Memory (RAM + PAGING FILE) management bug

[Guest]

Hello dear All, Helly dear Support,

I have a 1 GB RAM / 3.2 GHz P4C HT / 2x80 GB SATA HDD System, running wiht Win XP Pro SP1
(I don't think describing the video, LAN, or sound subsystem will be useful here)

My problem is here : when my computer is switched on, running properly, and having multiple applications already opened, although I still have plenty of RAM (physical memory) available, (and of course : more then plenty of PAGING FILE Space available), at a certain point, when I try to run an additionnal "heavy" application (like Photoshop CS), it displays various error message, which are obviously related to a problem of memory management (i.e : "unsuficient memory to complete operation" or "not enough memory to open windows" etc...

here are the details :

I usually open a lot of applications simultaneously (because I DO NEED THEM) : office software, (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, etc...), SQL Server 2000 SGBD services running, Remedy ARS server processes, Visual Studio DEV Tool, many "IEXPLORE windows" opened, Paint Shop Pro 8, Photoshop 8, Minolta Dimage Viewer 2.2", Star Office 6, etc...

All together, these applications (and services) do consume a lot of memory, but I can still (and always) see in the "taskman" windows, that there is plenty of memory (both physical and virutal) left. The total "Commit charge (K)" is always "under" the limit commit charge (i.e : my current commit charge is about 980 MB (RAM+SWAP), and is FAR below the "limit commit charge available fot the system (2.8 GB "total virtual memory availabl" = 1 GB RAM + 1.8 GB PAGING FILE in my case)

why does Windows XP seem not to be able to correctly (I don't even speak about "efficienly"...) manage this amount of memory ?

why does my computer (as described above) not seem able to open more applications then my laptop (which also have the same problems, but "only" have 512 MB of RAM) ?

why does such a powerful computer (1 GB RAM) have problem with opening "many applications" at the same time, while windows (which is told to be very stable, very reliable, and which is told to be able to manage much more memory then that...) still reports available "physical" and "virtual" memory ?

are there known bugs and issues about that ?

what's the point of having 1 GB RAM (or more : I was planing to upgrade to 1.5 GB or 2 GB RAM) if the system sill can't do "more" than if I had only 512 MB RAM (which is already a lot) ???

thanks for your very welcomed help !

best regards,

J Baldec

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Bob Dietz]

Hello dear All, Helly dear Support,

I have a 1 GB RAM / 3.2 GHz P4C HT / 2x80 GB SATA HDD System, running
wiht Win XP Pro SP1 (I don't think describing the video, LAN, or
sound subsystem will be useful here)

My problem is here : when my computer is switched on, running
properly, and having multiple applications already opened, although I
still have plenty of RAM (physical memory) available, (and of course
: more then plenty of PAGING FILE Space available), at a certain
point, when I try to run an additionnal "heavy" application (like
Photoshop CS),

Photoshop want to do it's own memory management using "scratch disk(s)".
From a page ( http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/12dde.htm ) on
Adobe's web site -

* Setting scratch disks
* The Photoshop scratch disk is similar to virtual memory. For the best
* performance, you should set the scratch disk to a defragmented hard
* disk that has plenty of unused space and fast read/write speeds
* (rather than a network drive or removable media such as a Zip drive).
* Photoshop requires at least 280 MB of free hard-disk space, but more
* is recommended. If you have more than one hard disk volume, you should
* specify additional scratch disks. Photoshop CS supports up to 64
* exabytes (EB) of scratch disk space on a total of four volumes.
* Photoshop 7.x supports up to 4 EB. (An EB is equal to 1 billion
* gigabytes.)

 

[Guest]

thank you for your reply Bo

but I already know about that, my concern is more about the way Windows Manage the 1 GB RAM + the PAGING file spac

I do not believe the problem is related to how photoshop manages the memory

in fact, I just gave an example : Now, if we conseder I have a certain amount of applications opened, if I (for exemple) close Paint Shop Pro 8and re-run Photoshop CS, Photoshop will run ok, then if I re-run Paint Shop Pro 8, another message (similar to those already described) will appear, and PSP8 will not run

Now If I close MS Outlook 2003 (which does consume a huge amount of memory, espacially if combined with MS Word 2003), and then try to rune PSP8, PSP8 will run properly, and if I then try to run Outlook, it will again be a problem...

this shows to me it is really a matter of Windows not being able to "handle" all the available memory correctly :

by the time I did (and tried) the operations described above, my taskman windows still reported about 130 MB free physical memory (RAM), and a lot more "paging file" free spac

so why all these "not enough memory like etc..." messages

why does windows not find a "way" to open all desired applications although it (the OS) still has a lot of memory left

(of course, the whole system still runs, still is stable, and all applications that are already opened do still continue to run and do their jobs all right, this is not the problem !

Any help or any (RATIONAL) explanation welcome

Best regard

J Balde

 

[Alex Nichol]

why does my computer (as described above) not seem able to open more applications then my laptop (which also have the same problems, but "only" have 512 MB of RAM) ?

why does such a powerful computer (1 GB RAM) have problem with opening "many applications" at the same time, while windows (which is told to be very stable, very reliable, and which is told to be able to manage much more memory then that...) still reports available "physical" and "virtual" memory ?

You mention Photoshop. I am very inclined to point the finger directly
at that application, which appears to try to grab all the memory
resources it can find to manage for itself. And may then be getting
indigestion. I am not certain if its settings have one to limit the
amount of memory it can allocate, but IIRC there is something of the
sort