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#11
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System Resources versus RAM
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question466.htm
If interested, be sure to move on to the 2nd page on how it all works together. This is what I found for "heap space" as stated in the first page of the previous weblink that I provided above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_overflow Remember that the operating system (windows 95/98) designate the 64K region for heap space for the applications to use. Its up to the programmer to allow an "out" to give up the memory space designated within this area when said application is closed. -- Dave "Larry" wrote in message ... A few days ago there was interesting thread discussing what System Resources are. A couple of posters pointed out that System Resources, while it is a special type of memory, isn't the same as RAM. However, no one, as far as I could tell, said what is the relationship, if any, between SR and RAM. Also, how can you find out how much available RAM there is on your machine as distinct from SR? The Performance tab only shows SR. Or does that not matter, since only System Resources matters as far as the machine's ability to function is concerned? Or let's put it this way: Why does available SR matter more than available RAM? Larry |
#12
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System Resources versus RAM
A few days ago there was interesting thread discussing what System Resources are. A couple of posters pointed out that System Resources, while it is a special type of memory, isn't the same as RAM. However, no one, as far as I could tell, said what is the relationship, if any, between SR and RAM. Am I right when I think it is like this?: there are two 64KB "Resources" memory areas, USER and GDI, that contain 32bit pointers to memory where the applications store data like icons and windowcontroldata (two kinds of data). (the third "system resources" is just a number calculated to show the smallest %-number of the two others to the user) if either GDI or USER gets full, then no applicaion can point to new data of that kind, and since the application don't expect that that could happen, it can't continue and thereby "hangs". (a good program should perhaps start closing not so important things like buttonbars to free some space in the resource pointer area or tell the user to close some windows first?) Can this description be made shorter and clearer, for a non-programmer? yeah a pointer is a reference to a place in memory. The reason USER and GDI areas are 64KB is because the applications use 16bit pointers to use them, and 2^16 is 64K. So we can't just make these areas larger. I think winXP have separate USER/GDI-areas per application instead, but since some Resources is used by multiple applications toghether, I'm not sure how that can work. Normal memory areas that the programs have their code and private data can allways be swapped out to disk as Jeff mentioned, so as long one have free disk space there should be no crashes beacuse of lack of RAM, but you can't swap resource-pointers out to disk (or to other ram outside the 64KB areas) Am I right in that both the GDI&USER Resource (pointer) areas, and the data they point to is located in the memory adress space between 2GB and 3GB (memory addresses that are shared between all the applications) ? Also, how can you find out how much available RAM there is on your machine as distinct from SR? The Performance tab only shows SR. In windows 98se at least there is a number 'physical memory available to windows' in the About-dialogboxes in filemanager etc but I think that is total amount, not amount free. Should have been... and USER and GDI separated too. Or does that not matter, since only System Resources matters as far as the machine's ability to function is concerned? I believe USER resource is most imporant problem, you can live with black icons but not 0% user resource area Just like you can live (but slow) with lots of memory swapped out |
#13
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System Resources versus RAM
A few days ago there was interesting thread discussing what System Resources are. A couple of posters pointed out that System Resources, while it is a special type of memory, isn't the same as RAM. However, no one, as far as I could tell, said what is the relationship, if any, between SR and RAM. Am I right when I think it is like this?: there are two 64KB "Resources" memory areas, USER and GDI, that contain 32bit pointers to memory where the applications store data like icons and windowcontroldata (two kinds of data). (the third "system resources" is just a number calculated to show the smallest %-number of the two others to the user) if either GDI or USER gets full, then no applicaion can point to new data of that kind, and since the application don't expect that that could happen, it can't continue and thereby "hangs". (a good program should perhaps start closing not so important things like buttonbars to free some space in the resource pointer area or tell the user to close some windows first?) Can this description be made shorter and clearer, for a non-programmer? yeah a pointer is a reference to a place in memory. The reason USER and GDI areas are 64KB is because the applications use 16bit pointers to use them, and 2^16 is 64K. So we can't just make these areas larger. I think winXP have separate USER/GDI-areas per application instead, but since some Resources is used by multiple applications toghether, I'm not sure how that can work. Normal memory areas that the programs have their code and private data can allways be swapped out to disk as Jeff mentioned, so as long one have free disk space there should be no crashes beacuse of lack of RAM, but you can't swap resource-pointers out to disk (or to other ram outside the 64KB areas) Am I right in that both the GDI&USER Resource (pointer) areas, and the data they point to is located in the memory adress space between 2GB and 3GB (memory addresses that are shared between all the applications) ? Also, how can you find out how much available RAM there is on your machine as distinct from SR? The Performance tab only shows SR. In windows 98se at least there is a number 'physical memory available to windows' in the About-dialogboxes in filemanager etc but I think that is total amount, not amount free. Should have been... and USER and GDI separated too. Or does that not matter, since only System Resources matters as far as the machine's ability to function is concerned? I believe USER resource is most imporant problem, you can live with black icons but not 0% user resource area Just like you can live (but slow) with lots of memory swapped out |
