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

Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

--
Regards,
Bert Kinney [MS-MVP DTS]
http://dts-l.org/
How to Configure Outlook Express for Internet News:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=171164

"98 Guy" wrote
Buffalo wrote:

1) In your System.ini file put in MaxFileCache= 70% of physical
ram under the [vcache] header.
ie: 256MB x 70% = 179200 so MaxFileCache=179200
ie: 512MB x 70% = 469763 so MaxFileCache=469763

Vcache - this is a hard drive virtual cache - right?

Which means data that is written to or read from the drive is cached
transiently by Vcache.

Tell me - is the single largest cache-able item the swap file?

If you were limited to caching only 1 item - would the swap file be
it?

What is the purpose of the swap file anyways? Is the swap file the
place where virtual memory is stored?

If so, then if I have 512 mb of ram, why on earth do I STILL want
virtual memory? Don't I have enough freeking REAL memory?

And if I DON'T need or want virtual memory, then I don't have so much
hammering of the Vcache because (presumably) there is NO swap file
(?!).

Again, back in the "old days" when I might have had a PC with 32 mb of
ram (maybe 4 of that used by vcache?) and maybe 128 mb virtual memory
(all of which is stored _AS_ the swap file - yes?) then, what - I
theoretically have a PC with 32+128=160 mb of memory?

So now if I have 512 mb of REAL memory, then why on earth do I still
need virtual memory (and the swap file that goes with it) ???

Wouldn't win-98 run faster if it didn't have to manage virtual memory
and the swap file???

The other items you mentioned are not even modified unless you
run pure DOS games or pure DOS programs.
Windows98 does not need an AutoExec.bat or Config.sys file to
run Windows.

But doesn't win-98 still load (or need) himem.sys even if you don't
have an actual config.sys?

What about emm386?

My current emm386 line is:

DEVICE=C:\WIN98\EMM386.exe NOEMS D=64 A=15 VERBOSE

Are you saying that EMM386 is irrelavent to the operation of Windows
98, regardless of the command-line options used?

PS:

What about the use of WinAlign to "align" all executable code
(microsoft and non-microsoft) that can be aligned safely as a way to
increase performance? I don't hear too much about that. Is there a
master list of third-party software that has been shown to be
"align-able"?

Bert Kinney wrote:

Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Quoting from that article:

"While the "total system load" is a realistic measure of total system
memory requirements it is often not practicable or even advisable to
have that much physical RAM installed in the computer"

I don't know when that article was written, but clearly it IS
practical these days to have a Win-98 machine with 256 or 512 mb of
ram, so he is wrong about that. As for the "advisable" part, he gives
no reason why having "that much" ram is not advised.

The premise of the article is based on the idea that there can never
be as much physical memory as the OS needs given the sum of the "total
system load". This premise is clearly no longer valid.

While the article claims that Windows 98 with 1 and 1.5 gb of ram is
possible (with the appropriate settings), it does not explain the need
to still have a swap file or virtual memory in that case.

So - can you tell Win-98 not to use a swap file and not to create
virtual memory?

Bert Kinney wrote:

Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Quoting from that article:

"While the "total system load" is a realistic measure of total system
memory requirements it is often not practicable or even advisable to
have that much physical RAM installed in the computer"

I don't know when that article was written, but clearly it IS
practical these days to have a Win-98 machine with 256 or 512 mb of
ram, so he is wrong about that. As for the "advisable" part, he gives
no reason why having "that much" ram is not advised.

The premise of the article is based on the idea that there can never
be as much physical memory as the OS needs given the sum of the "total
system load". This premise is clearly no longer valid.

While the article claims that Windows 98 with 1 and 1.5 gb of ram is
possible (with the appropriate settings), it does not explain the need
to still have a swap file or virtual memory in that case.

So - can you tell Win-98 not to use a swap file and not to create
virtual memory?

"Bert Kinney" wrote in message
...
Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Maybe it's just me but that site doesn't seem to exist. And http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
just shows the Google Toolbar page?

"Bert Kinney" wrote in message
...
Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Maybe it's just me but that site doesn't seem to exist. And http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
just shows the Google Toolbar page?

What he said.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"Anorack Ted" wrote in message
...
Check out :- http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=index

"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...
You do not need to adjust any settings with that configuration. For the
swap
file, it is always best to let Windows manage it. You might move it to
another disk, but there is no need to set a maximum or minimum. The
cache
setting only applies above 512Mb RAM. The other settings are not
required
for Windows, but some DOS programs might require a custom DOS environment
that includes them.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...

What are the optimal swap and cache settings given a pc with either
256 or 215 mb ram with a Celeron 2.6 Ghz CPU?

What about other stuff like himem.sys, emm386 (and it's various
settings), smartdrv, buffers=, files=, etc?

What he said.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"Anorack Ted" wrote in message
...
Check out :- http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=index

"Jeff Richards" wrote in message
...
You do not need to adjust any settings with that configuration. For the
swap
file, it is always best to let Windows manage it. You might move it to
another disk, but there is no need to set a maximum or minimum. The
cache
setting only applies above 512Mb RAM. The other settings are not
required
for Windows, but some DOS programs might require a custom DOS environment
that includes them.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...

What are the optimal swap and cache settings given a pc with either
256 or 215 mb ram with a Celeron 2.6 Ghz CPU?

What about other stuff like himem.sys, emm386 (and it's various
settings), smartdrv, buffers=, files=, etc?

