Physical Ram not being used??

Hi Guys,

I Have 3gb (3x 1gb strips) DDR400 Ram installed.
and a 3gb page file on seperate HDD.

Yet when I run 3DS MAX or Photoshop or other memory hungry programs I only seem to ever use 500 to 650mb of memory (viewed in task mamager)even when doing big renders..

Can I make Windows use my physical ram as opposed to paging it to disk?

I use Windows XP Pro sp2.

Thakns for any guidence on this problem.

 

This will tell you more about virtual memory and page file optimization....

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

 

Very helpfull BUT...

I want to know if I can FORCE windowsXP to use the physical (faster) memory before it pages to disk.

Can this be done?

Thanks very much for the link it is extremely infomative.

 

It is not XP that decides on the amount of memory needed, it is the individual program itself that you are using.
With page file enabled, the program will alocate itself more than enough virtual memory incase it is needed, but it won't always mean that it is used.
The program is only hedging its bets in case it runs short on physical memory, which should not be a problem in your case with 3gigs of physical.

The only thing i know of, that you can do, is to disable the memory paging feature option in windows, if you so desire, but this is unecessary IMO as i can hardly see your paging file being utilized! (you could do this as a test by running the same program after disabling, then recheck your Physical Mem usage and program performance as a comparison)

Yes it does exist, but are you sure it is being utilized by the programs you are running? (over and above your physical usage)

Regards....