#14
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System Resources versus RAM
Well, the 64K heaps are indeed stored in RAM, and I believe it's not in a
special RAM chip on the MB or anything like that!, but it's just a small and very tiny part of the system RAM that is being used (a *negligibly small part of it*). That's why I made the statement that it has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed, although technically that is a bit misleading - but it emphasizes the point that no matter how much RAM you have installed, it's immaterial here - you can (and sometimes will) still have that system resource problem. I mean, we're not talking about computers with say only 512 *KB* of RAM any more!! (512 *MB*, for sure, but NOT 512 *KB* or anything close to that) Jeff Richards wrote: Of course RAM is essential for the machine to operate. No-one suggested otherwise. And the heaps that are used for system resources occupy a portion of that RAM. But issues relating to low or insufficient resources have nothing to do with the amount of RAM installed in the machine - they are entirely to do with a Windows design feature that places a limit on how much memory is accessible to the routines that need to get to those resources. Adding more RAM will not solve a resources problem - the two are simply not connected. You will not have problems related to insufficient resources if you have insufficient RAM installed - the system will stop operating for other reasons long before resource limitations become an issue. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "thanatoid" wrote in message ... "Bill in Co." wrote in : The system resource limitation in Win9x is limited by the 64K max heap space, and has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed. (As I recall, there are three separate 64K memory locations used for these memory heaps, one for GDI, one for System, and one for something else - can't recall). Since no one addressed my statement that SR /DO/ have *something* to do with RAM, I looked up "heap space" and it does not say whether it is part of the total RAM memory of some mysterious little chip hidden in the MB or BIOS which contains just enough memory to cause all the Sys Resources problems but not enough (by design, it IS old) to manage them, at least not /well/. Could you clarify please? If you have enough applications running, OR one or two misbehaving ones, you CAN run out of system resources, and you'll have to shut down the app. Normally, you'll get a stern warning when its close to the limit. (If you are unable or unwilling to shut it down, it will crash, and you'll have to reboot). SNIP Or let's put it this way: Why does available SR matter more than available RAM? I wouldn't say it matters /more/ - please correct me, anyone, if I am wrong: RAM /is/ essential, a computer with /no/ RAM will not start. I am asking Bill above whether the heaps allocated to Sys Res are IN the RAM or somewhere else. To my knowledge, there IS not any (let alone enough) RAM memory anywhere on the MB or BIOS (maybe a little in the BIOS but not enough to manage Sys Res with it), but I am very lacking in basic knowledge. (I can't believe I just used the word "heap".) But regardless of how much RAM you have, if you run out of Sys Resources on a 9x Windows machine, your system will hang. So BOTH are essential. Sys Resources (WHEREVER they come from, hopefully Bill or someone will finally tell me) are affected by the amount of activity on your machine - and they only affect 9x systems. The problem was solved in XP but I have been running 95 and 98 for 14 years and only rarely have I had the machine crash because of Sys Res going down THAT low. Some apps are much more demanding of them than others - I have run 10 instances of the OffByOne browser on a 64MB 166MHz machine and nothing happened. I usually have between 65-90% (often 75-90%) in the 3 sections which is very good. When you start getting black boxes instead of icons, empty spaces in the screen, or other weirdness (OR a warning if you have a program running which provides such), it is time to shut down some programs. It is one of the reasons I always say do ONE thing at a time, let alone when it is something as critical as burning a disc or creating a complex publication. Even icons affect use up GDI Sys Res - I have a little program called Toggle which turns off all icons, and while I used to like having various pictures as "wallpapers", it has been blank for some time. Not that it eats THAT much memory, in this case I just got bored. A blank wall is kind of peaceful. Sometimes, you can VERY suddenly and quickly run out of the "heap space" (is that the correct phrase ;-) ?) and your system will just hang. In 9x the ONLY thing you can do is reboot - and you will lose whatever you have not saved - which is why I have told everyone I know and everyone who has ever read me here and elsewhere OVER and OVER - NAME your file when it consists of 2 or 12 bytes, and save it every few moments - or if the program allows, auto-save, OFTEN. No one listens, of course, and you constantly hear horror stories about a 3 page letter disappearing. Well, if you're too stupid or lazy to click Ctl-S when you start a new file of any kind, IMO you deserve to lose it. I am not that much smarter than anyone else, in fact many have called me an idiot. But it has happened to me, and I /learned/. -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#15
