Max performace settings (swap/cache) with 256/512 mb ram?

98 Guy wrote:


I'm replacing about 1/2 dozen office PC's (each being a P-3, 600 to
850 mhz, 128 mb ram each) to 2.6 ghz Celeron's with 512 mb ram, DVD-rw
(LG 8x) and CD-rw drives, 80 gb Seagate Barracuda drives (very quite),
Zalman copper CPU heatsink AND zalman 400 watt power supply. Very
fast, very quite machines.

They're getting Win 98 (1 master drive is being cloned with Ghost).
Full install of Microsoft office 2000 premium, and all sorts of other
goodies from the MSDN (map point, etc). DVD burning / copying
software (DVD decrypt, DVD shrink, etc).

So based on everything I've read so far, a machine with 512 mb (or
more) of real, honest to goodness RAM will never realistically need to
use virtual memory so it will get turned off.

What's a good setting for vcache? 64 mb? 128?

You are being very foolhardy in at least 3 different ways:

1. Using an out of date and no longer supported operating system on
up to date hardware. Sort of like putting a Ford Model T engine into
a new Ferrari.

2. Disabling virtual memory. Doing so will adversely affect the
performance of these computers and make them more likely to suffer
serious crashes.

3. Using vcache settings that are somewhat appropriate for Windows 95
but not for Windows 98. Windows 98 is designed for and operates best
with a large disk cache. There is very little need to limit vcache
on systems with 512 mb or less RAM, and if such a limit is considered
desirable it should be something in the region of 70% of the total
RAM.

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."

Ron Martell wrote:

1. Using an out of date and no longer supported operating system
on up to date hardware. Sort of like putting a Ford Model T
engine into a new Ferrari.

Other than the differences between Fat32 and NTFS (and I'll agree that
NTFS is better than FAT32 when it comes to the large hard drives now
available, but that has nothing intrinsically to do with the OS),
there is no practical benefit to the OS migration dance that Microsoft
has everyone doing every 4 to 6 years, and there are real pitfalls to
Win2k and Winxp.

Sure it's close to holloween, but the "no longer supported" bit about
windows 98 doesn't scare me. Win 98 is mature and is stable enough
for the average desk top in a small office situation. Win2k and WinXP
were first and foremost designed to insure continued revenue for
Microsoft and their biggest features were logon security and remote
administration - both of which are extremely important to over-hyped
big-company IT departments. The fact that they came with so many
un-needed services, and those services were turned on "out of the
box", made them a security nightmare and we have the avalanche of
e-mail spam, trojans and virii thanks to $600 dell and gateway
computers that came with XP and quickly became trojans and zombies on
residential hi-speed networks.

I would love to see someone hack Win-98 and give it the ability to
handle an NTFS file system. But as of this writing there isn't a
chip-set, video card, sound board or interface technology that Win-98
can't handle (perhaps not Raid).

2. Disabling virtual memory. Doing so will adversely affect
the performance of these computers and make them more likely
to suffer serious crashes.

Once upon a time, memory was expensive. So virtual memory was
"invented" and it existed on the hard drive - in the form of the swap
file (which, I'm told, is not cached - which would sort of defeat the
purpose, but devoting a little bit of ram to cache the swap would seem
to be a good idea).

I still can't see the logic NOT throwing 512 mb, even 1 gb of ram on a
PC now that ram is so cheap, and doing away with the swap file.

3. Using vcache settings that are somewhat appropriate for
Windows 95 but not for Windows 98. Windows 98 is designed
for and operates best with a large disk cache. There is
very little need to limit vcache on systems with 512 mb or
less RAM, and if such a limit is considered desirable it
should be something in the region of 70% of the total RAM.

70% of total ram being used as the drive cache! Thats insane! Even
as an upper limit!

Some write that setting virtual memory to a constant size (max = min)
results in better performance because Windows doesn't have to work (as
it periodically does) to adjust the size of the swap file up and down
to suit transient conditions. Do you agree? Would the same argument
hold for Vcache?

What about the relationship between Vcache and chunksize?

Windows 98 can handle NTFS, with assistance.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...tfswin98.shtml

If you want to stick with FAT32 for those drives, be aware that you will
need an upgraded version of FDISK.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q263044

Note that it is a very poor idea to GHOST a system drive and expect it to
work OK in the new system.

