4GT RAM Tuning for XP Pro

  • Thread starter Thread starter CADJockey
  • Start date Start date
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CADJockey

I recently purchased a workstation equipped with 4 Gb of
RAM (4 x 1 Gb SIMMs) and I want to achieve the maximum
performance benefit of this investment. As I understand
it, XP Pro, out of the box, only recognizes the first 2 Gb
of RAM. Supposedly if the /3GB switch is added to the
boot.ini file, the OS will recogize the additional RAM
installed. However when I attempted to do this, my
workstation experienced a critical error after reboot. I
was able to recover without incident due to prior
planning. However before I do anymore tinkering, I wanted
to see if anyone out there has had experience with this
issue and XP Pro SP 1a. Thanks
 
well you want the best peformance right go to control
panel then switch to classic view then system then
peformance then shut off virtual memory i have it shut
off and i got 1340mb and while you are in the system tab
look at the memory what dose youre system say


vitural memeory is when tou use youre hard-drive as ram
you dont nead that one bit or press
 
microsoft said:
well you want the best peformance right go to control
panel then switch to classic view then system then
peformance then shut off virtual memory i have it shut
off and i got 1340mb and while you are in the system tab
look at the memory what dose youre system say


vitural memeory is when tou use youre hard-drive as ram
you dont nead that one bit or press
Click to expand...

That is very bad advice, in fact dangerously bad.

The virtual memory page file has a number of other uses in Windows XP.

And it will never actually be used provided there is sufficient RAM.

What does happen is that the memory manager will use the page file
space to satisfy the address space requirements for the unused
portions of memory allocation requests. And as application programs
and Windows components typically ask for larger allocations than they
normally need these unused portions can add up to a significant total.

With no page file the memory manager is forced to allocate RAM to meet
even the unused portions of the requested memory allocations.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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