A machine that is running Widows 98 is often at least 4 or more years old,
so it is often not practical to have that much RAM. RAM modules for that
machine will typically be smaller, and some machines have only limited
capacity for RAM modules. Larger capacity modules of this type are often
expensive, and adding more RAM may require discarding existing, perfectly
good, modules. Because Windows 98 does such a good job of managing memory,
and because the total system load may include a lot of memory that is
accessed very infrequently, it is often not advisable to make that extra
investment, because you won't get any noticeable system performance
improvement from it.

If the machine can cope with that much RAM, if you are using very large and
very dynamic software, and if you don't mind spending the cash, then by all
means go for it.

If Windows really isn't using the swap file then whether you tell it to use
it or not becomes irrelevant. However, disabling swapping will create
problems if, for some unexpected reason, the system suddenly requires that
extra space. And that reason can be as accidental as double-clicking a
large number of files.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Bert Kinney wrote:

Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Quoting from that article:

"While the "total system load" is a realistic measure of total system
memory requirements it is often not practicable or even advisable to
have that much physical RAM installed in the computer"

I don't know when that article was written, but clearly it IS
practical these days to have a Win-98 machine with 256 or 512 mb of
ram, so he is wrong about that. As for the "advisable" part, he gives
no reason why having "that much" ram is not advised.

The premise of the article is based on the idea that there can never
be as much physical memory as the OS needs given the sum of the "total
system load". This premise is clearly no longer valid.

While the article claims that Windows 98 with 1 and 1.5 gb of ram is
possible (with the appropriate settings), it does not explain the need
to still have a swap file or virtual memory in that case.

So - can you tell Win-98 not to use a swap file and not to create
virtual memory?

A machine that is running Widows 98 is often at least 4 or more years old,
so it is often not practical to have that much RAM. RAM modules for that
machine will typically be smaller, and some machines have only limited
capacity for RAM modules. Larger capacity modules of this type are often
expensive, and adding more RAM may require discarding existing, perfectly
good, modules. Because Windows 98 does such a good job of managing memory,
and because the total system load may include a lot of memory that is
accessed very infrequently, it is often not advisable to make that extra
investment, because you won't get any noticeable system performance
improvement from it.

If the machine can cope with that much RAM, if you are using very large and
very dynamic software, and if you don't mind spending the cash, then by all
means go for it.

If Windows really isn't using the swap file then whether you tell it to use
it or not becomes irrelevant. However, disabling swapping will create
problems if, for some unexpected reason, the system suddenly requires that
extra space. And that reason can be as accidental as double-clicking a
large number of files.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Bert Kinney wrote:

Hi 98 Guy,

Ron Martell MS-MVP has an article that will answer most of
you questions concerning memory management.
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#virtual

Quoting from that article:

"While the "total system load" is a realistic measure of total system
memory requirements it is often not practicable or even advisable to
have that much physical RAM installed in the computer"

I don't know when that article was written, but clearly it IS
practical these days to have a Win-98 machine with 256 or 512 mb of
ram, so he is wrong about that. As for the "advisable" part, he gives
no reason why having "that much" ram is not advised.

The premise of the article is based on the idea that there can never
be as much physical memory as the OS needs given the sum of the "total
system load". This premise is clearly no longer valid.

While the article claims that Windows 98 with 1 and 1.5 gb of ram is
possible (with the appropriate settings), it does not explain the need
to still have a swap file or virtual memory in that case.

So - can you tell Win-98 not to use a swap file and not to create
virtual memory?

Any software produced in recent years should already be properly aligned and
does not need to be aligned after installation. The effect of unaligned
software is probably not detectable if there is ample RAM available. You can
still use winalign (not walign) if you want - if there's no alignment to be
done then nothing will happen. Note, however, that your anti-virus software
may detect that the EXE has been modified, and the program itself might stop
working in some case. Overall, it's not worth the bother.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Buffalo wrote:

1) In your System.ini file put in MaxFileCache= 70% of physical
ram under the [vcache] header.
ie: 256MB x 70% = 179200 so MaxFileCache=179200
ie: 512MB x 70% = 469763 so MaxFileCache=469763

Vcache - this is a hard drive virtual cache - right?

Which means data that is written to or read from the drive is cached
transiently by Vcache.

Tell me - is the single largest cache-able item the swap file?

If you were limited to caching only 1 item - would the swap file be
it?

What is the purpose of the swap file anyways? Is the swap file the
place where virtual memory is stored?

If so, then if I have 512 mb of ram, why on earth do I STILL want
virtual memory? Don't I have enough freeking REAL memory?

And if I DON'T need or want virtual memory, then I don't have so much
hammering of the Vcache because (presumably) there is NO swap file
(?!).

Again, back in the "old days" when I might have had a PC with 32 mb of
ram (maybe 4 of that used by vcache?) and maybe 128 mb virtual memory
(all of which is stored _AS_ the swap file - yes?) then, what - I
theoretically have a PC with 32+128=160 mb of memory?

So now if I have 512 mb of REAL memory, then why on earth do I still
need virtual memory (and the swap file that goes with it) ???

Wouldn't win-98 run faster if it didn't have to manage virtual memory
and the swap file???

The other items you mentioned are not even modified unless you
run pure DOS games or pure DOS programs.
Windows98 does not need an AutoExec.bat or Config.sys file to
run Windows.

But doesn't win-98 still load (or need) himem.sys even if you don't
have an actual config.sys?

What about emm386?

My current emm386 line is:

DEVICE=C:\WIN98\EMM386.exe NOEMS D=64 A=15 VERBOSE

Are you saying that EMM386 is irrelavent to the operation of Windows
98, regardless of the command-line options used?

PS:

What about the use of WinAlign to "align" all executable code
(microsoft and non-microsoft) that can be aligned safely as a way to
increase performance? I don't hear too much about that. Is there a
master list of third-party software that has been shown to be
"align-able"?