Error Msg: Memory Dangerously Low

[Doug Kanter]

......while my son's playing Myst, on XP Pro. He hasn't played that game
since the machine had Win98SE, so this is a new "event" for us. He gets the
message after playing for about an hour. He's already changed screen
resolution to 640x480, if that matters to the question at hand. And, he has
no other apps running except for Norton Antivirus. Anyone have a clue about
this message?

Also: If he needs to tweak his user profile in some way to solve this
problem (as opposed to just tweaking the Myst shortcut), is there any reason
we couldn't create a separate profile that's tweaked just for this one game?

-Doug

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Sounds like there is a constraint on the Virtual Memory, have you set any
upper limits? Also, with Myst it is often a good idea to disable AV software
before playing.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Alex Nichol]

..while my son's playing Myst, on XP Pro. He hasn't played that game
since the machine had Win98SE, so this is a new "event" for us. He gets the
message after playing for about an hour. He's already changed screen
resolution to 640x480, if that matters to the question at hand. And, he has
no other apps running except for Norton Antivirus. Anyone have a clue about
this message?

This sounds as if it might be a DOS or 16 bit version of Myst that has
to run in 'DOS conventional memory' - and there is not enough of that -
by default it gets restricted in XP. For best DOS conventional memory,
edit the windows\system32\config.nt and autoexec.nt files.

In config.nt have (apart from the large number of REM lines) just
EMM = B=4000 RAM
(note the exact spaces - either side of the first = and before RAM,
none next to the second =) and

dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=40
(or higher files= if needed)

and in autoexec.nt have

REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

with other earlier lh lines REM ed out, and then any SET or PATH lines
that may already be present at the end.

This should give about 612K for a program, run from a shortcut made to
its .exe file. R-click the shortcut, Properties and on the Memory page
you can set an explicit value - rather than Auto - for any EMM or XMS
memory it may need, and for initial environment space

 

[Doug Kanter]

This sounds as if it might be a DOS or 16 bit version of Myst that has
to run in 'DOS conventional memory' - and there is not enough of that -
by default it gets restricted in XP. For best DOS conventional memory,
edit the windows\system32\config.nt and autoexec.nt files.

In config.nt have (apart from the large number of REM lines) just
EMM = B=4000 RAM
(note the exact spaces - either side of the first = and before RAM,
none next to the second =) and

dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=40
(or higher files= if needed)

and in autoexec.nt have

REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

with other earlier lh lines REM ed out, and then any SET or PATH lines
that may already be present at the end.

This should give about 612K for a program, run from a shortcut made to
its .exe file. R-click the shortcut, Properties and on the Memory page
you can set an explicit value - rather than Auto - for any EMM or XMS
memory it may need, and for initial environment space

Thank you, Alex. I'll have a chance to try this on my son's machine later
this week. One last question, which I can't determine from my machine, since
it only has one user account: Are the changes you've suggested "per user"
changes, or do they affect all users on the machine?

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thank you, Alex. I'll have a chance to try this on my son's machine later
this week. One last question, which I can't determine from my machine, since
it only has one user account: Are the changes you've suggested "per user"
changes, or do they affect all users on the machine?

All