New RAM - How to Set 'Virtual Memory' ?

Sat June 6 (D-Day) 1944....2009

Hello Friends,

I recently upgraded my PC's RAM memory with two new 1GB sticks. They are Patriot DDR PC3200's with heat-shields, so I now have 2GB of RAM for my eMachine W-3502.
Under the 'Performance Options' tab for 'Virtual Memory' my machine states I have two different numbers for my two 80 GB internal hard drives. C Drive has 12855 MBs, and D Drive (slave) has 24550 MBs of 'available' page-file space. This is strange to me, since both hard drives are 80 GBs.

Anyway, it is time to set the custom minimum and maximum load for each drive. As I stated, there is now 2GBs of RAM in the PC.

How do I figure out what number to put in those two boxes for each drive? Why are there different 'available' numbers for both drives which are 80GBs each ?? I know there is a formula........

.....what should i put in those boxes ??:confused

Also, I went to Crucial's site to run a scan, but the brand name 'Patriot' was not on the drop down menu......

Thanks folks,

-scottportraits

 

I would leave it alone, and let the system manage you page file sizes. Unless you are running low on disk space, you can turn it of for one of the drives. It has been said that having the same amount of virtual memory as you do RAM is the way to do it. So if you are looking for an amount to put in there, use 2048mb

 

Okay, I'm going to out try it both ways.

Since both those drives often run low on free space, sometimes down to 10 or 15%, I will first try it with customized numbers. For the minimum I will try 2048, like you said. For the maximum slot I will try what a little note at the bottom (which I never saw before) suggests as 'recommended': 2875. I'll set it that way for both 80GB drives, and try it out for a few days.
Monday night I will switch it to "System Managed Size", like you also suggest, and see how that works for a few days. I imagine the difference will be nil-ish, hardly perceptible, so it really doesn't matter which way I ultimately choose. Unless one way or the other wears out the motherboard or burns the RAM stick up more I probably will ultimately go with 'System Managed Size', like you suggest.

I also noticed on the tab before this advanced options one a dialog about whether you want 1) Best Appearance; 2) Best Performance; 3) Let Windows Decide; and 4) Custom.
I had set mine to 'Custom' and have only two boxes checked, namely 'shadows under mouse pointer' and 'smooth screen fonts edges'. All other boxes are unchecked. I thought this best when I first set up the new PC last year.

What say you on this issue ? Should I leave it the way I have it set, or switch to one of those other three options (of which 'best performance' seems like my predilection) ?

Thanks for the tips,
Happy D-Day,

-scottportraits

 

It wouldn't be. Crucial only sells their own brands, Patriot is one of their competitors.

As for virtual memory, what I tell people is to put it on the drive you don't have your OS installed on if you can, and set it to custom managed fixed size, that is, for 2GB, just set the initial and the maximum to 4096MB, and call it good.

If you have enough memory for what you use your system for, it will access the paging file a lot less, but for when it does, might as well have it not go all over the place...

Interesting about the size btw, smokingun, where does that number come from? I've been told that it's better to set the paging file bigger than the amount of RAM, for best performance, but if you have numbers to back up either position I'd love to see them. I have no numbers to support my argument.

 

Okay, Mimsy, I'll try it your way now. I have the OS on "C" drive, so I clicked the 'No PageFile' radio button. I changed the 'custom' setting for slave drive "D" to 4096, as you've suggested.

Once again, let me run this by you. On the 'Performance' tab before this advanced options one is a dialog about whether you want 1) Best Appearance; 2) Best Performance; 3) Let Windows Decide; and 4) Custom.
I had set mine to 'Custom' and have only two boxes checked, namely 'shadows under mouse pointer' and 'smooth screen fonts edges'. All other boxes are unchecked. I thought this best when I first set up the new PC last year.

Should I leave it the way I have it set, or switch to one of those other three options (of which 'best performance' seems like my predilection) ?

Thanks,

-scottportraits

 

Nor do I, but in the past I have told people the same thing as you, double the amount of RAM. But we are talking now about people having much more RAM, and in this case, the hard drive is getting to 10% free space, so having the least amount of virtual memory would be the best way. The days of having 256mb or 512mb of RAM are long gone, and it was easier to say to someone that they need 512mb or 1gb of virtual memory. To quote you earlier,
"If you have enough memory for what you use your system for, it will access the paging file a lot less, but for when it does, might as well have it not go all over the place... " It would seem to me, if you have 4gb of virtual memory, your hard drive will be moving about more than is needed. :confused

As I said above I have nothing to clearly back this up, just kind of a hunch. I guess I should have said in my last post, that having the same amount of virtual memory and RAM would be the minimum that I would set it for.

And for your question, scott, I'm not too clear on what to do about those options, since I have been leaving my virtual memory set to system managed (default) for quite some time.

Going by what my settings are currently, it would seem that windows 7 likes to have a 1.5:1 ratio of virtual memory to RAM, so maybe we should take it at face value and assume (i know, carefully now ) that your best setting would be 3gb

 

Left to itself, Windows usually goes to 1 1/2 times the installed amount, so I see nothing wrong with going by Smokinguns thought about double. Extra couldn't hurt.
I personally turn mine completely off to save disk space. Very seldom see more than 1/2 of installed used anyway. Only have a 40GB drive.