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System Resources versus RAM
Well, the 64K heaps are indeed stored in RAM, and I believe it's not in a
special RAM chip on the MB or anything like that!, but it's just a small and very tiny part of the system RAM that is being used (a *negligibly small part of it*). That's why I made the statement that it has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed, although technically that is a bit misleading - but it emphasizes the point that no matter how much RAM you have installed, it's immaterial here - you can (and sometimes will) still have that system resource problem. I mean, we're not talking about computers with say only 512 *KB* of RAM any more!! (512 *MB*, for sure, but NOT 512 *KB* or anything close to that) Jeff Richards wrote: Of course RAM is essential for the machine to operate. No-one suggested otherwise. And the heaps that are used for system resources occupy a portion of that RAM. But issues relating to low or insufficient resources have nothing to do with the amount of RAM installed in the machine - they are entirely to do with a Windows design feature that places a limit on how much memory is accessible to the routines that need to get to those resources. Adding more RAM will not solve a resources problem - the two are simply not connected. You will not have problems related to insufficient resources if you have insufficient RAM installed - the system will stop operating for other reasons long before resource limitations become an issue. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "thanatoid" wrote in message ... "Bill in Co." wrote in : The system resource limitation in Win9x is limited by the 64K max heap space, and has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed. (As I recall, there are three separate 64K memory locations used for these memory heaps, one for GDI, one for System, and one for something else - can't recall). Since no one addressed my statement that SR /DO/ have *something* to do with RAM, I looked up "heap space" and it does not say whether it is part of the total RAM memory of some mysterious little chip hidden in the MB or BIOS which contains just enough memory to cause all the Sys Resources problems but not enough (by design, it IS old) to manage them, at least not /well/. Could you clarify please? If you have enough applications running, OR one or two misbehaving ones, you CAN run out of system resources, and you'll have to shut down the app. Normally, you'll get a stern warning when its close to the limit. (If you are unable or unwilling to shut it down, it will crash, and you'll have to reboot). SNIP Or let's put it this way: Why does available SR matter more than available RAM? I wouldn't say it matters /more/ - please correct me, anyone, if I am wrong: RAM /is/ essential, a computer with /no/ RAM will not start. I am asking Bill above whether the heaps allocated to Sys Res are IN the RAM or somewhere else. To my knowledge, there IS not any (let alone enough) RAM memory anywhere on the MB or BIOS (maybe a little in the BIOS but not enough to manage Sys Res with it), but I am very lacking in basic knowledge. (I can't believe I just used the word "heap".) But regardless of how much RAM you have, if you run out of Sys Resources on a 9x Windows machine, your system will hang. So BOTH are essential. Sys Resources (WHEREVER they come from, hopefully Bill or someone will finally tell me) are affected by the amount of activity on your machine - and they only affect 9x systems. The problem was solved in XP but I have been running 95 and 98 for 14 years and only rarely have I had the machine crash because of Sys Res going down THAT low. Some apps are much more demanding of them than others - I have run 10 instances of the OffByOne browser on a 64MB 166MHz machine and nothing happened. I usually have between 65-90% (often 75-90%) in the 3 sections which is very good. When you start getting black boxes instead of icons, empty spaces in the screen, or other weirdness (OR a warning if you have a program running which provides such), it is time to shut down some programs. It is one of the reasons I always say do ONE thing at a time, let alone when it is something as critical as burning a disc or creating a complex publication. Even icons affect use up GDI Sys Res - I have a little program called Toggle which turns off all icons, and while I used to like having various pictures as "wallpapers", it has been blank for some time. Not that it eats THAT much memory, in this case I just got bored. A blank wall is kind of peaceful. Sometimes, you can VERY suddenly and quickly run out of the "heap space" (is that the correct phrase ;-) ?) and your system will just hang. In 9x the ONLY thing you can do is reboot - and you will lose whatever you have not saved - which is why I have told everyone I know and everyone who has ever read me here and elsewhere OVER and OVER - NAME your file when it consists of 2 or 12 bytes, and save it every few moments - or if the program allows, auto-save, OFTEN. No one listens, of course, and you constantly hear horror stories about a 3 page letter disappearing. Well, if you're too stupid or lazy to click Ctl-S when you start a new file of any kind, IMO you deserve to lose it. I am not that much smarter than anyone else, in fact many have called me an idiot. But it has happened to me, and I /learned/. -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#16
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System Resources versus RAM
"Jeff Richards" wrote in
