Virtual Memory

I have Windows XP Home Edition, SP3, Outlook Express 6 and IE7.

Quite often if I keep IE and OE open on Hibernate, when I come back to life again, I get a message saying something like ;-
YOUR VIRTUAL MEMORY IS TOO LOW, WINDOWS WILL ATTEMPT TO INCREASE THIS, SUGGEST REBOOT.

Having poked around on the net, it seems a common problem. There are dozens of suggestions as to how to cure it. Most come back to changing the Virtual Memory in Performance Operations.

From that point on, all these Guru`s seem to dance around and get nowhere, but enjoy themselves talking about 1.25 times this and plus that.

All fascinating stuff, BUT NOT ONE OF THEM SUGGESTS THE ACTUAL VALUES TO ENTER IN THE CUSTOMISE BOXES SHOWN FOR MIN. AND MAX. VIRTUAL MEMORY.
God help us all if they get a job as traffic cops.

My boxes were BLANK and the set was under Windows auto judgement.
One bright spark on the entire Internet DID suggest actual values - he said enter 500 MB in the min. or lower value and 4,000 MB in the higher, 4,000 MB apparently being Windows entire lung capacity.

So that is what I have done and so far nothing has gone BANG.

Could somebody PLEASE explain in kiddywinks language the entire science of simply entering two lovely numeric values in these boxes for min. and max. Virtual Memory and why ? Precise values would be a real cybernetic blockbuster.

It would be really great.
Thanking you in advance.
KAS

 

Kas,

Does this help?

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

 

Kas,

You may also want to check out TweakHound's XP tweaking guide. Personally, I set min and max to 2xRAM and run 1 pagefile on the OS partition and 1 pagefile on the first partition of a second drive.

 

I see it can be helpfull to put pagefile onto another drive but 2 pagefiles ?

 

From what I've read, if your system crashes you won't get a memory dump unless a paging file is resident on the system drive.

I don't know - I have two internal HDDs on a few of my machines, plenty of RAM (at least 2 GB), and only one paging file on the *second* HDD. I keep the paging file set at twice the amount of RAM (for both initial and max). I've tried other configurations, including system-managed and no paging file, but none of the other configs seemed to accomplish much of anything in terms of performance or stability.

Imaging, for me, has become a religion so I really couldn't care less about memory dumps; by the time I figured out the issue, I could have restored an image anyway. Actually, I wouldn't even get a memory dump since I unchecked "write an event to the system log". Just don't see the point.

 

there quite a few people running without a pagefile just fine but unless you have enough memory i should keep at least one small pagefile on either system or other internal disk.

 

Actually I've been running without a pagefile for a while, I've gone back to using one because of a few posts like these ones describing the hazards of not using one.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9191647&postcount=9

 

Yes the need of virt. memory is inevitable,most all app. and OS need temp. storage to function properly.
Question is are there places other then system disk that can function as temporary storage ( pagefile,scratchdisk etc) with one reason not to hamper the smooth functioning of system and applications.

An example : If photoshop start swapping data out to disk,instantly it become slow !

There are some ways to prevent that a) more RAM b)Ramdisk c) 64 bit Windows d) virtualisation of systempart e) fast second Sata (raptors) or SCSI paired striped raid 0 for temp. storage or any combination of them.

But still my question are there any other tricks then already mentioned that you can think of ??

 

F) SSD, no slowdown from seek times.

 

Hello, all my kind responders.
I have read all the comments and learnt a lot about VM etc.

I have 448 MB of RAM according to my general system panel.
From the mix of comments it seems like I enter say 1.5 x RAM in the custom boxes, same value for min. and max.

So, I entered 900 MB. I still got a panel saying my VM was in a coma !
I ignored it and carried on browsing.

Then I did a defrag using DEFRAGGLER that brilliant tool by Piriform.

When I defragged the files which came up, it stuck at ONE file that would not be defragged - PAGEFILE at over 900,000 KB. I have never seen a pagefile on this list before.

I then went back to the VM settings and changed them to 500 MB each, rebooted, deleted all the cookie-temp rubbish and defragged again.
Well, wadda-ya know ? The pagefile was NOT there and ALL files defragged 100%.

This leaves me cold. I would love to be a little more scientific, but do not know what kind of love-bite turns this wonderful system on.

Perhaps it just wants me to keep putting in figures ?
Anybody got a Rubik Cube - it`s easier.
KAS

 

You have 448 MB of RAM ? That's a very odd amount. Are you sure ?
256 MB or 512 MB would be more common.

DEFRAGGLER ? I'm not sure what it is supposed to do, but if you want to defrag the files on your system Windows XP's own defrag 'utility' (?) is just fine. I don't see the need for all those fancy third party defrag programs. I would suggest, keep it simple.

