RAM or VM

[Guest]

I have a 1.8Ghz, 512mb RAM laptop which I use for work and some gaming.
Should I use RAM alone or should I use both RAM and Virtual Memory? I
recently read that committing to RAM alone can improve performance. Is this
true? If so, how much performance can my system gain from using RAM alone?

johnny

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

[Courtesy of Alex Nichol, MS-MVP]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

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:

| I have a 1.8Ghz, 512mb RAM laptop which I use for work and some gaming.
| Should I use RAM alone or should I use both RAM and Virtual Memory? I
| recently read that committing to RAM alone can improve performance. Is this
| true? If so, how much performance can my system gain from using RAM alone?
|
| johnny

 

[That Mike Guy]

some apps, including some games, require virtual memory.

 

[Guest]

Hello Johnny

The usage of VM is important because the system use that VM to still in
cache some aplications and system services.
I can improve most performance by set up the memory used by VM.
You can make a calc to set up the very good configuration of you VM.
See the article below to get more information how to do that.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482

Best Regard´s

Airton Bertini - Technicall Support Microsoft - Brazil.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a 1.8Ghz, 512mb RAM laptop which I use for work and some gaming.
Should I use RAM alone or should I use both RAM and Virtual Memory? I
recently read that committing to RAM alone can improve performance. Is this
true?

No it isn't except in some very special cases indeed, with extremely
large RAM so you can afford to waste a lot. And even then the gain is
dubious. See my page www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

 

[Guest]

Thats true, but Mr. Johnny sad have 512MB RAM, this is no very much to
disable VM memory.
When you get a last 1gb ou 2gb of Ram, certainly i will disable my VM.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thats true, but Mr. Johnny sad have 512MB RAM, this is no very much to
disable VM memory.
When you get a last 1gb ou 2gb of Ram, certainly i will disable my VM.

Read the article I linked to - www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm. That
explains how VM space gets taken up for pages that programs have asked
to have allocated but never used. On a 500 MB machine this might well
be 300 MB of these allocated to page file space; without active page
file handling it would be locking out RAM to no purpose whatever.

At 500 MB there is likely to be very little actual traffic on the file,
but you cannot afford the lockout. If you need 1 GB RAM and install 2
that could be different, as well as a big waste of money

 

[Alex Nichol]

See the article below to get more information how to do that.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482

That is a bad article. I have discussed it with one of the senior
developers, who agrees, but it is still around. Aside from my page,
see Ed Bott's book "Windows XP Inside out" from Microsoft Press, which
suggests a 100 MB initial page file size at 512MB RAM and above; I agree