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

Buffalo wrote:

With your limited knowledge, you shouldn't be in charge of
the project you are doong.

Everything I've read points to one thing:

Real memory + Virtual memory = total available memory (TAM).

None of the documents that have been posted so far have said that TAM
ever needs to be more than a few hundred mb.

If TAM = 512 mb, and if Real Memory = 512 mb, then Virtual Memory = 0.

I'll run some Sandra tests with and without virtual memory turned on
and see if it makes a difference.

But I think many of you out there are just plain in the habbit of
keeping virtual memory turned because "it's always been that way". If
you've got 128mb ram, yea, ok, you probably need virtual memory turned
on. But if you've got 256? 512? no way. Win-98 is hardly ever,
perhaps never used as a server. So you can't tell me it's memory
needs are significant once you've given it 256 mb of real RAM.

Don't come back and cry, if you get 'burned' real bad.

And just how would I get "burned real bad" if I run a pc with Virtual
memory turned off?

Don't load a heap of FUD on me. Give me information - not FUD.

I don't know who "Ron Martini" is and considering you responded
to Ron Martell's response, I suggest you pay more attention to his
article than you did to the spelling of his name. And then you may
have a better understanding of memory management in MS Windows.

--
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

"Shep©" wrote
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:34:33 GMT There I was minding my own business
and then Ron Martell wrote :

"Anorack Ted" wrote:

Check out :- http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=index


Cacheman is pure unadulterated crapware that is totally incapable of
performing any beneficial function for any computer under any
circumstances.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

Ron Martini is pure un adult postware ;-)



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
remove obvious to reply
email
Free original songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm

I don't know who "Ron Martini" is and considering you responded
to Ron Martell's response, I suggest you pay more attention to his
article than you did to the spelling of his name. And then you may
have a better understanding of memory management in MS Windows.

--
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

"Shep©" wrote
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 19:34:33 GMT There I was minding my own business
and then Ron Martell wrote :

"Anorack Ted" wrote:

Check out :- http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=index


Cacheman is pure unadulterated crapware that is totally incapable of
performing any beneficial function for any computer under any
circumstances.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada

Ron Martini is pure un adult postware ;-)



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
remove obvious to reply
email
Free original songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm

It might be worthwhile for him to download and install TaskInfo 2003 so he
can see the allocations for code and dat for each program runing in the
system and the actual memory being used by those sections.

"Buffalo" wrote in message
news:kCYed.523561$8_6.170112@attbi_s04...

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

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.

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?

With your limited knowledge, you shouldn't be in charge of the project you
are
doong.
Go ahead and shut off the 'Virtual Memory' function.
Don't come back and cry, if you get 'burned' real bad.
You were given many good sites to look at and learn from.
If you want to argue without putting the time in to learn properly, that's
your
problem.
LOL
Buffalo

It might be worthwhile for him to download and install TaskInfo 2003 so he
can see the allocations for code and dat for each program runing in the
system and the actual memory being used by those sections.

"Buffalo" wrote in message
news:kCYed.523561$8_6.170112@attbi_s04...

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

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.

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?

With your limited knowledge, you shouldn't be in charge of the project you
are
doong.
Go ahead and shut off the 'Virtual Memory' function.
Don't come back and cry, if you get 'burned' real bad.
You were given many good sites to look at and learn from.
If you want to argue without putting the time in to learn properly, that's
your
problem.
LOL
Buffalo

You need to read up and learn about VM systems in general.

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Buffalo wrote:

With your limited knowledge, you shouldn't be in charge of
the project you are doong.

Everything I've read points to one thing:

Real memory + Virtual memory = total available memory (TAM).

None of the documents that have been posted so far have said that TAM
ever needs to be more than a few hundred mb.

If TAM = 512 mb, and if Real Memory = 512 mb, then Virtual Memory = 0.

I'll run some Sandra tests with and without virtual memory turned on
and see if it makes a difference.

But I think many of you out there are just plain in the habbit of
keeping virtual memory turned because "it's always been that way". If
you've got 128mb ram, yea, ok, you probably need virtual memory turned
on. But if you've got 256? 512? no way. Win-98 is hardly ever,
perhaps never used as a server. So you can't tell me it's memory
needs are significant once you've given it 256 mb of real RAM.

Don't come back and cry, if you get 'burned' real bad.

And just how would I get "burned real bad" if I run a pc with Virtual
memory turned off?

Don't load a heap of FUD on me. Give me information - not FUD.

You need to read up and learn about VM systems in general.

"98 Guy" wrote in message ...
Buffalo wrote:

With your limited knowledge, you shouldn't be in charge of
the project you are doong.

Everything I've read points to one thing:

Real memory + Virtual memory = total available memory (TAM).

None of the documents that have been posted so far have said that TAM
ever needs to be more than a few hundred mb.

If TAM = 512 mb, and if Real Memory = 512 mb, then Virtual Memory = 0.

I'll run some Sandra tests with and without virtual memory turned on
and see if it makes a difference.

But I think many of you out there are just plain in the habbit of
keeping virtual memory turned because "it's always been that way". If
you've got 128mb ram, yea, ok, you probably need virtual memory turned
on. But if you've got 256? 512? no way. Win-98 is hardly ever,
perhaps never used as a server. So you can't tell me it's memory
needs are significant once you've given it 256 mb of real RAM.

Don't come back and cry, if you get 'burned' real bad.

And just how would I get "burned real bad" if I run a pc with Virtual
memory turned off?

Don't load a heap of FUD on me. Give me information - not FUD.

"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.

Not so. It would be easy to have the total address space for all tasks in
the system to exceed to physical ram.


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?

"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.

Not so. It would be easy to have the total address space for all tasks in
the system to exceed to physical ram.


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?

"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?

Taken care of automatically.


What about emm386?

Same.


My current emm386 line is:

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

Not needed.


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

Windows will make expanded memory available automatically if a program needs
it.


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"?