virtual memory?

[damour007]

hey what do you guys use for that? system mangaged size? or custom size?

initial size?

MAximum size ?

thanks i have 2 gig ram

[CoffinDancer]

optimal location would be to place the VM in its own partition on a HD on the secondary IDE cable, thus limiting the amount of arm movement on the primary HD.

either way, you want 1&1/2 times your actual RAM amount - in your case you want a VM partition or amount of 3.5gig, and ALWAYS make the minimum and maximum amounts the same, to keep winblows from trying to root around and dynamically allocate it on its own.

gl,hf
CD

[damour007]

okay. so what to i put? 3500? on both initial and maximum

[Zealot]

i have mine on a seperate hdd with its own partion, custom page file size 2048-4092mb.

[bclagge]

It's my understanding that to use virtual memory your OS would have to be out of RAM. It's unlikely that your average gamer (using XP) would go beyond 2 gigs.

[Harmatia]

It's my understanding that to use virtual memory your OS would have to be out of RAM. It's unlikely that your average gamer (using XP) would go beyond 2 gigs.

Absolutely wrong, and not worth the effort of explaining why =P

As someone said: min and max values must be the same. Mine are set at 3096. Delete old PF (by setting size to 0 and restarting) before setting new one so that it wont be fragmented. Having a big one won't adversely affect performance, all myths.

Check out tweakguides.com and its tweaking companion for more detailed info.

[commiecat]

It's my understanding that to use virtual memory your OS would have to be out of RAM. It's unlikely that your average gamer (using XP) would go beyond 2 gigs.

The rule o' thumb to set your swap file to 1.5 - 2 times your physical RAM was good in the days of 64MB/128MB/256MB system memory. Nowadays, and especially if you have 2GB, you'll want to limit your swap file. I have 2GB physical as well and I'm set to 1GB swap, and I'll probably lower it when I remember to do so on my gaming machine.

If you give Windows the ability to use 4GB of swap, it will. You want to discourage that by shrinking it. IIRC, XP will give you a prompt if you're running low on memory. I'd start with a smaller swap file (honestly, 512k - 1GB) and increase it only if you get that prompt or if you notice your physical memory is being used by more than 85 or 90%.

[bclagge]

Note that "virtual memory" is not just "using disk space to extend physical memory size". Extending memory is a normal consequence of using virtual memory techniques, but can be done by other means such as overlays or swapping programs and their data completely out to disk while they are inactive. The definition of "virtual memory" is based on tricking programs into thinking they are using large blocks of contiguous addresses.

A quick wikipedia search shows how wrong I was.