Virtual memory size

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What should be the size of page filing size of virtual memory....

what is the range for that????

Thanks in advacne
 
Having plenty is better than not quite enough. If you have
big, modern hard drives, maybe as much as 4 GB, if you have
small drives and lots of RAM you may never notice. But if
you have limited RAM and hard drive space allocated, your
computer will run poorly and may crash or lose data.


message
| What should be the size of page filing size of virtual
memory....
|
| what is the range for that????
|
| Thanks in advacne
 
I am using Win XP with 20 GB hard drive and 256MB ram

so what should be the size of the virtual mem page size??
 
You need a pretty big virtual memory because your RAM is
VERY limited, but your hard drive is also very small so you
don't have much space.
You need to have as much virtual memory [pagefile] as you
can spare from the hard drive, so you can open more than one
file or program. XP and system background processes will be
using pretty much all of your RAM and be using the pagefile
system when you have a normal compliment of programs and
files open, say email, word processor and perhaps your
anti-virus, firewall and a scanner/printer or other devices.
In case you don't really understand the pagefile system, it
was a method of allowing programs and files to be opened
when RAM was very expensive and 16, 32 or 64 MB was
considered a lot of memory. It is still a valuable and
useful method to use.
Some things must be in active memory [RAM] in order to work,
such as the operating system and the codes used to run your
word processor, but other things can be shuffled in and out
of RAM to "fool" the computer into acting as though it had a
larger memory. That means that the RAM has to manage
selection of what can be moved into virtual memory and then
brought back into RAM when needed, swapping files back and
forth as needed.
If you want to write a letter or two, cut and paste,
spell-check, maybe do a simple photo edit, adjust color and
crop, check your email; your hard drive and a fair portion
of the RAM will be used about 100% of the time to run your
total operation. The hard drive is very slow, so your whole
computer slows down. If you run out of allocated space for
virtual memory, your computer or program will crash.
Set virtual memory to be managed by Windows, Windows will
adjust the size in order to run the programs you're running.
If you get the message that "Windows is adjusting size" then
it is taking more of your hard drive space.

My opinion is that you need to buy more RAM and a new hard
drive.
read the article http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php


message
|I am using Win XP with 20 GB hard drive and 256MB ram
|
| so what should be the size of the virtual mem page size??
 
oxygenan said:
What should be the size of page filing size of virtual memory....

what is the range for that????

Thanks in advacne
Click to expand...

There are two things to remember about the virtual memory paging file:

1. Paging file requirements are inversely related to the amount of
RAM installed in your computer. More RAM means less paging file and
less RAM means more paging file, provided all other factors are
unchanged.

2. Paging file requirements will vary from user to user, even if the
hardware and RAM quantity are identical, because of the differences in
the application programs they run and the size of the data files they
work with.

In other words, there is no simple "one size fits all" type rule as to
what paging file settings to use. For detailed information see the
article by the late Alex Nichol MVP at
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
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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