Virtual Memory

[Guest]

If my Total Virtual Memory is 2.00 GB and Available Virtual Memory is 1.96
GB, is this contributing to slower performance or in any other way affecting
the performance of my PC? If so, how can this be improved? Thanks.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Using the page file is slower than using RAM memory!

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

You may check on pagefile (virtual memory) usage with
Page File Monitor for XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

Make sure you study the readme.txt file carefully to ensure
you get the utility to work as it should.

This utility demonstrates the overall amount of the pagefile
in use. It does not say which application is using it.



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[T. Waters]

If my Total Virtual Memory is 2.00 GB and Available Virtual Memory is
1.96 GB, is this contributing to slower performance or in any other
way affecting the performance of my PC? If so, how can this be
improved? Thanks.

You are only using 0.04 GB of your Virtual Memory, so you are not paging
very intensely, but using your RAM, which is fast. Unless your utilzation of
the Virtual Memory were to increase, you cannot really blame slow
performance on your RAM memory or your Virtual Memory.

 

[Mak]

Are you looking at 'Total Virtual Memory' and 'Available Virtual Memory' in
System Information (run, msinfo32 or systeminfo from cmd)?
This particular piece of info the above utilities provide is bogus.

My total VM in use (right now) is 3.66GiB and as far as I know there is no
hard limit.
One of my servers is using (right now) well over 12GiB of virtual memory
with no ill effects.

WinXP (NT) OS is a demand paging Virtual Memory OS, it's already 'improved'.

 

[Ron Martell]

If my Total Virtual Memory is 2.00 GB and Available Virtual Memory is 1.96
GB, is this contributing to slower performance or in any other way affecting
the performance of my PC? If so, how can this be improved? Thanks.

I take it you are looking at the System Summary page of the System
Information utility in Windows XP.

That figure, insofar as I can determine, it totally unrelated to any
actual parameters or conditions on your computer. The only thing that
I can see that it relates to is the portion of the total 4 gb 32 bit
virtual address space that is allocated to application programs. This
is normally set at 2 gb, with 1 gb allocated to the operating system
and 1 gb to the "system arena" for disk cache and other purposes.

In theory the total virtual memory available on a computer consists of
the sum of the actual total RAM plus the maximum size of the page
file. That is in theory.

Right now on my own computer System Information says my total virtual
memory is 2.00 gb, same as yours. This computer has, at the moment,
512 mb of RAM installed and the pagefile has a set maximum of 1,000
mb. My total virtual memory therefore cannot exceed 1,514 mb in real
terms because that is all the address space there is at this time.

In other words that 2.00 gb figure reported by System Information
appears to be a totally phony number.

What actual real world problems or error messages are you encountering
that are making you think that it is necessary for you to increase the
total virtual memory on your computer?

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Guest]

I am not experiencing any errors but when I noticed the Total and Virtual
Memory figures were so close, I thought perhaps this may have some impact in
the performance of my PC. I would like to be able to surf a little faster,
however, my PC is nearly 4 years old so perhaps I'm expecting too much. It's
an HP with a P4 1.6GHZ processor, 256 mb RAM and 40 GB HD. I perform the
usual maintenance such as delete temp internet files,delete cookies, defrag,
etc. So, perhaps my expectations are greater than the capability of my PC and
I am subconsciously trying to justify a new one? Thanks for your explanation
of virtual memory function.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

256 mb RAM is low for Windows XP. Adding RAM is a relative cheap option
and certainly much cheaper than a new computer.

As indicated earlier you can demonstrate whether adding RAM will help by
using
Page File Monitor to check how reliant the system is on the page file.
http://www.dougknox.com/

Make sure you study the readme.txt file carefully to ensure
you get the utility to work as it should.

This utility demonstrates the overall amount of the pagefile
in use. It does not say which application is using it.



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Mak]

in-line replies:

I take it you are looking at the System Summary page of the System
Information utility in Windows XP.

That figure, insofar as I can determine, it totally unrelated to any
actual parameters or conditions on your computer. The only thing that
I can see that it relates to is the portion of the total 4 gb 32 bit
virtual address space that is allocated to application programs. This
is normally set at 2 gb, with 1 gb allocated to the operating system
and 1 gb to the "system arena" for disk cache and other purposes.

Ron, no, 4GB is per 32-bit process, not system total. (i.e. not for
programS, but per program (process))
In Windows it is devided into two: user mode and kernel mode 2 and 2 by
default, 3 and 1 whith /3GB switch.

"system arena"???

In theory the total virtual memory available on a computer consists of
the sum of the actual total RAM plus the maximum size of the page
file. That is in theory.

again, no. That is total commit charge.
Total virtual memory = the sum of all processes virtual bytes + kernel
bytes.

Theoretical max total virtual memory = 2 GB x number of running processes +
2 GB kernel
Theoretical max total virtual memory with 3GB switch = 2 GB x number of
'normal' processes + 3 GB x number of largeaddressaware processes + 1 GB
kernel

above is for 32-bit processes under 32-bit Windows NT family only.

Right now on my own computer System Information says my total virtual
memory is 2.00 gb, same as yours. This computer has, at the moment,
512 mb of RAM installed and the pagefile has a set maximum of 1,000
mb. My total virtual memory therefore cannot exceed 1,514 mb in real
terms because that is all the address space there is at this time.

if you run perfmon | process | virtual bytes | _total you will be surprised
of how much more than 1.5GB of virtual memory you use.

In other words that 2.00 gb figure reported by System Information
appears to be a totally phony number.

correct for a change