The 70% recommendation for limiting cache only applies if you have some
reason for doing so. For instance, in some cases writing to CD or DVD with a
large cache can create problems as the system will try to cache data that
is, by definition, only being accessed once. With a decent speed CPU even
this reason becomes unlikely. Unless you have demonstrated that you have a
special case it is best to not apply any limit - there's no point in
installing all that RAM if you aren't going to allow Windows to use it.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Ron Martell wrote:

1. Using an out of date and no longer supported operating system
on up to date hardware. Sort of like putting a Ford Model T
engine into a new Ferrari.

Other than the differences between Fat32 and NTFS (and I'll agree that
NTFS is better than FAT32 when it comes to the large hard drives now
available, but that has nothing intrinsically to do with the OS),
there is no practical benefit to the OS migration dance that Microsoft
has everyone doing every 4 to 6 years, and there are real pitfalls to
Win2k and Winxp.

Sure it's close to holloween, but the "no longer supported" bit about
windows 98 doesn't scare me. Win 98 is mature and is stable enough
for the average desk top in a small office situation. Win2k and WinXP
were first and foremost designed to insure continued revenue for
Microsoft and their biggest features were logon security and remote
administration - both of which are extremely important to over-hyped
big-company IT departments. The fact that they came with so many
un-needed services, and those services were turned on "out of the
box", made them a security nightmare and we have the avalanche of
e-mail spam, trojans and virii thanks to $600 dell and gateway
computers that came with XP and quickly became trojans and zombies on
residential hi-speed networks.

I would love to see someone hack Win-98 and give it the ability to
handle an NTFS file system. But as of this writing there isn't a
chip-set, video card, sound board or interface technology that Win-98
can't handle (perhaps not Raid).

2. Disabling virtual memory. Doing so will adversely affect
the performance of these computers and make them more likely
to suffer serious crashes.

Once upon a time, memory was expensive. So virtual memory was
"invented" and it existed on the hard drive - in the form of the swap
file (which, I'm told, is not cached - which would sort of defeat the
purpose, but devoting a little bit of ram to cache the swap would seem
to be a good idea).

I still can't see the logic NOT throwing 512 mb, even 1 gb of ram on a
PC now that ram is so cheap, and doing away with the swap file.

3. Using vcache settings that are somewhat appropriate for
Windows 95 but not for Windows 98. Windows 98 is designed
for and operates best with a large disk cache. There is
very little need to limit vcache on systems with 512 mb or
less RAM, and if such a limit is considered desirable it
should be something in the region of 70% of the total RAM.

70% of total ram being used as the drive cache! Thats insane! Even
as an upper limit!

Some write that setting virtual memory to a constant size (max = min)
results in better performance because Windows doesn't have to work (as
it periodically does) to adjust the size of the swap file up and down
to suit transient conditions. Do you agree? Would the same argument
hold for Vcache?

What about the relationship between Vcache and chunksize?

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Ron Martell wrote:

1. Using an out of date and no longer supported operating system
on up to date hardware. Sort of like putting a Ford Model T
engine into a new Ferrari.

Other than the differences between Fat32 and NTFS (and I'll agree that
NTFS is better than FAT32 when it comes to the large hard drives now
available, but that has nothing intrinsically to do with the OS),
there is no practical benefit to the OS migration dance that Microsoft
has everyone doing every 4 to 6 years, and there are real pitfalls to
Win2k and Winxp.

Sure it's close to holloween, but the "no longer supported" bit about
windows 98 doesn't scare me. Win 98 is mature and is stable enough
for the average desk top in a small office situation. Win2k and WinXP
were first and foremost designed to insure continued revenue for
Microsoft and their biggest features were logon security and remote
administration - both of which are extremely important to over-hyped
big-company IT departments. The fact that they came with so many
un-needed services, and those services were turned on "out of the
box", made them a security nightmare and we have the avalanche of
e-mail spam, trojans and virii thanks to $600 dell and gateway
computers that came with XP and quickly became trojans and zombies on
residential hi-speed networks.

I would love to see someone hack Win-98 and give it the ability to
handle an NTFS file system. But as of this writing there isn't a
chip-set, video card, sound board or interface technology that Win-98
can't handle (perhaps not Raid).

2. Disabling virtual memory. Doing so will adversely affect
the performance of these computers and make them more likely
to suffer serious crashes.

Once upon a time, memory was expensive. So virtual memory was
"invented" and it existed on the hard drive - in the form of the swap
file (which, I'm told, is not cached - which would sort of defeat the
purpose, but devoting a little bit of ram to cache the swap would seem
to be a good idea).

I still can't see the logic NOT throwing 512 mb, even 1 gb of ram on a
PC now that ram is so cheap, and doing away with the swap file.

