In my limited experience, it has been easier to get a good bunch of conventional memory available in DOSBox (and out of the box -- no pun intended) than it was in MS-DOS.
A freshly "booted" session seems to show 632k free right now. I can't remember ever getting that much free on MS-DOS, although my configs probably included cd-rom drivers and whatnot.
Agree wholeheartedly, I recently came across a piece of graph paper in an old box with the systems and price histories for trading. The Righteous Fire add-on storyline was probably the best.
I wrote my own AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS menu to select the right config and sometimes run a different .BAT file again. Still have a version of it and pulled it up for nostalgia: Colonization, Warcraft, Doom2 (single and network modes) and SC 2000 were other options I had setup.
I can't quite remember how those things were figured out either, but I think it was probably partially word of mouth. Games also had tips for memory configuration in their readme files or manuals. There was also at least one book I had at home that my father had bought that had all kinds of details on the workings of DOS (and PCs of that era in general).
I used to spend a bit of time browsing Computer & Game magazines at the local newsagency and library. I think some of what I picked up came from the likes of PCMag, C+VG and a lot of trial and error.
A freshly "booted" session seems to show 632k free right now. I can't remember ever getting that much free on MS-DOS, although my configs probably included cd-rom drivers and whatnot.