 bytes. If you are out of mem below 1meg, windows claims "out of memory"
even if you have tons of >1meg RAM and resources left. besides drivers,
any windows program which allocates "static", or non-relocateable memory,
Windows gives it memory starting from the lowest address and grows upward.
This means that lots of your precious below 1meg memory space is being used
by windows programs/drivers which really do not care about getting memory
below 1meg, they just don't want it swapped out....
When you put MoreMem in your windows startup folder, it immediately grabs
memory from below 1meg and "reserves" it specifically for Windows PSPs.
(PSP = program segment prefix). since it is in your startup folder,
it can usually grab up a good sized chunk of memory below 1meg cuz other
windows apps have not yet chewed it up with non-relocating alloc calls to
windows.
I am running my Thinkpad 750C with Windows 3.1 with all ibm audio drivers,
ibm ezplay pcmcia drivers, ethernet, supertcp for windows with NFS/etc, Novell
DOS drivers, and a bunch of other crap. I can set MoreMEM to reserve
about 32 PSPs (which means I can run about 30 Windows programs
simultaneously before seeing the stupid "out of memory error"). It works.
I now routinely run
15-20 windows programs at once (i have 12 meg RAM). I could never do this
before Moremem (usually would get about 5 programs max before MoreMem).
I am in no way associated with MoreMem other than a happy user. :^).
p.s. I called up the author of MoreMem, and we brainstormed converting Moremem
from a vanilla windows program into a windows .386 driver. This means Moremem
could do its magic even before other .386 drivers (like the ibm audio crap)
loaded. On my system, this would allow me to run over 100 Windows programs
at once (assuming i did not run out of RAM or windows gdi resources before
that!). However, with the current program I can run over 30 programs at once,
and that is certainly good enough for now...
Like I said, i got my copy via anonymous ftp to ftp.cica.indiana.edu. The
shareware version nags you by forcing you to type in a passcode every time
you start up windows. The registered version does not nag. Here
is the company info from the "About" window:
MoreMem
"A Utility to Prevent Out of Memory Errors When Loading Programs in Windows"
Moremem -Version 2.0a
by Daniel N. Woo
Copyright 1994
Gamma Research, Inc.
904 Bob Wallace Ave. Suite 212
Huntsville, AL 35801
Phone: (205) 533-7103
Compuserve: [73324,3027]
Cost is $10
Enjoy!
---------
Todd Tannenbaum
CAE Model Advanced Facility
email: tannenba@engr.wisc.edu ph: 608-262-3118