Virtual Memory Question

While going through my control panel on xp, just nosing about.
I once again came across virtual memory settings, something which used to be a major problem on my old pc. I don't fully understand it, but it helps with computers ram by using hard drive space as ram.

My system is athlon 1800+, 256ddr, 40gb, geforce 4 mx420 ....
The current settings for virtual memory are:

Custom:
Initial: 384mb
Maximum: 768mb

I always have over 10gb free so I'm sure making these settings higher would help. Is this true, and if so can someone tell me how much I could improve it by as I don't know it going to high will cause other problems. Also, should the settings be custom or should I let the system manage it?.

Vm is basically using your hdd as extra ram, but your hdd is several times slower than your ram, you could try messing about with these figures and see what gives you th best result.

Thanks for the reply. :)
About to go out now, so I'll wait for more peoples views.
I'll probably take initial up to 500mb and max to 1gb .... should be better ...

Wrong there kunal the page files always been a taboo to play with.Idealy for performance its best not to use "vm".But it causes to many probs with windows complaing about not enough mem.But you can tweak it a bit to stop it fragmenting so much.You could either set the initial/max the same.Or basicly the way windows manages it by setting the initial enough to cater your normal useage and the max alittle higher if it ever needs to grow.Which'll give you the same result as the first ,initial/max the same.Even better to just leave it.I set mine with 512 to 200-500,i never need more than 100 so i set the initial to 200 so using the initial as the initial&max then using the max as a reserve

warning: IF you overdo it your hardrive will be thrashing around like crazy, probably shortening its life considerably

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Originally posted by RGX@14 December 2003 - 15:18
warning: IF you overdo it your hardrive will be thrashing around like crazy, probably shortening its life considerably

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the reason for it "thrashing around" is it is fragmented all over the drive ;)

all versions of windows are notorious for not managing the pagefile very well and although xp is better at it, its not that much better, it always gets fragmented all over the drive, it is much better to manage the page file yourself. Set the initial size and the maximum size to the same value, A rough guide is to set the page at 2 to 2.5x your installed memory but imo i think going over 1gb is not needed and wasting disk space and you also need to take into consideration what sort of memory you have installed ie pc100 or ddr400 etc and what memory intensive programs you run ie games picture editing or video encoding etc ;) ive got 512mb of 3200ddr so there is no need to have my pagefile set at 1.3gb! mine is set at 750mb min and 750mb max, it stays constant and is all in the same place on the disc so doesnt get fragmented. Defragment your drive a couple of times and then set your page to what you want but i wouldnt go below the windows recommended minimum. ;) 700mb is a good start. :D

Thanks for the replies people, well seeing as I have 256ddr 2100 ... and listening to what you all have said I'll set them both to 500mb. :)

Let me know if this is really bad .... just trusting what I'm told ....

a minimum page file size of 1.5x your amount of physical RAM, and max of 3x is standard, and there's really no reason to increase
it unless you're having problems. If you want better performance, increasing the page file size really isn't the way to go,
as disk access is much to slow. you really want to minimize the paging to a reasonable amount, by adding more physical memory.

goodluck

Thanks, so 500mb will be fine for now. Am not really looking for performance increase, just have always been curious and wondered what kind of difference it makes. Cant wait to slap in an extra 512ddr though :(

You can track your page file usage with XP PageFileMon.
It creates a log file to see if the page file size should be adjusted.

A guide for virtual memory is at Virtual Memory in Windows XP.

Jg427

There is a great deal of myth surrounding this question. Two big fallacies are:

The file should be a fixed size so that it does not get fragmented, with minimum and maximum set the same

The file should be 2.5 times the size of RAM (or some other multiple)

Both are wrong

ooooo ... I'ma change my maximum to 800mb for the time being then .....

I found the section, "Why is there so little free Ram?", interesting. The conclusion is "free ram is wasted ram".

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Programs that purport to ‘manage’ or ‘free up’ RAM are pandering to a delusion that only such ‘Free’ RAM is available for fresh uses.

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