3. Using vcache settings that are somewhat appropriate for
Windows 95 but not for Windows 98. Windows 98 is designed
for and operates best with a large disk cache. There is
very little need to limit vcache on systems with 512 mb or
less RAM, and if such a limit is considered desirable it
should be something in the region of 70% of the total RAM.

70% of total ram being used as the drive cache! Thats insane! Even
as an upper limit!

Some write that setting virtual memory to a constant size (max = min)
results in better performance because Windows doesn't have to work (as
it periodically does) to adjust the size of the swap file up and down
to suit transient conditions. Do you agree? Would the same argument
hold for Vcache?

What about the relationship between Vcache and chunksize?

If you would have read the links I posted, you wouldn't be asking all these
questions.
Do the testing yourself and see what you get.
Are you too lazy?????

Jeff Richards wrote:

Windows 98 can handle NTFS, with assistance.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...tfswin98.shtml

Interesting - but I see it gives "read-only" compatibility. Is there
a fully read/write version?

Yea, I've known about the "new" fdisk for a year or two now. I think
it's only necessary when you want to create a single FAT32 partition
which is larger than 64gb (for example, a single partition/single
logical drive on an 80 gb drive). However, cluster sizes of 64kb make
for very poor disk utilization in that case.

I've configured these new drives for 2 partitions of 32mb each to keep
the cluser size at 16 kb.

FAT32 wouldn't be so bad if it could handle more than 2 million
clusters in a volume. Seems there are a few un-used (un-defined) bits
in the fat tables that could be used for this - but microsoft has left
them undefined. Too bad.

Note that it is a very poor idea to GHOST a system drive and
expect it to work OK in the new system.

The master drive was created from a fresh 98 install on one of the new
systems. It was then updated and patched (microsoft update), Office
was installed, various other software, etc.

I used to use DriveCopy, but when we also started to build systems
with XP-pro, DriveCopy didn't work (at least not the version I had)
but Ghost worked great - and was very fast. Copy speed is usually
around 800 mb per minute.

I only use ghost to either create a backup drive from an important
computer, or to create duplicate drives that go into PC's with exactly
the same hardware as the source drive came from. And yes, the copy is
so good that cloned XP-pro drives run without detecting configuration
violations which would otherwise require re-registration with the
mothership (another reason why I'll never down-grade to XP).

PS: I tried to burn some files onto a CD-R today and I ran out of
memory :O

So I turned virtual memory back on. (This is not on one of the new
PC's but on a P-3 with 256 mb ram).

Nothing crashed. Just a message during Easy CD Creator saying out of
memory (or what-ever).

Hmmm. Maybe I'll put 768 mb in these pc's instead of 512 ...

Windows 98 does not support 64k clusters with FAT32. You need the new
version of FDISK if you are going to use more than 64Gb of those disks,
whatever the partitioning structure. FAT32 can handle more than 2 million
clusters in a volume, but with very large volumes you may find that some
system utilities don't work properly. If you are getting out of memory
errors then adding more RAM doesn't usually help - either there is a maximum
swap file size specified, or there is no spare disk space, or it is a
misreporting of another error, such as low system resources.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Jeff Richards wrote:

Windows 98 can handle NTFS, with assistance.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...tfswin98.shtml

Interesting - but I see it gives "read-only" compatibility. Is there
a fully read/write version?

Yea, I've known about the "new" fdisk for a year or two now. I think
it's only necessary when you want to create a single FAT32 partition
which is larger than 64gb (for example, a single partition/single
logical drive on an 80 gb drive). However, cluster sizes of 64kb make
for very poor disk utilization in that case.

I've configured these new drives for 2 partitions of 32mb each to keep
the cluser size at 16 kb.

FAT32 wouldn't be so bad if it could handle more than 2 million
clusters in a volume. Seems there are a few un-used (un-defined) bits
in the fat tables that could be used for this - but microsoft has left
them undefined. Too bad.

Note that it is a very poor idea to GHOST a system drive and
expect it to work OK in the new system.

The master drive was created from a fresh 98 install on one of the new
systems. It was then updated and patched (microsoft update), Office
was installed, various other software, etc.

I used to use DriveCopy, but when we also started to build systems
with XP-pro, DriveCopy didn't work (at least not the version I had)
but Ghost worked great - and was very fast. Copy speed is usually
around 800 mb per minute.

I only use ghost to either create a backup drive from an important
computer, or to create duplicate drives that go into PC's with exactly
the same hardware as the source drive came from. And yes, the copy is
so good that cloned XP-pro drives run without detecting configuration
violations which would otherwise require re-registration with the
mothership (another reason why I'll never down-grade to XP).

