Is virtual memory suitable for games?

[jobla6]

To play a new game I do not have enough RAM. I am reluctant to pay to upgrade my RAM so I am considering increasing virtual memory instead. I only need to increase the memory by 1GB, but the point is basically is virtual memory suitable for playing games. A quick Google search was inconclusive.

If it is not suitable is there another solution?

[dimsums]

Virtual memory is just what it is, viryual, it doesnt exist in a physical form, it uses the hard drive as a way to hold/page your physical memory so your computer can hold/work with more workspace than what it really has, games software will look for physical memory only so your trick wont work.

[jobla6]

Virtual memory is just what it is, viryual, it doesnt exist in a physical form, it uses the hard drive as a way to hold/page your physical memory so your computer can hold/work with more workspace than what it really has, games software will look for physical memory only so your trick wont work.

Does the same thing happen for USB RAM too?

[dimsums]

Never tried USB RAM, because never had to nor ever want to due to the USB speed of read/write, but looking at the Google page showing how to make a USB RAM, my conclusion is simple, its a time wasting exercise, even if you did managed to get it to work, a USB read/write would be so slow it can be painful to use, especially for games.

[caperjack]

as dimsums said,virtual ram is virtual no matter what drive you choose to use ,it aint a gonna help with gaming

[tigerbright]

using wintune98 my disk drive page file (virtual memory) benchmarks at about 900MB/s (with uncached disk at about 6MB/s noted as a relative value - why booting is slow)
ddr2 ecc memory benchmarks at 3300MB/s
3300 vs 900
hence the performace problem if ram memory is exhausted with the page file used to store program pages ( parts of programs) normally found in ram memory space
NT platform memory manager divides up applications into parts called pages with some stored in ram memory space and others stored in virtual memory

There is no cost free upgrade to my knowledge available if limited ram memory is cauising performance issues

for games with under spec ram memory the only solution is to incraese system memory
and also best to replace the disk drive with a faster model to boost paging speed or add an additional equal or faster cheap cost low capacity disk drive and configure performance options > virtual memory for a remote dedicated page file drive, as games seem to have a lot of pages stored in virtual memory
C;drive 2MB min 2MB max, (120MB /120MB if a crash dump is desired)
X:drive 2700MB min 2700MB max