Windows 98 & ME - Virtual Memory

"Jean" wrote:

I am trying to understand Ram and Virtual memory. What is
the default setting and what would be the optimum settings
for Virtual memory. I am running Windows 98E, 256mb of
Ram, 20Gb Hard Drive and I have used about a quarter of my
hard drive allocation. When I checked my Virtual memory
dialog box(which I have never altered) it reads - Min 0
and Max - No Max. This dosn't look right to me!! Any
advice.

Jean

For Windows 98, 98SE, and Me the basic rule is that "no settings is
good settings".

Letting Windows manage the virtual memory settings provides optimum
performance under the operating conditions encountered by the majority
of users.

Wtih 256 mb of RAM on Windows 98 SE it is quite likely that you will
never actually use the virtual memory swap file. However it is still
needed, because the Windows Memory Manager will use the address
locations represented by the swap file space to fulfill the memory
address space requirements for the *unused* portions of memory
allocation requests, and using RAM only for those portions that are
actually used.

If you want to see some actual information about the current status of
the virtual memory swap file on your computer use the System Monitor
utility that comes with Windows. It is in the Accessories - System
Tools section of the Start Menu but may not be installed on some
systems. If not you can add it using Control Panel - Add/Remove
Programs - Windows Components - System Tools.

In the System Monitor utility use Edit - Add to configure it to track
two items:
Memory Manager - Swap File Size
Memory Manager - Swap File In Use.

The Swap File Size will indicate how much address space the Memory
Manager is currently using from the swap file (provided no minimum
size swap file has been specified.

The Swap File In Use indicates how much active memory content has been
relocated from RAM to the swap file so as to allow that RAM to be used
for other, currently more important tasks.

With your 256 mb of RAM I would suspect that the Swap File In Use will
be at or near zero. However if it does show a substantial amount, and
anything more than 20 mb is usually considered substantial in Windows
98, then that indicates that you are using the computer quite heavily
and that additional RAM would quite likely provide an improvement in
performance because of the reduction in the amount of memory content
that has to be relocated from RAM to the swap file, and then probably
subsequently loaded back into RAM again later when that memory content
is actually needed for some purpose.

The difference between Swap File Size and Swap File In Use, provided
no minimum size has been specified for the swap file, is an measure of
the sum total of the unused portions of memory allocation requests
that have been issued by the items that are active on the computer,
including Windows components, device drivers, and application
programs.

Hope this explains the situation.

Good luck

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."