PS: I tried to burn some files onto a CD-R today and I ran out of
memory :O

So I turned virtual memory back on. (This is not on one of the new
PC's but on a P-3 with 256 mb ram).

Nothing crashed. Just a message during Easy CD Creator saying out of
memory (or what-ever).

Hmmm. Maybe I'll put 768 mb in these pc's instead of 512 ...

98 Guy wrote:

Ron Martell wrote:

1. Using an out of date and no longer supported operating system
on up to date hardware. Sort of like putting a Ford Model T
engine into a new Ferrari.

Other than the differences between Fat32 and NTFS (and I'll agree that
NTFS is better than FAT32 when it comes to the large hard drives now
available, but that has nothing intrinsically to do with the OS),
there is no practical benefit to the OS migration dance that Microsoft
has everyone doing every 4 to 6 years, and there are real pitfalls to
Win2k and Winxp.

Sure it's close to holloween, but the "no longer supported" bit about
windows 98 doesn't scare me. Win 98 is mature and is stable enough
for the average desk top in a small office situation.

Unless and until Windows 98 becomes unsupported for peripherals and/or
application programs. And that date is perhaps sooner than you might
suspect. Windows 95 is already in that position. Microsoft Office
2003, to name one application that might be encountered in a small
office, will not run on Windows 98 or Windows Me. XP or 2000 only.

Win2k and WinXP
were first and foremost designed to insure continued revenue for
Microsoft

The same can be said about every commercial application program ever
written, just change the name of the company.

and their biggest features were logon security and remote
administration - both of which are extremely important to over-hyped
big-company IT departments. The fact that they came with so many
un-needed services, and those services were turned on "out of the
box", made them a security nightmare and we have the avalanche of
e-mail spam, trojans and virii thanks to $600 dell and gateway
computers that came with XP and quickly became trojans and zombies on
residential hi-speed networks.


There is far far more to the NT based versions of Windows. Perhaps
this is an example of "ignorance is bliss".

I would love to see someone hack Win-98 and give it the ability to
handle an NTFS file system. But as of this writing there isn't a
chip-set, video card, sound board or interface technology that Win-98
can't handle (perhaps not Raid).

Not yet. Check back early next year,


2. Disabling virtual memory. Doing so will adversely affect
the performance of these computers and make them more likely
to suffer serious crashes.

Once upon a time, memory was expensive. So virtual memory was
"invented" and it existed on the hard drive - in the form of the swap
file (which, I'm told, is not cached - which would sort of defeat the
purpose, but devoting a little bit of ram to cache the swap would seem
to be a good idea).

You just don't get it do you? You seem to be hell-bent on comitting
"computer suicide" by deliberately doing things to make Windows 98
more unstable and more prone to crashes.


I still can't see the logic NOT throwing 512 mb, even 1 gb of ram on a
PC now that ram is so cheap, and doing away with the swap file.


Give it the RAM, if you think it will do any good. But do not disable
the swap file. Windows will never actually write anything to the swap
file unless all of the RAM has been used, but it does still require it
for proper functioning.


3. Using vcache settings that are somewhat appropriate for
Windows 95 but not for Windows 98. Windows 98 is designed
for and operates best with a large disk cache. There is
very little need to limit vcache on systems with 512 mb or
less RAM, and if such a limit is considered desirable it
should be something in the region of 70% of the total RAM.

70% of total ram being used as the drive cache! Thats insane! Even
as an upper limit!


You are ignoring the MapCache function - this same RAM is also being
used to execute the program code.

Some write that setting virtual memory to a constant size (max = min)
results in better performance because Windows doesn't have to work (as
it periodically does) to adjust the size of the swap file up and down
to suit transient conditions. Do you agree? Would the same argument
hold for Vcache?

Those who write such drivel are only proving conclusively that they
have no actual knowledge about the Windows swap file. Never repeat
never specify a maximum size limit for Virtual Memory in Windows 9x.
There is no benefit that can ever be achieved by doing so. The only
possible outcomes, in order of decreasing probability and increasing
severity, a
- Reduced performance as your system reduces disk cache in order to
meet the total memory needs of your loaded applications and data
files.
- Applications refusing to load due to "insufficient memory" errors.
- Applications crashing due to "out of memory" errors resulting in
loss of data and possible corruption of data files.
- Total system lockups or crashes due to "out of memory" errors
resulting in loss of data and possible file corruption.

All of the benefits purportedly achieved by having a fixed or
permanent swap file can in fact be obtained by specifying a minimum
size only.


What about the relationship between Vcache and chunksize?

