RAM limit

What is the upper limit for RAM in Windows98? Is there a performance drop off above 128 mb officially or not?


--
K.Brown
/************************************************** ***************************
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
************************************************** ****************************/

"Kilo Bravo" wrote in
:

What is the upper limit for RAM in Windows98? Is there a performance
drop off above 128 mb officially or not?



The limit without tweaks is 512MB, with tweaks you can go to ~1.5GB. If
there is a performance drop can depend on your system. Not all systems can
cache all memory.

"Kilo Bravo" wrote:

What is the upper limit for RAM in Windows98? Is there a performance drop off above 128 mb officially or not?

There are no known problems with Windows 98 and RAM up to 512 mb.
There is no loss of performance with increased RAM, although some
users might percieve that this has happened because they were
expecting performance to improve with the increased RAM and the fact
that it did not change is seen as a decrease.

There is a configuration setting that needs to be added when you
beyond 512 mb of RAM with Windows 98 or Windows Me (MaxFileCache) and
there are hardware related issues that can arise when you go beyond 1
gb of RAM with these Windows versions.

There are no instances that I am aware of where Windows 98 or Windows
Me has been successfully used with more than 1.5 gb of RAM installed,
although a number of people have used it with a full 1.5 gb.

Getting back to performance. Adding more RAM will not result in
decreased performance. Period. However adding more memory can
noticeably improve performance only if the added memory results in
reduced usage of the virtual memory swap file. Therefore if the swap
file is not currently being used to any significant extent then adding
more memory will not provide a significant improvement.

Before installing more RAM use the System Monitor utility that comes
with Windows and use Edit - Add to set it to track "Memory manager:
Swap file in use" for several days of normal to heavy usage. If "Swap
file in use" regularly shows as 20 mb or more then the swap file is
being used extensively and more memory would result in improved
performance.

This applies regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer.

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."

Thank you, now I know why it made a difference on this pc but not on the ones
the kids use

There was a performance limit above 64M (?) of RAM with NT right?



"Ron Martell" wrote in message
...
"Kilo Bravo" wrote:

What is the upper limit for RAM in Windows98? Is there a performance drop
off above 128 mb officially or not?

There are no known problems with Windows 98 and RAM up to 512 mb.
There is no loss of performance with increased RAM, although some
users might percieve that this has happened because they were
expecting performance to improve with the increased RAM and the fact
that it did not change is seen as a decrease.

There is a configuration setting that needs to be added when you
beyond 512 mb of RAM with Windows 98 or Windows Me (MaxFileCache) and
there are hardware related issues that can arise when you go beyond 1
gb of RAM with these Windows versions.

There are no instances that I am aware of where Windows 98 or Windows
Me has been successfully used with more than 1.5 gb of RAM installed,
although a number of people have used it with a full 1.5 gb.

Getting back to performance. Adding more RAM will not result in
decreased performance. Period. However adding more memory can
noticeably improve performance only if the added memory results in
reduced usage of the virtual memory swap file. Therefore if the swap
file is not currently being used to any significant extent then adding
more memory will not provide a significant improvement.

Before installing more RAM use the System Monitor utility that comes
with Windows and use Edit - Add to set it to track "Memory manager:
Swap file in use" for several days of normal to heavy usage. If "Swap
file in use" regularly shows as 20 mb or more then the swap file is
being used extensively and more memory would result in improved
performance.

This applies regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer.

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."

"Kilo Bravo" wrote:

There was a performance limit above 64M (?) of RAM with NT right?

I don't think so. Many motherboards in that era would cache only the
first 64MB of RAM. But uncached RAM is still much faster than the swap
file.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)

Tim Slattery wrote in
:

"Kilo Bravo" wrote:

There was a performance limit above 64M (?) of RAM with NT right?

I don't think so. Many motherboards in that era would cache only the
first 64MB of RAM. But uncached RAM is still much faster than the swap
file.


Yes. But if the OS isn't aware of the fact that the lower part of memory
(64MB) is faster than the upper part, the system can be slower than the
same system with only 64MB.

Ingeborg wrote:


Yes. But if the OS isn't aware of the fact that the lower part of memory
(64MB) is faster than the upper part, the system can be slower than the
same system with only 64MB.

If, and only if, the 64 mb of RAM was fully adequate for all tasks
being performed on the machine and there is no actual usage of the
swap/paging file with only 64 mb of RAM installed.

Even uncached RAM outperforms hard drive access by a vast amount.


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."

Ron Martell wrote in
:

Ingeborg wrote:


Yes. But if the OS isn't aware of the fact that the lower part of memory
(64MB) is faster than the upper part, the system can be slower than the
same system with only 64MB.

If, and only if, the 64 mb of RAM was fully adequate for all tasks
being performed on the machine and there is no actual usage of the
swap/paging file with only 64 mb of RAM installed.


No. Consider the following case. The first 64MB are filled with diskcache,
programs which are idle at the moment, and other junk. Now we start a new
program.
When there is still slower ram available, the new program will run in the
slower ram, and the faster ram is just sitting and waiting.
When there's no ram available, the system will swap out some junk (which
cost a little time), and the new program will run in faster ram.

So with only 64MB the new program will start a bit slower due to swapping,
and then run fast, and with more ram it will start fast, and run slower.

Even uncached RAM outperforms hard drive access by a vast amount.

Yes.

Windows does not use RAM from the bottom up in the way that your scenario
assumes. Even if the pattern of usage that you describe could accidentally
occur, the process required to swap out some of that 64Mb in order to load a
program would more than make up for any delay caused by using uncached RAM,
especially since a system that caches only 64Mb has a very small cache
(compared to modern machines) so only a relatively small amount of data or
code is being accessed from cache anyway.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"Ingeborg" wrote in message
...
Ron Martell wrote in
:

Ingeborg wrote:


Yes. But if the OS isn't aware of the fact that the lower part of memory
(64MB) is faster than the upper part, the system can be slower than the
same system with only 64MB.

If, and only if, the 64 mb of RAM was fully adequate for all tasks
being performed on the machine and there is no actual usage of the
swap/paging file with only 64 mb of RAM installed.


No. Consider the following case. The first 64MB are filled with diskcache,
programs which are idle at the moment, and other junk. Now we start a new
program.
When there is still slower ram available, the new program will run in the
slower ram, and the faster ram is just sitting and waiting.
When there's no ram available, the system will swap out some junk (which
cost a little time), and the new program will run in faster ram.

So with only 64MB the new program will start a bit slower due to swapping,
and then run fast, and with more ram it will start fast, and run slower.

Even uncached RAM outperforms hard drive access by a vast amount.

Yes.