 

Sunday Night June 7, 2009

Okay Folks, here's what I'm going to do......

One of the posts (Mimsy's) said not to have any Page File on the drive that the operating system is located, if you have another in there (and I do). So for drive "C:/" I ticked the 'No Paging File' radio button; and will put the Page File on my 'slave' drive "D:/".
So drive "D:/" will have a Page File, which I guess is an area on the hard disk where the machine can go for more resources if the RAM gets used up. I have 2GB of RAM.

I'm not sure where Mimsy got the number 4096, which sounds like 2GB of RAM X 2 = approximately 4000. But someone else is saying here that the optimum number is RAM X 1.5, (not X 2) which would be about 3000 MBs. So just to be 'safe' (whatever that is) I'll try these 'custom' numbers in the page file for drive "D:/": Minimum 3000 (RAM X 1.5), maximum 4500 (RAM X 2). No page file on drive "C:/". I'll try that for a few days and see how it goes. I'll need to do some big audio or video file editing to force the available RAM to exceed it's 2000 MB capacity....and see if it's sluggish or prompt.

After a few days I'll reset the drive "C:/" and tick the radio button for 'system managed page file' and see if that is different. I'm getting the feeling much of this is practically negligible in practice. I'm not sure I'll notice much difference either way, but if I'm trying to edit a 600 MB video file or something, it might force it to the test and verify if one way or the other is better. I do like the idea of not having a page file on the "C:/" drive, which has the operating system and the most activity; that way, if I'm editing a huge file and it exceeds the available RAM, it will go to the slave drive and seek it there.....seems like a reasonable assumption that would tax the C drive less whilst doing a big file chore.

Still puzzled which settings to use on the tab before this one. There's 'Performance Options' and a tab for 'Visual Effects' - I have ticked 'custom' and checked only two items, a shadow under the mouse-cursor, and smooth screen font edges. But there are three other options, namely for 1) Best Performance; 2) Best Appearance; 3) Let Windows Decide; and 4) Custom - which I am using.

The ultimate question is getting the most out of your PC without taxing the resources too much and burning up the motherboard or RAM sticks. I'd like efficiency, but also not to 'cook' my hardware with these big file size jobs. So I'll try it these different ways, but I'm afraid the differences might be imperceptible - in which case I'd like to err on the side of saving burn-out of motherboard, RAM sticks, and hardware.

Clearly, everyone seems to have a slightly different opinion here, so I will be the guinea pig and try it out over the next few days. Maybe I'll notice something significant while working on a huge DVD back-up burning job (4.5 GB) with this new Ashampoo Burning Suite I'm trying. A big job like that might expose which way can and which way can't handle such and such a set up.

Wish me luck, I'm off to the war.....

-scottportraits

 

Because of the way computer counts bytes, one gigabyte is not an even thousand megabytes.

So 1GB = 1024MB and 4x1024MB = 4096MB = 4GB.

That's where the number came from.

 

Fair point... to me that seems as if it would vary slightly by application and OS (assuming they all are a bit different), but at the same time, when getting into this much detail, my experience is that it's almost as much on the user as on the settings, how the computer performs.

scottportraits, if you main concern is maximum performance with minimum wear on the mechanical parts on the hard drive your best course of action is probably to monitor how your computer uses the virtual memory and adjust it to the way that works best for you. If you have a paging file of 4096MB, and it never uses more than 25% of that, shrink it to 2048MB or thereabouts, and monitor further, and adjust further, as needed. When it comes to this level of fine tuning, ultimately you are the best judge of what works best.

 

The ultimate question is getting the most out of your PC without taxing the resources too much and burning up the motherboard or RAM sticks.

Yes, I figure there's probably a bunch of ways to 'tweak' the PC and get it to go faster, but I am leary of frazzling some of the hardware in the process. Don't want to set anything in such a way as to end up cooking the motherboard - it's just a celeron processor.

Still puzzled which settings to use on the tab before this one. There's 'Performance Options' and a tab for 'Visual Effects' - I have ticked 'custom' and checked only two items, a shadow under the mouse-cursor, and smooth screen font edges. But there are three other options, namely for 1) Best Performance; 2) Best Appearance; 3) Let Windows Decide; and 4) Custom - which I am using.

Thanks folks,

-scottportraits

 

Monday June 8, 2009

One last note. The reason I wanted to explore this topic of 'virtual memory' and page file settings was because I was having trouble burning good data back-up DVDs and music MP3 CDs. I thought adjusting these settings would compensate for any lack of 'memory' the PC might be suffering from whilst doing a big burn job of over 4GBs. I am still having this problem and you can find the new post here:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1342518#post1342518

Before we leave 'Virtual Memory' I'll quickly spew out what I've learned. If you have two internal hard drives, put the page file on the slave drive, not the drive your operating system is on. Tick the radio button for 'No Page File' on drive C:/.

Count up how much RAM you have and either multiply it by 1.5 or 2 and enter these numbers in the 'custom' boxes on your second internal hard drive. The second number can be even higher if you think you'll need more available memory trying to burn 4 GBs onto a DVD.

So we've covered all there is here, and heard a few different opinions. Let's consider the topic closed and move to the next 'challenge' - namely, burning a good data back-up DVD. (See above new post)

Thanks again, pals and gals, as usual you are the BEST !

-scottportraits