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THE HANDY DANDY ANALOGX MAXMEM
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Have you ever wondered why it is that, when your first reboot your machine,
it seems to run smoother and faster than it does after it's been running for
a while? This is due in part to programs using system resources (like memory)
and then failing to free it when they exit. The end result of problems like
this is that your system runs slower and slower. Now you can take control of
your computers memory usage with AnalogX MaxMem!
Before we delve to deeply into how AnalogX MaxMem works, let's just quickly
cover how your computer uses memory. In Windows there are basically two types
of memory: physical and page. Now physical memory is pretty easy to understand.
It's how much RAM you have installed in your computer. So if your system has
64 megs of RAM, that really is just 64 megs of physical memory. The other type,
page memory, is actually a file on your hard drive that the computer can save
physical memory to periodically. As you can probably guess, page memory is not
nearly as fast as physical memory. And that's the reason your computer starts
to operate more slowly. As you run more programs that don't free up resources
properly, they use up more and more physical memory, leaving less and less for
other programs to use. What MaxMem does is forces the system to always have
certain amounts of physical memory available, and ensures that it never drops
below that amount. Also, when your machine is idle for an extended period of
time, you can have MaxMem automatically free up a larger percentage of the
system memory. This is great for servers or other systems that stay up for
extended periods of time.
Operation of AnalogX MaxMem is simple. Just select the MaxMem program from the
Start Menu and you're done. MaxMem will be happily sitting down on your system
tray. The icon on the tray indicates your physical memory utilization for the
last 60 seconds. The top equates to 100%, and the bottom to 0%, of your memory
is being used. As the bar graph gets higher, it will change from green to
yellow, and then finally to red. If you would like a more detailed idea of how
much memory is free, simply hover your mouse pointer over the icon. A box will
appear showing you how many megs of memory are available and what percentage of
your total memory that is.
If you right-click on the icon, you can get configuration information for the
program. This is where you set the amount of memory you want the program to
ensure is available. There are three percentages it uses: minimum, periodic,
and aggressive.
* The minimum value is the smallest amount of physical memory the system must
have available. If it drops below this value, the program will automatically
make sure more physical memory is made available.
* The periodic value is only checked 3 minutes after memory has remained
relatively untouched. This helps to ensure that a workable amount of
memory will probably be available to any new programs that need it.
* Finally, after 30 minutes of idle memory time, the aggressive mode is
triggered. This is primarily designed to flush almost everything out of
memory that isn't currently being used. A good total for this is around 70%.
But this depends on how much memory you have in your system.
If you left-click on the icon, you'll see it do a quick sweep. MaxMem will
attempt to increase the amount of free memory by whatever you have configured
as the minimum value. So if you are using the default 5%, and you have 10% of
your system memory free, then clicking on the icon should increase this up to
15%. It's that simple! You can choose to free up larger chunks by selecting
another free size from the Free category in the right-click menu. Each value
will increase the amount of free system memory by the specified percentage.
In the configuration menu you can also change the left-click operation to
perform any of the cleanups based on which one you most commonly use.
Sometimes you may wish to disable MaxMem for short periods of time (such as
when you're playing a game). In these instances you don't need to exit the
program. You can instead just choose to disable it temporarily.
