DSP Hotline TechBits: Protected-mode compiler troubleshooting

Question: Hints for protected-mode compiler troubleshooting

Answer: Symptoms/error messages:

1- DOS\16M error: [32] DPMI host error (possibly insufficient memory)
2- Compiler crash: " unexpected interrupt OE , ... <PC registers dump>
3- DOS/4GW Professional fatal error (1010)

MEMORY MANAGER INCOMPATIBILITIES:

DOS4GW may have incompatibilities with existing memory managers in your PC. There are 2 memory managers protocols: DPMI and VCPI. DOS4GW uses the DPMI protocol. Currently we know of potential memory conflicts with Windows, EMM386.exe and Borland Make Utility. However, conflict could exist with any program that uses the VCPI protocol.

Conflict with the old version of DOS4GW and Windows
   (using DOS5.0 or DOS6.x)

Solution:
     a. Use our last release compiler
     b. If you don't have the last compiler release and you are using
         DOS 5.0/Window environment, build programs outside of
         Windows or switch to DOS version 6.2 or higher. Remember that the
         DOS extender can still take advantage of the system's extended
         memory outside of Windows.

      c. If you don't have the last compiler release and you are using
          DOS 6.0, upgrade to DOS 6.2.

Conflict with DOS4GW and EMM386.exe

Solution:
     If using DOS 6.2, we can provide a stable platform under DOS
     only by modifying the config.sys:

    device=c:\xxxx\emm386.exe NOEMS NOVCPI

    The consequences of this could possibly reduce the amount of
    conventional memory on the system. Not a problem for our compiler
    since we use extended memory, but could be a problem on systems
    that load DOS drivers that use EMS and VCPI.

DOS4GW conflict with Borland MAKE utility.
Borland MAKE utility uses VPCI protocol.

Solution:
   Check with Borland to see if they offer a Make Utility that uses
   DPMI. Otherwise use MAKE R.

NOT ENOUGH MEMORY:

The C compiler requires a minimum of 4MB of memory (recommended 16MB) available. Run the PMINFO.exe utility shipped with the C floating point compiler to detect the memory available in your system (3rd line in the PMINFO print-out).

If conventional + Extended is less than 4MB:

add more memory
remove unused drivers from config.sys
remove smartdrive.exe line in the config.sys
use the DOS4GVM (virtual memory) utility to use your hard disk as RAM (see release notes).
Make sure to have enough contiguous hard disk space.