ChunkSize is an obsolete parameter dating back to Windows 3.x. It has
zero relevance in Windows 95/98/Me and any chunksize entry will simply
be ignored.


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."

There is a read/write version which used to be available; however, they no
longer sell it per Mark Russinovich, one of the authors.

Regarding adding more ram:

Here's some info on ram you might find helpful:

768 mb or more of ram:

"Out of Memory" Errors with Large Amounts of RAM Installed 253912
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=253912

This article contains instructions which basically say: add this line in
system.ini, under [vcache]: MaxFileCache=512000
***************************

1 gb or more of ram:

Error Message: Insufficient Memory to Initialize Windows 184447
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=184447
***************************

1.5 gb or more of ram:

Computer May Reboot Continuously with More Than 1.5 GB of RAM 304943
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304943


--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Jeff Richards wrote:

Windows 98 can handle NTFS, with assistance.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...tfswin98.shtml

Interesting - but I see it gives "read-only" compatibility. Is there
a fully read/write version?

Yea, I've known about the "new" fdisk for a year or two now. I think
it's only necessary when you want to create a single FAT32 partition
which is larger than 64gb (for example, a single partition/single
logical drive on an 80 gb drive). However, cluster sizes of 64kb make
for very poor disk utilization in that case.

I've configured these new drives for 2 partitions of 32mb each to keep
the cluser size at 16 kb.

FAT32 wouldn't be so bad if it could handle more than 2 million
clusters in a volume. Seems there are a few un-used (un-defined) bits
in the fat tables that could be used for this - but microsoft has left
them undefined. Too bad.

Note that it is a very poor idea to GHOST a system drive and
expect it to work OK in the new system.

The master drive was created from a fresh 98 install on one of the new
systems. It was then updated and patched (microsoft update), Office
was installed, various other software, etc.

I used to use DriveCopy, but when we also started to build systems
with XP-pro, DriveCopy didn't work (at least not the version I had)
but Ghost worked great - and was very fast. Copy speed is usually
around 800 mb per minute.

I only use ghost to either create a backup drive from an important
computer, or to create duplicate drives that go into PC's with exactly
the same hardware as the source drive came from. And yes, the copy is
so good that cloned XP-pro drives run without detecting configuration
violations which would otherwise require re-registration with the
mothership (another reason why I'll never down-grade to XP).

PS: I tried to burn some files onto a CD-R today and I ran out of
memory :O

So I turned virtual memory back on. (This is not on one of the new
PC's but on a P-3 with 256 mb ram).

Nothing crashed. Just a message during Easy CD Creator saying out of
memory (or what-ever).

Hmmm. Maybe I'll put 768 mb in these pc's instead of 512 ...

Just a note here.......

I am running Win98 SE. This morning I decided that I have had all i can
stand and am going to get Windows XP when possible.

The reason is quite pragmatic and simple: System resources.

My understanding is that they are statically allocated in Win 98 and
dynamically allocated as needed in Win XP. At least 4 times a week
I run out of them. After the warning message, if I can't catch it quick
enough then the whole machine locks up and requires a reset.

Other than that, I have nothing at all against Win 98.

Consider this if the machines are going to be used for internet a lot.

FACE

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 20:28:06 -0400, 98 Guy in
microsoft.public.win98.performance wrote:

I'm replacing about 1/2 dozen office PC's (each being a P-3, 600 to
850 mhz, 128 mb ram each) to 2.6 ghz Celeron's with 512 mb ram, DVD-rw
(LG 8x) and CD-rw drives, 80 gb Seagate Barracuda drives (very quite),
Zalman copper CPU heatsink AND zalman 400 watt power supply. Very
fast, very quite machines.

They're getting Win 98 (1 master drive is being cloned with Ghost).
Full install of Microsoft office 2000 premium, and all sorts of other
goodies from the MSDN (map point, etc). DVD burning / copying
software (DVD decrypt, DVD shrink, etc).

FACE wrote in
:

I am running Win98 SE. This morning I decided that I have had all i can
stand and am going to get Windows XP when possible.

The reason is quite pragmatic and simple: System resources.

My understanding is that they are statically allocated in Win 98 and
dynamically allocated as needed in Win XP. At least 4 times a week
I run out of them. After the warning message, if I can't catch it quick
enough then the whole machine locks up and requires a reset.

I use a freeware program called QuickResource that will warn you, before
it's too late, that your resources are getting low.

http://am-productions.yi.org/getprod...=QuickResource

I have set the alarm level at 20% free and that seems to stop me from
getting into much trouble.