Gridlock Mikey

And why does my home pc keep telling me that I haven't got enough and therefore it's increasing it?

Forever your techno retard SN member

Mikey

Manners

virtual memory is when your system has not got enough ram and it uses the hard drive for temp. storage.

jjones

right

your pc has 3 types of memory.

cache on the processor, system RAM and then virtual memory.

virtual memory is where the pc uses space on the hardrive as "virtual memory". i.e. it uses a set space on the hard disk to read and write temporary data to. your system is requesting more hard disk space to use as virtual memory. check that you have free space on your "c" drive (this is where by default your virtual memory is). you can tell the pc to use more space if you have it available.

fkcu croatia score DOH

stuff ya memory i'm off to cry at the tv

Iain Young

Basically, your average pc has not got enough memory to run all the applications and the operating system at the same time. What happens is that a large file is created on your hard disc, and data in memory that isn't currently being used is unloaded from your ram chips, and saved in the file for later retrieval. (swapped from memory to the file, and back again when needed - which is why it's often called a swap file).

Generally speaking, the size of your swap file should be the same size (or greater) than the amount of physical ram you have in the machine. So, if you have 128Mb of memory, you should have a 128Mb or greater swap file. If your system is reporting low vitual memory, then you are running too much stuff for the current settingws to handle, and you probably need to increase the size of the swap file.

Iain

Dracoro

I know what it is but it's far easier to paste stuff from howstuffworks.com

bascially it's like normal memory but using hdd space rather than ram.
If it happens a lot then consider adding more ram.

Virtual memory is a common part of most operating systems on desktop computers. It has become so common because it provides a big benefit for users at a very low cost.



Most computers today have something like 64 or 128 megabytes of RAM (random-access memory) available for use by the CPU (central processing unit). Often, that amount of RAM is not enough to run all of the programs that most users expect to run at once. For example, if you load the Windows operating system, an e-mail program, a Web browser and word processor into RAM simultaneously, 64 megabytes is not enough to hold it all. If there were no such thing as virtual memory, your computer would have to say, "Sorry, you cannot load any more applications. Please close an application to load a new one." With virtual memory, the computer can look for areas of RAM that have not been used recently and copy them onto the hard disk. This frees up space in RAM to load the new application. Because it does this automatically, you don't even know it is happening, and it makes your computer feel like is has unlimited RAM space even though it has only 32 megabytes installed. Because hard-disk space is so much cheaper than RAM chips, virtual memory also provides a nice economic benefit.

The area of the hard disk that stores the RAM image is called a page file. It holds pages of RAM on the hard disk, and the operating system moves data back and forth between the page file and RAM. (On a Windows machine, page files have a .SWP extension.)

Of course, the read/write speed of a hard drive is much slower than RAM, and the technology of a hard drive is not geared toward accessing small pieces of data at a time. If your system has to rely too heavily on virtual memory, you will notice a significant performance drop. The key is to have enough RAM to handle everything you tend to work on simultaneously. Then, the only time you "feel" the slowness of virtual memory is in the slight pause that occurs when you change tasks. When you have enough RAM for your needs, virtual memory works beautifully. When you don't, the operating system has to constantly swap information back and forth between RAM and the hard disk. This is called thrashing, and it can make your computer feel incredibly slow

Nog

Mikey

Virtual Memory is a solution used by many operating systems to make it possible to run many programs at once, without needing masses of memory.

Basically, you have physical memory - the stuff that you shove onto the motherboard, and virtual memory. Virtual memory is an area of your computer's hard disk(s) that is set aside for "paging".

Paging can be analogised (sp?) as follows:

Imagine you're working with loads of files from a filing cabiniet. Your desk represents how much memory you have. You start placing more and more files onto your desk until you run out of space (you're out of physical memory). So, you have a look at the files on the desk, work out which ones you haven't used for a while, and shove them in a box (this is "paging out"). As you carry on working, you keep looking at files on the desk, and this is done very quickly. However, you then realise you need a file that's not on the desk (known as a hard page fault), so you open the box and dig it out, swapping it with a file on the desk that hasn't been used for a while. This process takes a long time.

In computer terms, to access information from the "page file" or "swap file" takes many thousands times longer than accessing information from memory.

You can increase the size of your page file, or even move it to a fast disk, but ultimately, the more physical RAM the better.

To change the size, or move your page file(s) [on Windows XP], right-click My Computer, select Properties. Select the Advanced tab, click Settings. Select the Advanced tab and click Change.

Cheers

Nog

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

From the above:

1) Get more RAM - most games etc need 256MB minimum, 512MB is OK, 1GB is good.

2) Set the pagefile to about 1GB, but set max and min to be the same - dynamically altering the size of the pagefile slows it down. Set more if you want, but keep the size rule.

4) Stop running Windows - all this happens 'cos every version of Windows ever made has a meory leak. It's not as bad as 3.1 (GDI.EXE errors anyone?) but XP is still poor at clearing out unused registers.


M

TopBanana

Pedantic mode - virtual memory is actually an abstract view the operating system has of both the physical memory AND the swap file(s).

Gridlock Mikey

Cheers nog, i'm liking the desk analogy See Hanslow, told you it wasn't hard to explain computer stuff.

Anyways, i'm off home in a while to stop my computer "Thrashing" about

Ha see how anyone can talk techie

Cheers guys

Mikey

SCOSaltire

Its Memory Jim, but not as we know it