Virtual Memory

[NicksFXHouse]

Virtual memory:
This is a method of extending the available physical memory on a computer. In a virtual memory system, the operating system creates a pagefile, or swapfile, and divides memory into units called pages. Recently referenced pages are located in physical memory, or RAM. If a page of memory is not referenced for a while, it is written to the pagefile. This is called "swapping" or "paging out" memory. If that piece of memory is then later referenced by a program, the operating system reads the memory page back from the pagefile into physical memory, also called "swapping" or "paging in" memory. The total amount of memory that is available to programs is the amount of physical memory in the computer in addition to the size of the pagefile. An important consideration in the short term is that even 32-bit applications will benefit from increased virtual memory address space when they are running in Windows x64 Editions. Applications that are compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE option, as would be required to take advantage of the /3GB switch in 32-bit Windows, will automatically be able to address 4 GB of virtual memory without any boot time switches or changes to x64 Windows. Plus, of course, the operating system does not have to share that 4 GB of space. Therefore, it is not constrained at all.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418/ ... 0121120120

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us


The best pagefile layout is as follows:

1.
Set the system for "small memory dump" in the Startup and Recovery settings. Set the pagefile size to a static 2mb on the WindowsXP install directory. This must be done to prevent system crash when the main pagefile is located on another HDD I/O.

2.
Using a separate HDD I/O that is equal to or greater in speed (greater is better) than the WindowsXP install HDD, place a pagefile on it which its size has been determined by using the correct performance counter and memory I/O monitoring method. If the user does not know how to properly use the counter and memory I/O monitoring system, (and most don

[Mick_C]

Awesome Nick N! You covered ALL the bases on that one! Nice..

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]Awesome Nick N! You covered ALL the bases on that one! Nice..

[Mick_C]

Thanks Nick N, I wondered how FS9 would behave if moved to a dedicated partition, now I know. Sounds like you built one awesome server! I've built similar systems that were used in Assistive Technology Applications (home and office control / ECU) for customers with certain disabilities (IE speech in and out interfaces) linked to home control devices. Most of what I do with PC's is functional, gaming is new to me. You could use that unit to control your entire house, alarm, lights, intercom, phone system, whatever with a (relatively cheap) add on and it would still never hickup! Nice!  ;D
Mick  

[kipman725]

if you have enough ram you don't need a page file (virtual memory) and use only memory.  I think with windows XP this is about 4gb because thats the max amount of memory it can alocate to a single proccess. to get around the problem of some aplications needing a page file (I have found non that do if you have enough ram though) you could always put your (small) page file on a ram drive partitioned from the main system memory.

If you get out of memory mesages that means that your page file is too small and/or you don't have enough memory for the task your trying to acomplish.

The best setting for most users with virtual memory is the auto mode and allowing windows to resize virtual memory if needed.

Vitual memory has nothing to do with graphics cards.  The only graphics cards that take system memory are the chepo onboard ones (Intell Extreme) or the low end ati hyper memory cards or nvidia turbo cache.  This is because system memory opertates at much lower frequancys that graphics memory on the card and is further away from the graphical proccesing unit so higher latencys would be incured thurther impacting on perfomance if it was accessed.

Currently I have 1gb of ram and a 1.5gb page file and have never had an out of memory mesage and have good performance.

[congo]

Thankyou for your input gentlemen, I hope you don't mind if I cut and paste this for later reference.

I've seen the witchdoctors casting their curses too Nick N, seems they vasty outnumber PHD's.

Intriguing, informative. Good stuff.

Under memory dump settings, I've always set it to NONE, just because, no reason............ did I do bad?

[Delta_]

Thankyou for your input gentlemen, I hope you don't mind if I cut and paste this for later reference.

I've seen the witchdoctors casting their curses too Nick N, seems they vasty outnumber PHD's.

Intriguing, informative. Good stuff.

Under memory dump settings, I've always set it to NONE, just because, no reason............ did I do bad?

If you really want to trawl through the "dump" the computer just had to find out why your comp reset itself, then use a memory dump.  There really is no use for the average and advanced home user to use memory dumps.

if you have enough ram you don't need a page file (virtual memory) and use only memory.  I think with windows XP this is about 4gb because thats the max amount of memory it can alocate to a single proccess. to get around the problem of some aplications needing a page file (I have found non that do if you have enough ram though) you could always put your (small) page file on a ram drive partitioned from the main system memory.

I've seen a few people do that with very good results.  You do need a lot of RAM though.

[NicksFXHouse]

Under memory dump settings, I've always set it to NONE, just because, no reason............ did I do bad?

That memory dump is the reason Microsoft defaults to OS to a dynamic 1.5xPM. That amount is designed to cover all the bases and is not set in stone, it

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]Thanks Nick N, I wondered how FS9 would behave if moved to a dedicated partition, now I know. Sounds like you built one awesome server! I've built similar systems that were used in Assistive Technology Applications (home and office control / ECU) for customers with certain disabilities (IE speech in and out interfaces) linked to home control devices. Most of what I do with PC's is functional, gaming is new to me. You could use that unit to control your entire house, alarm, lights, intercom, phone system, whatever with a (relatively cheap) add on and it would still never hickup! Nice!

[NicksFXHouse]

One last item I did not address

[congo]

By offline defrag, you mean defrag while the PF is not active I presume. How do you achieve this?

[NicksFXHouse]

By offline defrag, you mean defrag while the PF is not active I presume. How do you achieve this?

A good disk defrag software such as O&O v8 or Perfectdisk v7 will have that option. Once set you reboot the system and as it boots back up it will default to an offline defrag screen. It is also good to run a Windows disk check offline before defrags are run. This is done by:

My Computer,
Right click the boot drive, select properties
Select Tools
On the Error Checking window, click 'check now'
Put a check in 'Automatically correct errors' leave the 'scan and recover bad sectors' unchecked
click Start

Windows will prompt for a disk check at next reboot, select OK

reboot

the rest is automatic





As a side note, if you shut down the memory dump completely I do not think you will get an error blue screen which displays the file and memory address where the error occurred. I have always set mine to "small memory dump" just in case a BSOD decides to pop up. By doing I get the BSOD error message which can definitely help determine what caused the crash. A small memory dump only requires a 2mb pagefile be present on the boot directory. That is why I posted the need for the 2mb PF on the boot drive if you should decide to move the main PF to another HDD.

[congo]

Here is what I just tried:

I did the disk check first.

I then turned off my page file and re-booted.

Next I opened my page file to 1534mb fixed.


My idea was this, instead of maintaining and defragging the PF, I just killed it and started over, would that work once in a while?

[NicksFXHouse]

Here is what I just tried:

I disk the disk check first.

I then turned off my page file and re-booted.

Next I opened my page file to 1534mb fixed.


My idea was this, instead of maintaining and defragging the PF, I just killed it and started over, would that work once in a while?

Yep... it sure will!

That is another way to defrag a pagefile

[Mick_C]

Gentlemen, this has been an excellent series of posts. Explained exceptionally well!