EMS and Conventional Memory
                        ---------------------------
                               by Dreamer...
                               -------------


Whats this all about then?
--------------------------
OK, so you've just downloaded your excellent Black Gate Corps game and 
you can't wait to play it, so you unzip it and run the exe and... you 
get an error. Brilliant. Luckily for me, 9 out of 10 times the error 
is because your computer is too new for a DOS based game. Don't worry 
though, because these errors are easily fixable. If you get an error 
saying something like this:

"Not enough free conventional memory."
or
"No EMS installed."

then read on. Otherwise, try this anyway and if it doesn't work, just 
give me an e-mail (bottom).


What are they anyway?
---------------------
Conventional Memory is the memory your computer has at the start of 
its life. Thats what DOS is run on. Unfortunately, there is not a lot 
of it, so we have to use a few tricks to enhance it. If you have about 
540K free you should be alright for almost all DOS based games.

EMS stands for Expanded Memory System, and its the best alternative to 
Conventional Memory for DOS, as its practically hassle free. My old, 
slow PC runs with about 31M and keeps about 16M free most of the time. 


Hang on a second, how did you find out all those numbers?
---------------------------------------------------------
Actually, its very simple. Simply go into command prompt and type mem .
Not so hard was it? If you are looking for Conventional memory, its 
sitting next to a handy little sign saying "Conventional" under the 
heading "Memory". Just look a little more towards the bottom and you 
will find the EMS next to the sign saying EMS. Simple.


OK smarty pants, how do I get more Conventional Memory and working EMS?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, thats not too hard either. In fact, its almost just a case of 
copy and paste. Open up the file config.sys with notepad or MSDOS edit 
and then copy the following into the beggining:

DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO 
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS 
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM 

Then go through the rest of the file, finding every instance where you 
see the words DEVICE= and change it to DEVICEHIGH= . Then save it.

Finally open up autoexec.bat and in front of where programs are run put 
the initials lh . For example "MOUSE" would change to "lh MOUSE". lh 
stands for loadhigh, which means less memory is being taken up by these 
essential programs.

Don't forget to back up you're config.sys and you're autoexec.bat files 
before you make changes if you don't know what you're doing.


I can't be bothered to do that, there must be an easier way!
------------------------------------------------------------
If you have an EMS problem there is. All you have to do is right click 
on the exe of the game you want to run and go to properties. Go to 
memory at the top and then switch the EMS box to "AUTO". Its that 
simple. Unfortunately, mucking around with the conventional memory option 
in the properties won't help you unless you have a lot floating around, 
in which case you should use the method above.


Cheers!
-------
No problems!

Thanks to Typosoft and the Guys who made Frontier : Elite 2 from whome 
I almost shamefacedly copied the important information from.

If you have another problem with our games, or have discovered a bug, 
don't hesitate to e-mail me at:

MidnightDreamer@Wongfaye.com

This tutorial was downloaded at: 
http://blackgc.f2g.net
And can be used in any commercial or non-commercial game, I honestly 
couldn't care less.