Why am I short of virtual memory? (I think I should be ok)

[Bill Woods]

XP sometimes has to extend my Virtual Memory. I get a warning
message saying:

"Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low. Your system is low
on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of
your virtual memory paging file. During this process,
memory requests for some applications may be denied."

I have got 768 MB physical memory and the paging file is set to have
an Initial Size of 380 MB and Maximum Size of 750 MB.

IMMEDIATELY after the last virtual memory message I took some
readings (see below). I can't see why the virtual memory needed to
be increased. Can someone explain what made XP need more virtual
memory?

Thanks.
Bill


============== START DATA ==============

Using an application called Cacheman, I saw these two sets of
data about 60 seconds apart:

Physical memory = 768 MB, usage = 388 MB (approx 51%)
Paging file = 750 MB, usage = 145 MB (38%)

Physical memory = 768 MB, usage = 380 MB (approx 49%)
Paging file = 750 MB, usage = 151 MB (20%)

---

XP's task manager showed the following:

TOTALS
handles 7676
threads 436
processes 45

COMMIT CHARGE (K)
total 422,076
limit 1,132,876
peak 1,506,596

PHYSICAL MEMORY (K)
total 785,904
available 384,156
system cache 158,648

KERNEL MEMORY (K)
total 58,864
paged 50,460
nonpaged 8,404

============== END DATA ==============

 

[Walter Clayton]

Do yourself an extremely large favor.

Dump cacheman.

It had a modicum of merit on Windows 95 *only* and is useless on all other
platforms.

Change your pagefile settings to system managed, but only after you dump
cacheman.

Of course if you keep cacheman, then good luck. You'll need it.

 

[Ron Martell]

XP sometimes has to extend my Virtual Memory. I get a warning
message saying:

"Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low. Your system is low
on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of
your virtual memory paging file. During this process,
memory requests for some applications may be denied."

I have got 768 MB physical memory and the paging file is set to have
an Initial Size of 380 MB and Maximum Size of 750 MB.

IMMEDIATELY after the last virtual memory message I took some
readings (see below). I can't see why the virtual memory needed to
be increased. Can someone explain what made XP need more virtual
memory?

Thanks.
Bill


============== START DATA ==============

Using an application called Cacheman, I saw these two sets of
data about 60 seconds apart:

I agree with Walter Clayton.

Cacheman is pure unadulterated crapware that, with the sole exception
of Windows 95, is totally incapable of performaning any beneficial
function for any computer.

Good luck


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

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

 

[Stan Brown]

Using an application called Cacheman

Others have already told you to dump Cacheman. I will addonly that
there's an excellent article on virtual memory by the late lamented
Alex Nichol at <http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm>.

 

[Bill Woods]

On Tue 15 Mar 2005 23:37:33, Walter Clayton wrote:

Do yourself an extremely large favor.

Dump cacheman.

It had a modicum of merit on Windows 95 *only* and is useless on
all other platforms.

Change your pagefile settings to system managed, but only after
you dump cacheman.

Of course if you keep cacheman, then good luck. You'll need it.

Hmmm, you must be psychic. Heh! I am running Cacheman 5.5 which I
now see that even the authors at Outer Technologies have replaced by
CachemanXP 1.1. So you are dead right about my version being out of
date.

But what are your views on the new CachemanXP?
http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7

 

[Bill Woods]

On Wed 16 Mar 2005 00:16:50, Ron Martell wrote:

I agree with Walter Clayton.

Cacheman is pure unadulterated crapware that, with the sole
exception of Windows 95, is totally incapable of performaning
any beneficial function for any computer.

Good luck

I have replied to Walter in this thread about CachemanXP. I wrote:

---

Hmmm, you must be psychic. Heh! I am running Cacheman 5.5 which I
now see that even the authors at Outer Technologies have replaced by
CachemanXP 1.1. So you are dead right about my version being out of
date.

But what are your views on the new CachemanXP?
http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7

 

[Walter Clayton]

Cacheman is useless. Period. It has no use on a modern OS.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Bill Woods

On Tue 15 Mar 2005 23:37:33, Walter Clayton wrote:



Hmmm, you must be psychic. Heh! I am running Cacheman 5.5 which I
now see that even the authors at Outer Technologies have replaced by
CachemanXP 1.1. So you are dead right about my version being out of
date.

But what are your views on the new CachemanXP?
http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7

Equally useless, actually.

 

[Bill Woods]

On Wed 16 Mar 2005 13:10:19, Walter Clayton wrote:

Cacheman is useless. Period. It has no use on a modern OS.