: Of course RAM is essential for the machine to operate. No-one suggested otherwise. And the heaps that are used for system resources occupy a portion of that RAM. But issues relating to low or insufficient resources have nothing to do with the amount of RAM installed in the machine - they are entirely to do with a Windows design feature that places a limit on how much memory is accessible to the routines that need to get to those resources. Adding more RAM will not solve a resources problem - the two are simply not connected. Well, I appreciate you telling me that the heaps used by Sys Res ARE part of RAM, since I was beginning to wonder. As to the two being "simply NOT connected", I guess it's a matter of how one likes to play with semantics. SNIP [Anal-retentive P.S. You top-posted and didn't snip /anything!/ Not nice!] -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#17
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System Resources versus RAM
"Jeff Richards" wrote in
: Of course RAM is essential for the machine to operate. No-one suggested otherwise. And the heaps that are used for system resources occupy a portion of that RAM. But issues relating to low or insufficient resources have nothing to do with the amount of RAM installed in the machine - they are entirely to do with a Windows design feature that places a limit on how much memory is accessible to the routines that need to get to those resources. Adding more RAM will not solve a resources problem - the two are simply not connected. Well, I appreciate you telling me that the heaps used by Sys Res ARE part of RAM, since I was beginning to wonder. As to the two being "simply NOT connected", I guess it's a matter of how one likes to play with semantics. SNIP [Anal-retentive P.S. You top-posted and didn't snip /anything!/ Not nice!] -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#18
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System Resources versus RAM
"Bill in Co." wrote in
: Well, the 64K heaps are indeed stored in RAM, and I believe it's not in a special RAM chip on the MB or anything like that!, but it's just a small and very tiny part of the system RAM that is being used (a *negligibly small part of it*). That's why I made the statement that it has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed, although technically that is a bit misleading - but it emphasizes the point that no matter how much RAM you have installed, it's immaterial here - you can (and sometimes will) still have that system resource problem. Thanks for replying. Too lazy to check, but I believe I myself said that no matter how much RAM you have on a 9x system, you WILL have trouble with Sys Res if you aren't careful. I just wanted to know whether the Sys Res were IN the RAM, and I now know they are. OTOH, /no/ RAM, no working computer and NO Sys Res problems, although I suppose that is like saying "never born, never any health problems". It would be interesting (it probably has been done) to research what types of user actions are the most problematic and which parts of the hardware - if any - play a significant part in Sys Res depletion - like would a fancy graphics card deplete them faster than a basic on-board chip, etc. SNIP -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#19
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System Resources versus RAM
"Bill in Co." wrote in
: Well, the 64K heaps are indeed stored in RAM, and I believe it's not in a special RAM chip on the MB or anything like that!, but it's just a small and very tiny part of the system RAM that is being used (a *negligibly small part of it*). That's why I made the statement that it has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have installed, although technically that is a bit misleading - but it emphasizes the point that no matter how much RAM you have installed, it's immaterial here - you can (and sometimes will) still have that system resource problem. Thanks for replying. Too lazy to check, but I believe I myself said that no matter how much RAM you have on a 9x system, you WILL have trouble with Sys Res if you aren't careful. I just wanted to know whether the Sys Res were IN the RAM, and I now know they are. OTOH, /no/ RAM, no working computer and NO Sys Res problems, although I suppose that is like saying "never born, never any health problems". It would be interesting (it probably has been done) to research what types of user actions are the most problematic and which parts of the hardware - if any - play a significant part in Sys Res depletion - like would a fancy graphics card deplete them faster than a basic on-board chip, etc. SNIP -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
#20
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System Resources versus RAM
"Jeff Richards" wrote in
: There is no relationship between system resources and RAM. The total amount of RAM installed in the machine is usually displayed during boot when the system does a RAM check. Windows can tell you the installed RAM in Control Panel / System in the General tab. If you want to talk about 'available RAM' you need to specify want you expect it to be available for. For instance, if you are referring to the amount of RAM that is free at any one time to load a new application, their really isn't any such figure. Windows will re-arrange its usage of RAM depending on what is happening at any moment. You might calculate a figure for 'available RAM' using some memory enquiry utility immediately after the machine has booted, and then quite successfully load an application that requires several times that amount of RAM. Windows will simply stop using RAM for one particular purpose if something more important comes along that needs it. If that doesn't make enough RAM available for your application, Windows might swap some lower priority tasks out to disk and make that RAM available to the new application. If there's still not enough available for the application, Window might defer loading parts of that app that won't be used initially, so it doesn't really require as much RAM as you thought it did. I could probably argue (not /disagree/, just semantically and theoretically argue) every other sentence in this post, but I won't. Still, I sure hope never to see another thread on this subject ever again! -- Lots of theoretical butchers are alleged and other bloody eyes are suitable, but will Pam secure that? |
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