Virtual Memory Configuration Question.

[Helltech]

In all my years, I've honestly never had a problem with virtual memory. It wasn't until I started using rainmeter that I acutally got curious about it. I have 12 gigs of RAM, and (by default mind you) I have 23.9 gigs of virtual memory. I've noticed that my RAM never goes over 5 gigs being used at any time. So I started reading around and I heard having virtual memory when you don't need it acutally slows you down? I've also read a lot of mixed reviews about how much virtual memory you should and what not, so I figured I'd ask for myself and see what you guys have to say. I'm running Vista 64 bit if it matters.

Link to picture

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[caperjack]

and (by default mind you) I have 23.9 gigs of virtual memory

turn it off no need for it with the amount of ram you have

[jbennet]

yarp, virtual memory gets used when you run out of physical (RAM) memory. Its bad because it uses the HDD (which is mechanical and therefore slow) for a process called paging. Thats why when your PC gets slow, that little light is usually blinking :) and why adding more RAM generally makes things faster.

Windows by default allocates a pagefile of 2x the physical RAM. You should never use a whole 12gb, so its safe to disable paging (virtual memory) and save yourself some disk space.

Note: Doesnt affect you yet , but worth bearing in mind that MS implement (artificial) RAM limits in windows. 8gb is the max in Basic, and 16 GB is the max in Home Premium (and up to 2tb in the more expensive editions).

[Helltech]

yarp, virtual memory gets used when you run out of physical (RAM) memory. Its bad because it uses the HDD (which is mechanical and therefore slow) for a process called paging. Thats why when your PC gets slow, that little light is usually blinking :) and why adding more RAM generally makes things faster.

Windows by default allocates a pagefile of 2x the physical RAM. You should never use a whole 12gb, so its safe to disable paging (virtual memory) and save yourself some disk space.

Note: Doesnt affect you yet , but worth bearing in mind that MS implement (artificial) RAM limits in windows. 8gb is the max in Basic, and 16 GB is the max in Home Premium (and up to 2tb in the more expensive editions).

Acutally I didn't know that (about the ram limits) for some reasonson, someone must have told me, that all 64 bit windows could have 16 Gigs, good to know.

Thanks, I set it to 3072MB which should be 3GB, but now it says I have 12.1 amount of Swap Memory. Is Swap Memory different from Virtual memory? I thought they were the same thing. On a plus side I got 10~GB more free space on my little Velociraptor, so thats nice.

[caperjack]

Acutally I didn't know that (about the ram limits) for some reasonson, someone must have told me, that all 64 bit windows could have 16 Gigs, good to know.

Thanks, I set it to 3072MB which should be 3GB, but now it says I have 12.1 amount of Swap Memory. Is Swap Memory different from Virtual memory? I thought they were the same thing. On a plus side I got 10~GB more free space on my little Velociraptor, so thats nice.

if you have 16 gig of ram then you could be best served by turning it off completely.for someone like me who is running 32bit win7 ult,on a p4 2.8 with 1.5 gig ram and 8gig thumb drive for ready boost ,then yeah i have it set to default setting
and i think you are correct about the 64 bit os handling 16 gig and i think its actually more like128 gig and higher if one looks on the net for info

[Helltech]

Oh gotchya, well I figured out the other bit of swap memory is coming from what was put on there when I formatted the drive. So I guess i might as well set it to 0, since I'll still have 9 gigs of memory on there from that. =/

[caperjack]

set it to 0, just check the box to turn it off completely

[Helltech]

set it to 0, just check the box to turn it off completely

I did when I made my last post lol. Thanks.

[caperjack]

good luck