Anyway, on my system (service pack 2, not 3, 512 MB RAM) I have set the minimum of the swap file (=virtual memory ?) at 1.5 x 512 MB and the upper limit at 3 x 512 MB. I can't preclude that it gets more complicated if you have more drives and/or partitions. Only rarely more than 512 MB RAM (=harddrive used as memory) is used, and even in those cases, just a bit.
Nothing like 900 MB.

Have you optimized CPU and memory for programs (control panel, system, advanced etc.) ?

Btw, I don't use hibernate, I don't fully trust it security wise.

 

Defraggler is a defragmenting program designed to defrag only certain files or more.

Having 448Mb of RAM is an indicator one of the chips on the stick has died.

When it comes to page file size, I always recommend the exact same size no matter how much RAM: start-1536 end-2048

 

Yes,have yet to see real world test (no benchmark) where grafic/video or cad app. are involved.

 

Actually there are several tests on youtube, and I have seen them already being sold in laptops and desktops. I'm hoping for a steep price drop by Christmas!

 

My guess would be the OP's total memory is 512MB.......it's showing 448MB because 64MB is being reserved for onboard video RAM.

 

And how compare it to traditional drives in the test you mentioned ?

 

I'm on a WinXP box with only 512MB ram. I found this easy to read discussion of Pagefile a couple years ago.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

I followed to the letter his instructions (starting on pg. 63) for first clearing the existing pagefile and then setting the new pagefile. I have never encountered any problems using his method, and had to recently redo these steps after a reformat/clean install of OS after a malware-caused crash. I have a 150GB HDD and am only using <10GB of it, so HDD space is not an issue for me; RAM is an issue for me and I hope to upgrade that soon.

FYI: I just have the one HDD and one partition only on it. The author used to recommend 2560 for both MIN and MAX (which mine is still set to with no problems), but I noticed today when I d/l'd the pdf, he is recommending 2048 for both entries. I did read somewhere recently that too large a pagefile can be problematic on some systems. But like I said, I've had no problems with mine set to 2560.

 

Hi, I sussed out the missing 64 MB of RAM on the net - somebody had asked that precise question "I have 512 RAM, why does my system general tab show only 448 MB ?"

ANSWER ;- as stated by PRIUS04 = Windows XP (and probably earlier) traditionally allocates 64 RAM to Video/Graphics, thus 512-64 = 448. The systems tab will only show 448 MB like mine does, but the set RAM = 512 MB.

So, 448 RAM is a normal value always shown on the system general tab by Windows - THERE IS NO CHIP MISSING OR HAS SUFFERED A HEART ATTACK.
Fly post 12 and Elapsed post 13 please note.
KAS

 

I think I once read that Windows XP cannot use RAM for video/graphics. You can change that in the BIOS.

 

Pagefile and some myths: http://aumha.org/a/xpvm.htm

 

Any way it reserve RAM for video/graphic etc. shortening on the free RAM you can use.
I read elswhere that some current highend cards for gaming have Ram cache up to 1 gig !!

BTW interesting to see how hardcore gamers tweak their systems !

 

You should not run without a pagefile for many reasons one already mentioned by prius04. You can get more performance sometimes without one but on the whole having one enables you to have that memory for other uses relevant to the system and what your doing. Going back to prius04's comment Windows will not be able to write a crash dump without one and being big enough to have them.

- which leads on to how big then should the page file be?

Well, getting to the specifics its not actually any multiplication of RAM!

Systems are different and the only real value is to find the system commit limit.

To size your paging file one should run and use all applications for a while and take down the commit peak. Now set the minimum value to that minus the amount of RAM.

If this is low then use a minimum that will cater for the crash dumps you chose for your system to make. Mark Russinovich says if you want some room for large commit demands to set the maximum to double that number.

 

Oh yes, (2 as no pagefile on Windows partition=no memory dumps,) Windows memory management will run an algorithm to determine optimal - using the pagefile on the less active partition. Multiple I/O requests on the same disk is going to have some slow down.
Give the pagefile its own partition on the other harddisk is the thought here.

below : currently allocated is the sum of the two.

 

Just a question on this earlier thread.
Windows XP Home, SP3, IE7.

My System properties/Performance Options/Virtual Memory details are ;-
Total paging file size for all drives = 674
System managed size = 1.8 GHz, 448 RAM (512 RAM total, 64 RAM allocated to graphics)
Drive = C: [Model 20]
Space available = 65914 MB
VM set on system managed size.

Total paging file size for all drives ;-
Minimum allowed = 2 MB
Recommended = 669 MB
Currently allocated = 674 MB
-------
Problem ;-
After Hibernation, a balloon frequently comes up saying "VM is low, Windows is increasing the VM, but some systems may fail"

I usually re-boot when this happens to restore the situation, which means I lose all my open panels and work e.g IE, OE, etc.

Can anybody spot what is wrong and advise me how to stop this happening ?
KAS