I thought it may have been nice just as a reporting tool.

I kind of liked the two bars it shows how much of physical memory and
paging file was used at a given time!

 

[Stan Brown]

On Wed 16 Mar 2005 13:10:19, Walter Clayton wrote:


I thought it may have been nice just as a reporting tool.

I kind of liked the two bars it shows how much of physical memory and
paging file was used at a given time!

You mean like on the Performance tab of Task Manager?

 

[Guest]

hi,

These Settings will fine tune your systems memory
management -atleast 256MB of ram recccomended
go to start\run\regedit -and then to the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory
Management

1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this
allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to
harddrive yeilds faster performance.

2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows
XP Kernal to Run in memory improves system performance alot

3.create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set
the value in hex - 4000 if you have 128MB of ram or set it to 10000 if you
have 256MB set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of ram -this tweak
will speed up your disckcache

Reboot and watch your system fly

 

[Walter Clayton]

You mean watch the OS fly.

This penalizes application performance for the sake of OS performance.

Do you really want to keep those printer and scanner drivers locked in real
memory when you only print and scan a couple of times a week?

 

[Ron Martell]

I have replied to Walter in this thread about CachemanXP. I wrote:

---

Hmmm, you must be psychic. Heh! I am running Cacheman 5.5 which I
now see that even the authors at Outer Technologies have replaced by
CachemanXP 1.1. So you are dead right about my version being out of
date.

But what are your views on the new CachemanXP?
http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=7

Nothing has changed. The comments and evaluations at
http://www.radsoft.net/resources/software/reviews/redux/ are still
valid.

The basic premise advanced by Cacheman, namely that there is some
benefit or value in having unused physical RAM present on the computer
is totally bogus. Period.

Moving inactive items from RAM to the page file for the sole purpose
of having that RAM sitting there doing nothing provides absolutely no
benefit to the computer. And when those items that were unnecessarily
moved to the page file are needed again it will take at least 1,000
times longer to access them than it would have it they had been left
in RAM.


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

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

 

[David Candy]

Windows pre writes pages if it has nothing better to do. But it also remains in memory. If the memory is needed by something else it can be dumped without a write at that time and if the program requires it it is retrieved from memory.

Windows is always trying to make every program use 0 bytes. It constantly is removing memory from programs to see if the program will complain. If it does (ie generate a page fault) it gives it back.

The reason why memory is tunable in XP is so it can be tuned to suit ONE very large application, like a web server. You are taking the results of one or a few people compared to the millions of dollars MS spent testing it.

 

[DevilsPGD]

The reason why memory is tunable in XP is so it can be tuned to suit ONE very large application, like a web server. You are taking the results of one or a few people compared to the millions of dollars MS spent testing it.

Yes and no. While true, Windows XP wasn't tuned with my system in mind
(2GB of memory), Windows XP is tuned for the average user.

 

[David Candy]

Many system level things are tuned at bootup based on CPU speed or memory. Applications are constantly being tuned. Though memory growth would have caught MS by surprise.

 

[Joe Smith]

On Wed 16 Mar 2005 16:17:03, =?Utf-8?B?UmFob29s?= wrote:

1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put
a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of
paging sections of ram to harddrive yeilds faster performance.

2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1
-this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory improves system
performance alot

3.create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click
it and set the value in hex - 4000 if you have 128MB of ram or
set it to 10000 if you have 256MB set it to 40000 if you have
more than 512MB of ram -this tweak will speed up your disckcache

http://www.thegline.com/win2k/issues/2003/16.html says

the IoPageLockLimit hack "does absolutely nothing in Windows 2000
Service Pack 1 and up, and absolutely nothing in Windows XP.

This makes it effectively useless"

 

[Guest]

does doing all these settings really work?!?! I mean does this mean all the
memory in the paging file and ram are stored in the computer's disk memory?1!

"> 1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 -
this

 

[Guest]

ROOKIE HERE, but have the same virtual memory problem.

What is "cashemen" and how do I dump it to help my virtual memory problem.

Also, I installed an additional hard drive (blindly, but effectively). How
can I utilize this extra drive to improve my performance?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[Jim]

ROOKIE HERE, but have the same virtual memory problem.

What is "cashemen" and how do I dump it to help my virtual memory problem.

Also, I installed an additional hard drive (blindly, but effectively). How
can I utilize this extra drive to improve my performance?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Add another pagefile on the extra drive.
Jim