virtual memory
WRX cuz Honda won't wagon
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,725
Likes: 0
From: San Jose, CA
Originally Posted by mxl36o
1.5x your installed ram, and set the min and max the same. If you have separate drives put it on the drive w/o XP.
But for the love of god... get a mac already =)
But for the love of god... get a mac already =)
The correct amount is... it depends. It depends on way too many thiings to describe here. So the best option for most people is to select the "let my computer choose". This way, the virtual memory grows and shrinks as needed.
I design computer chips for a living (EE). The virtual memory you guys are talking about is at the OS level (operating system) which uses a concept called paging. I'll talk in general concepts here. A "page" is a measurement of a chunk of memory (specific to the OS in use). As programs run, they request from the OS memory to be used. Behind the scenes, the OS allocates a "page" of memory for that program. As the programs requests for memory (usage) go up, more and more pages are requested. Eventually, the total pages of memory used by the OS and all the programs exceeds the amount of physical RAM in the system. (Think of memory as if it is a folder that can only hold a specific amount of pages.) As page usage demands exceed the physical memory, then the OS can do one of two things: (1) tell the program, "nope, no more memory, too bad for you" which is usually means the program fails due to "insufficient memory". OR (2) the OS uses "virtual memory".
Virtual Memory in this sense means that the OS frees up a page slot in the physical RAM by saving a page he feels is least likely to be used in the near future. He saves that page to the hard drive (HD) and now a free page is available for the program requesting more memory. Now obviously, eventually the page saved to HD will need to be accessed by the owning program. So once again, the OS saves a "least likely to be used" page to HD, and reloads the save page from the HD. This continues ad nasuem.
However, there has to be limits to how many pages can be saved to the HD. A maximum amount of HD space is allocated for paging. THIS IS YOUR WINDOWS VIRTUAL MEMORY SETTING. So let me ask you. How much virtual memory do you allocate on your HD? You'd need to know what your running applications require. Even S/W engineers don't bother with this unless they are speifically and exclusively running applications they know need a specific amount of memory.
In short... let the computer decide. THEN if you start having memory programs, you can tweak it from there. But really, if you start having problems like these, you need to do two things: add more RAM and add a bigger HD (or clear it off).
I missed Sean
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 11,285
Likes: 1
From: Fairfield/Bridgeport CT
Originally Posted by chimchim
Where do you get this number?
The correct amount is... it depends. It depends on way too many thiings to describe here. So the best option for most people is to select the "let my computer choose". This way, the virtual memory grows and shrinks as needed.
I design computer chips for a living (EE). The virtual memory you guys are talking about is at the OS level (operating system) which uses a concept called paging. I'll talk in general concepts here. A "page" is a measurement of a chunk of memory (specific to the OS in use). As programs run, they request from the OS memory to be used. Behind the scenes, the OS allocates a "page" of memory for that program. As the programs requests for memory (usage) go up, more and more pages are requested. Eventually, the total pages of memory used by the OS and all the programs exceeds the amount of physical RAM in the system. (Think of memory as if it is a folder that can only hold a specific amount of pages.) As page usage demands exceed the physical memory, then the OS can do one of two things: (1) tell the program, "nope, no more memory, too bad for you" which is usually means the program fails due to "insufficient memory". OR (2) the OS uses "virtual memory".
Virtual Memory in this sense means that the OS frees up a page slot in the physical RAM by saving a page he feels is least likely to be used in the near future. He saves that page to the hard drive (HD) and now a free page is available for the program requesting more memory. Now obviously, eventually the page saved to HD will need to be accessed by the owning program. So once again, the OS saves a "least likely to be used" page to HD, and reloads the save page from the HD. This continues ad nasuem.
However, there has to be limits to how many pages can be saved to the HD. A maximum amount of HD space is allocated for paging. THIS IS YOUR WINDOWS VIRTUAL MEMORY SETTING. So let me ask you. How much virtual memory do you allocate on your HD? You'd need to know what your running applications require. Even S/W engineers don't bother with this unless they are speifically and exclusively running applications they know need a specific amount of memory.
In short... let the computer decide. THEN if you start having memory programs, you can tweak it from there. But really, if you start having problems like these, you need to do two things: add more RAM and add a bigger HD (or clear it off).
The correct amount is... it depends. It depends on way too many thiings to describe here. So the best option for most people is to select the "let my computer choose". This way, the virtual memory grows and shrinks as needed.
I design computer chips for a living (EE). The virtual memory you guys are talking about is at the OS level (operating system) which uses a concept called paging. I'll talk in general concepts here. A "page" is a measurement of a chunk of memory (specific to the OS in use). As programs run, they request from the OS memory to be used. Behind the scenes, the OS allocates a "page" of memory for that program. As the programs requests for memory (usage) go up, more and more pages are requested. Eventually, the total pages of memory used by the OS and all the programs exceeds the amount of physical RAM in the system. (Think of memory as if it is a folder that can only hold a specific amount of pages.) As page usage demands exceed the physical memory, then the OS can do one of two things: (1) tell the program, "nope, no more memory, too bad for you" which is usually means the program fails due to "insufficient memory". OR (2) the OS uses "virtual memory".
Virtual Memory in this sense means that the OS frees up a page slot in the physical RAM by saving a page he feels is least likely to be used in the near future. He saves that page to the hard drive (HD) and now a free page is available for the program requesting more memory. Now obviously, eventually the page saved to HD will need to be accessed by the owning program. So once again, the OS saves a "least likely to be used" page to HD, and reloads the save page from the HD. This continues ad nasuem.
However, there has to be limits to how many pages can be saved to the HD. A maximum amount of HD space is allocated for paging. THIS IS YOUR WINDOWS VIRTUAL MEMORY SETTING. So let me ask you. How much virtual memory do you allocate on your HD? You'd need to know what your running applications require. Even S/W engineers don't bother with this unless they are speifically and exclusively running applications they know need a specific amount of memory.
In short... let the computer decide. THEN if you start having memory programs, you can tweak it from there. But really, if you start having problems like these, you need to do two things: add more RAM and add a bigger HD (or clear it off).
by selecting a set size (maximum=minimum) it basically allocated that memory and then will use a peice of it/delete an older peice at the same time...
i'm not sure if this is the case with NTFS and/or XP (because it seems logical they would fix this problem by putting the paging files at the end of the HDD's storage) but knowing microsoft who really knows
Sinner
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 6,599
Likes: 0
From: NoVA
Originally Posted by sherwood
actually the problem with letting windows choose the paging (virtual memory) size was, at least in the 9x windows, that it would fragment your drive to no end.
