CompuServe Thread

Well… sorta. The problem with MSCDEX is that it usually needs its buffers; depending on the drive and manufacturer's recommendation, that may be a substantial amount — often 15-30K or so. And other drivers associated with the drive, especially the audio drivers may require lots more (but that's a different, similar story). MSCDEX can, and probably should, be loaded high if there are UMB's available. MSCDEX requires MORE than its 15.5K+/- when it first loads (it reduces in size once it's "settled-in"); I've heard reports of 65K or more, PLUS buffers if they're not allocated to EMS, expanded, memory. With that kind of overhead on a typically crowded system, it's possible/likely that none of it will load high, leaving you with an acute case of RAM-cram in conventional memory. Some of the Media Vision audio drivers, a pretty popular choice, require more space and only accept EMS memory. Ergo, my general recommendation to create expanded memory for these and similar products (WordPerfect, lots of games, Lotus, etc. can all use expanded memory and may/may not suppport XMS). If you have a minimal system, few memory-resident drivers and apps (counting DOS, I have 18 drivers and apps resident in conventional and UMB), and few/no apps that require a large amount of conventional memory to load (I have some that need about 550K free conventional memory), then you may be an exception to my generalization. Hey, if it works, go for it! In my current configuration, I'm using about 1Mb of expanded memory for these buffers and a few, small other things! The 64K for a page frame makes it all possible for me. And WordPerfect, which I live in, runs better & faster too (needs a special switch to activate)! Hope this helps. Lemme know if it doesn't work for you. Memory's cheap!

Oops, foot in mouth disease on my previous message: I don't have 1MB of buffers for my CDROM in EMS. I had the number set way up for awhile but reduced it and then dumped some spoolers into the space and forgot they were there. My EMS buffers for CD and its audio are about 32K now plus about 62K of UMB space.