Restrict used physical memory from 2 to 1 GB (for testing purposes)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Stacy
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason Stacy

Currently in my are 2 GB of physical RAM.
In would like to test the performance impace for certain scenarios if I would
have only 1 GB physical memory. How can I decrease the total amount of usable memory
(of cause without removing physically 1 GB)?

Is there a tool which "disables" the second 1 GB RAM stick?

J.
 
Jason said:
Currently in my are 2 GB of physical RAM.
In would like to test the performance impace for certain scenarios if I would
have only 1 GB physical memory. How can I decrease the total amount of usable memory
(of cause without removing physically 1 GB)?

Is there a tool which "disables" the second 1 GB RAM stick?

J.
Click to expand...
Install a VM and allocate only 1 GB of memory...
 
You can use the /MAXMEM= switch in the boot.ini file, you have to reboot
for the switch to be enforced.

John
 
What's with the posting here
(microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support) if you only want a follow
up on microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware?

You can use the /MAXMEM= switch in the boot.ini file, you have to reboot
for the switch to be enforced.

John
 
Currently in my are 2 GB of physical RAM.
In would like to test the performance impace for certain scenarios if I would
have only 1 GB physical memory. How can I decrease the total amount of usable memory
(of cause without removing physically 1 GB)?

Is there a tool which "disables" the second 1 GB RAM stick?
Click to expand...

boot.ini:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /MAXMEM=1024
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Jason Stacy said:
Currently in my are 2 GB of physical RAM.
In would like to test the performance impace for certain scenarios if I would
have only 1 GB physical memory. How can I decrease the total amount of usable memory
(of cause without removing physically 1 GB)?
Click to expand...
Is there a tool which "disables" the second 1 GB RAM stick?
Click to expand...
J.
Click to expand...

It depends. On some CPUs/Mainboards, you can simply remove 1GB.
On others you cannot and you have to work around that limitation.
"disabling" a stick will either difficult or involve removal
anyways.

The first option is to get 4 256MB sticks and put them in instead.
I think there are no 512MB sticks.

The second option is to have an application reserve 1GB. Note
that this memory needs to be made unswappable. Under Linux and
UNIX memory is locked with "mlock" and friends. Under Windows
it seems this is not reliably possible, but may be enough for
your needs. You can also try to just use 1GB in a way that makes
swapping unlikely, e.g. read 1 byte of each tile in a loop
all the time.

I would say that pysical memory reduction is your best bet.

Arno
 
Currently in my are 2 GB of physical RAM.
In would like to test the performance impace for certain scenarios if I would
have only 1 GB physical memory. How can I decrease the total amount of usable memory
(of cause without removing physically 1 GB)?

Is there a tool which "disables" the second 1 GB RAM stick?
Click to expand...

If you're running Windows XP, you can use the /maxmem= option in
boot.ini.
 
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