More memory

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Guest

Hi, I ran WinXP-2K_Pagefile.vbs and it game me a
page file usage of 58MB. If I double my memory to 1GB is it going to give me
better performance? The script can be found in the thread bellow:

Thnx,
 
Camilo A Reyes said:
Hi, I ran WinXP-2K_Pagefile.vbs and it game me a
page file usage of 58MB. If I double my memory to 1GB is it going to give me
better performance? The script can be found in the thread bellow:
Click to expand...

That would be right on the borderline. There is something like 40 to
50 mb of code that Windows can page out and will rarely ever need to
page it back in again unless there is an error or other unusual
circumstance.

I would not expect a substantial increase in performance with more
memory, but in the future if your computer use pattern changes and/or
if you install new applications or updated versions of the ones you
are now using then you can expect the actual page file use to increase
further and therefore the benefits from adding more RAM would be more
substantial.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
you can use the Task Manager to monitor Page File usage. Just Ctrl- Alt-
Del and select Performance. the other thing you might want to do is select
Options and uncheck "Always On Top" It will still be displayed but items
can cover it if you want to.
 
Bigdawg said:
you can use the Task Manager to monitor Page File usage. Just Ctrl- Alt-
Del and select Performance. the other thing you might want to do is select
Options and uncheck "Always On Top" It will still be displayed but items
can cover it if you want to.
Click to expand...

Uh, I'm suspicious: which param on the TM's performance display shows
PageFile usage? Or is it somehow derived from some param?
 
I can't answer what param it uses. I have XP Home and Pro the monitor has
two areas one bar graph that says PF Usage and a line chart that's labeled
Page File Usage History. I was always told to check the "Commit Charge"
Peak against the "Physical Memory" Total if the peak is higher then the
total more memory is needed.
 
I have Windows XP Professional, AMD 2800+, 2.08GHZ. I like to run and use
several programs at the same time, e.g., dial up and download from internet,
Quicken, video or audio editing, etc.

With 512MB of Ram (2-256MB sticks) my machine computer seems to go very slow
when using multimple programs, so I already bought 2GB of memory (2-1GB
sticks) and replaced the sticks I had, separated with the middle of 3
channels open. My Motherboard can use as much as 4GB of memory.

I cannot tell a big difference in usage or speed. At start up, the (is it
BIOS) blank screen says 128MB RAM, but when I do a "My Computer" check of
system, it says I have 2GB of RAM.

Is there something I need to change or can change to get the full use of the
memory?

Incidently, I was able to get this window up to reply to the attached
posting, but I could not get a "new message" window to open - am I missing
something on this my first post?
 
Bigdawg said:
you can use the Task Manager to monitor Page File usage. Just Ctrl- Alt-
Del and select Performance. the other thing you might want to do is select
Options and uncheck "Always On Top" It will still be displayed but items
can cover it if you want to.
Click to expand...

That PF Usage value is worse that useless for assessing the potential
benefit of adding more RAM.

For example on my computer at this moment Task Manager tells me that
PF Usage is 525 mb. However my actual pagefile (C:\pagefile.sys) is
only 88 mb in size. It is pretty tough to actually use 525 mb of
space in an 88 mb file. :-)

The reason for this is because Task Manager includes "phantom" page
fiel usage in the reported value, especially the unused portions of
memory allocation requests. By design, Windows must provide memory
address space to satisfy all of the memory requests that are issued by
Windows components, application programs and device drivers. And
also by design pretty much every one of these items asks for memory
allocations that are larger than what they usually need under normal
circumstances, sometimes very much more. So what Windows does is to
allocate RAM addresses only to those portions of the requests that are
actually used and to map the unused portions to available locations in
the paging/swap file.

With Windows XP the swap file space does not even have to exist, it
just has to be able to created if and when needed without exceeding
the maximum size limit for the pagefile. On my computer the pagefile
hast the maximum set at 1 gb. Also note that this mapping of unused
memory requests to the pagefile does not require any actual disk
activity. All that is required is to make entries in the memory
mapping tables maintained by the system.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
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