virtual memory

[leeray]

How important is virtual memory? My machine has 512k RAM, a 2.1ghz AMD
processor and 120GB Hard Drive. I have heard that modern systems like mine
will allow games to play faster ( I play Links 2003 golf) and smoother. Is
it important to keep the Virtual RAM (cached page file) or can I just turn
it off in My Computer/properties/advanced/performance/advanced/virtual
memory---change settings to "no paging file".

 

[Guest]

leeray,

It depends... Try both ways and see what's better for you.

See here for more info:
How to optimize Windows XP for the best performance:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindows.htm

Good Luck!

 

[Alex Nichol]

How important is virtual memory? My machine has 512k RAM, a 2.1ghz AMD
processor and 120GB Hard Drive. I have heard that modern systems like mine
will allow games to play faster ( I play Links 2003 golf) and smoother. Is
it important to keep the Virtual RAM (cached page file)

Read up at my page www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm. Having VM turned off
is going to lock out a great deal of RAM to no purpose, and if you have
things set at a sensible load on a machine of that size, everything you
are actually using will be in RAM anyway, with no traffic on the page
file. Then there is no overhead from the paging system

 

[Alex Nichol]

It depends... Try both ways and see what's better for you.

See here for more info:
How to optimize Windows XP for the best performance:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindows.htm

You persist in posting this bad advice. Stop it

 

[Ken Blake]

In

How important is virtual memory? My machine has 512k RAM, a 2.1ghz
AMD processor and 120GB Hard Drive. I have heard that modern systems
like mine will allow games to play faster ( I play Links 2003 golf)
and smoother. Is it important to keep the Virtual RAM (cached page
file) or can I just turn it off in My
Computer/properties/advanced/performance/advanced/virtual
memory---change settings to "no paging file".

You heard wrong. Turning off the page file can never help you and
will usually hurt you. If you have enough RAM so that the page
file doesn't have to be used, it won't be. Turning it off doesn't
add any benefit. There is never a disdvantage to having it
present.