Man-wai Chang said:
Is it safe? I checked not even a game like BF2 uses all RAM...
It may or may not be, depending on the total memory requirements of
the applications you run on the machine.
But it will be very inefficient because a very considerable amount of
RAM will be tied up because of the *unused* portions of memory
allocation requests.
Almost everything, including Windows components, application programs,
and device drivers, issues memory requests that are larger than what
is ordinarily needed under normal circumstances. By design, Windows
must allocate memory address space to satisfy all of these requests
including the unused portions.
Under normal circumstances Windows will allocate RAM only to those
portions of the requests that are actually used, and will map the
unused portions to available locations in the paging/swap file. Note
that this mapping of unused memory requests does not require any
actual hard drive activity - all that is needed are entries in the
memory mapping tables maintained by the CPU. With no paging/swap
file Windows has no choice but to allocate RAM to the full amount of
requested memory including the unused portions.
To illustrate this here is some current information from my own
computer, which has 1 gb of RAM.
Actual physical size of the paging/swap file = 80 mb (set to minimum
80 mb maximum 3 gb)
Actual vaild memory content currently in the paging/swap file = 48 mb
(
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm)
PF Usage as reported by Windows Task Manager = 504 mb
So with no paging/swap file, that 504 mb would have to come from RAM.
And of that 504 mb, 456 mb is "phantom" usage for unused memory
requests etc.
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair
"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
