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What do RAM cleaners/optimizers do? I have 1G of ram, do I ever need to


ratchet

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The reason I was wondering, was I D/L'd the FreeRAM XP PRO and was at first thinking it was helping. After a few days I had began to doubt it and was thinking maybe I just hit a good spot when I first tried it.

Been considering dropping it. As I feel it does as much slow down as it gains in my case. Or maybe nothing in the first place.  :D

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The reason I was wondering, was I D/L'd the FreeRAM XP PRO and was at first thinking it was helping. After a few days I had began to doubt it and was thinking maybe I just hit a good spot when I first tried it.

Been considering dropping it. As I feel it does as much slow down as it gains in my case. Or maybe nothing in the first place.  :D

basically all it does is free ram like the title says.  Its just frees up unused ram and allows for more to be used.

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This link explains what the RAM optimizers do in general.

http://www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/2000/12.htm

Even if you don't use it to free RAM.You can set it to do almost nothing.It still gives you a toolbar icon that shows either Ram used or RAM unused which ever you like.I need to verify this but I think they compress data in your Ram some way as well as use virtual .

I could slow you down tommie with the amoumt of RAM you have.So if you like the icon just set it to do nothing but that.

From what I read you need your virtual memory & page file(swap file) no matter how much RAM you have.XP even needs it more than a 9x OS.Read this on virtual memory in XP:

What is Virtual Memory?

A program instruction on an Intel 386 or later CPU can address up to 4GB of memory, using its full 32 bits. This is normally far more than the RAM of the machine. (The 32nd exponent of 2 is exactly 4,294,967,296, or 4 GB. 32 binary digits allow the representation of 4,294,967,296 numbers

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That much RAM might be interesting.I don't remberanyone matching the RAM to the amount the CPU can handle.Probably not necessary.

I have a version of free Ram XP Pro What settings do you want to use? Or do you want to just shut most of it off & use the tool tray icon?

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leave it to cholla to go all out on us

I have ben known to explain id detail.  ;)

Ram optimizers have no effect, and might reduce performance.

peepnklown ;That's not entirly correct.The link explained it pretty well if you could overlook some of the weird spelling.

For an OS with limited RAM they do help.If you have a lot of RAM they probably slow down performance.

tommie ;You probably need a long answer.For the settings to turn it off but still use it to monitor use .DO this; In Settings .Under the Memory tab clear all of the auto free boxes.

Then check  "Don't run if CPU use is above" set to 1%.Since CPU will always be above 1% that should stop it from auto clearing.

Then if you think you might want to clear some RAM manually.Dot the circle "try to free" & put in the amount of RAM you want it to try to free. What this does is frees this much RAM  when you double click your tray icon.

If you think it still might auto free you can also check the "Promt before automatically freeing"

You can always R click the tray icon & go to "try to free" It will let you choose a percentage of RAM to try to free.

Under the program tab  clear all boxes in"Memory related program options" this will keep it from displaying a report.This annoyed me.

Under the "other "tab I set left double click to "Automaticall free RAM & Right double click to "No effect" & Normal for CPU .

Under sound /shortcuts I set all shortcuts to "none" & unchecked sound.

In the "Display "tab check what you want it to display when you R click the tray icon & select restore.On this screen :Dot Autofree & slide the bar all the way left.Make sure to uncheck "Display freeing results report when done with memory options."

Then to close it you select minimize & to system tray.If you just close it it will stop the program.

This should pretty much let you display the amount of free RAM in your system tray & manually clear RAM.& look at the use in the restore box when you want too.

Then tommie try to see if you can use all your RAM.I doubt with 2G you ever run out any way.

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tommie;using free Ram XP Pro in the other tab in settings "Tray icon displays" set to show

"Megabytes of free RAM" When this shows zero you have used all your RAM.

I'm not sure exactly what XP has but in ME .

Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information once there under system summary (the first screen on ME) It shows "Total Physical Memory" & "Avalible Physical Memory" The second one is the amount of RAM free it's the same with it if it is zero you have used all RAM.At that point it uses virtual memory.Which is the page file on your HD.

So you might have to look for a simular area of XP to find it.

For Windows clearing RAM I think the only way is restart.But I would be glad to know too if there is another way with windows alone.

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Tommie ;I wasn't worried Dark06  was just joking about me.At least that's how I took it.

& peepnklown is seldom has a  positive  attitude about anything.If he read the link he would have seen that's what it said for the most part.

I will boil it down to it's essence.

RAM optimizers fool your OS by telling it  that it is loading a program of the size that you want to free.This puts that amount in virtual memory.Then it doesn't load a program.

Some of them do defrag RAM sort of like Windows defrags the whole OS.Aranging it so it find the information in it faster.

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