**eagle** Posted March 13, 2005 CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 hey you all, ok i got a question, i just got 1 gb of ram, i play alot of online games, i make my servers for others to play in, i am wondering what my virutal memory should be set at, right now i have windows choose whats best for me, which sometimes isnt the best does anyone have any pointers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted March 13, 2005 CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 you could probably set it low to nothing, especially if you have more than 1GB of ram. I have 512MB, and currently my PF usage is 505 MB, and i have 163MB of physical memory free. That comes to 854 MB used, and i have several programs running. What is your total ram? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
**eagle** Posted March 13, 2005 Author CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 1024mb of ram, well i got a few people telling me 100mb 800mb and my other freind who knows pc better tellign me 2560mb 2560mb. so i aint real sure what is better, like i said i play online games and download alto of stuff i got 10mbps connection and 1024mb of ram i have two memory slots and two 512mb installed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MICROWAVE Posted March 13, 2005 CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 I'm sure you can set it low and be OK, as you know V.M. takes what it needs anyway, my friend thinks if you delete your P.F. on shutdown it doesnt make much difference what its set at (window chooses) and it does make sense to me but I haven't tried it his way..... let us know what you do and how it works OK ?... Microwave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted March 13, 2005 CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 i wouldnt set it very high (maybe a couple hundred MB at the most) The more data stored in your virtual memory, the lower your computer's performance will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blako Posted March 13, 2005 CID Share Posted March 13, 2005 Between my two computers the average usage of virtual memory is 300MB or what "Task Manager" reports as 200,000K, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
**eagle** Posted March 14, 2005 Author CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 ok well i will try them all that are listed, kinda confused on your post microwave lol, but i will try them out and post which was better for me right now i got it at 2560mb 2560 mb which seems ok right now, i will make game servers and see how they all are so it will take some time but thanks guys. if u got anymore post um up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 Hate to be the party pooper, but setting your page file to a small setting does you no good.You gain nothing. Either allow Windows to control the size, or set it to an initial size of 2046 MB and a max of 4092 MB. If you have multiple hard drives, it won't hurt to set up a page file on each drive. This max setting and multiple page files ensures that you do not have memory related errors when running programs that are memory intensive. Don't set page files on USB drives. I use these settings on all drives in all my machines, even the monster with fast SCSI drives and 4GB ram. Graphics programs like Photoshop and all its cousins, Illustrator, Page Maker, Premiere, etc all are memory hogs. Many of the games you guys play hog memory and don't let go. You need VM in the fom of a page file to handle all those saved bits. If you set your page file to a small size, you'll run out, causing lockups, and crashes. It doesn't really matter how much ram you install in your machine. Windows will only use a portion of it for applications and will reserve about half of it for itself. 3GB is the most you ever want to install in a desktop or workstation. It won't recognize anything over 3GB by default, 3.53GB with some tweaks. And even with 4 GB installed in a machine, if the page file is taken out of windows control by setting it to a low value, your applications will either crash or freeze as they try to access information previously put to memory, but subsequently overwritten by applications which are not well written (most commercial software) If you are attempting to keep your RAM clear, then eliminate all the start up garbage that's on your machine. Things that start when windows starts, like AIM, Messenger, Weatherbug, RealNetworks, and all the other junk you see piled up in the task bar at the lower right of you screen. If you see that your page files are getting large, or you have set them to the max, then you should also consider defragging your hard drives on a regular basis. Get a third party defragger, one that you can set to a schedule, and one that will defrag the page files. The windows defrag is slow and rally doesn't do a good job at all. I use Diskeeper. Have been using it for years. Have tried others, but this one has worked the best for me. Keep it clean, keep it happy Forgot to add; this all holds true for Win2K thru SP4 and WinXP SP1 thru SP2. Not just theory....been there done that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 ill take your word for it, but a typical hard drive has 1/10th of the transfer speed or so of ram, so if your program is memory demanding, it being in the pagefile will slow it down and make it jerky (it has happened to me before when i had a slower hard drive) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 It doesn't matter. Make sure your drives are at least 7800 rpm with 8mb cache. These are cheap drives now. Want faster? get the newer Serial ATA drives, you really want to kick ass, and don't care what you spend get 15,000 rpm SCSI drives (they're sweet). You just can't control (read restrict) how Windows uses ram and virtual memory (page files) and come out ahead. Like I said in my post, you can max out the ram in your machine, but windows still has control. Work with it instead of against it. There are a hell of a lot of things going on inside that box that is tossing stuff back and forth onto to your ram and into page files. If you make it easier for the OS to do its job, by loading more and faster ram, faster HDs and large page files, then your machine will sing.... no problems. Start to restrict what it can do and it WILL complain Part of making it easier and more efficient is to keep the drive clean and uncluttered. defrag. If you cannot get a third party defrag, at least use the included windows app. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 i wish i could afford 15000 rpm SCSI drives Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 Another thing. Just because you have a big HD, say you get a 200GB unit and fill it full of MP3s and movies, your not home free. Don't fill up your hard drive. If you are using only one drive, c: and have no other on your machine, you need to leave at least 20% of that drive empty. Other wise it will not have space to defrag itself, and in the course of just one day can get so fragmented that your computer will come to a screeching halt. You'll think that you are loaded with spyware. Keep in mind that the OS does a poor job of keeping the drives organized. It will throw down info on that platter anywhere it can and not even try to group it with info from the same file you are attempting to save. So with bits of info all over the physical drive, when you try to read a file/access that info, the HD has to work twice or more as hard to get all that stuff togethjer. Hence the reason to defrag. The defrag program gets all that like info from the same file and puts all together in one spot on your HD. So...the next time you go to access that file, the system can read it faster. Save a movie to a fragmented file, and your HD probably won't be able to read it fast enough to prevent jitter. Same is true for music files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 i wish i could afford 15000 rpm SCSI drives me too! I can only justify the cost for my workstations because it is a tool. They save enormous amounts of time when rendering images. Comes in real nice when I have a deadline to meet. My SCSI equipped dual Xeon machine will render images in minutes as opposed to hours on my desktop machines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
**eagle** Posted March 14, 2005 Author CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 thanks for all the info see you guys are great all my questions get answer thanks guys !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just- Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 bwt u seem the guy to ask this shit if i have one 60G hd 7200 and i put another one using raid 60G7200 will the preformace double up or at least improve by a considerable ammount unfortunatlly i cant put scii on my laptop, that would be extreme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 14, 2005 CID Share Posted March 14, 2005 Old school says yes. Theoretically using raid-0 with two drives should increase the performance. But what with the speed of the new drives, you can actually get as good and better performance from a single drive. I've seen tests made with the WD Raptor up against two WD Raptors in a raid-0 configuration. In one test the raid was only slightly faster, like 0.1 ms and in the other two, the speeds were the same. Since you're on a laptop, you'd be better served with a serial-ATA or even a fast (7800rpm) IDE in a firewire enclosure. Even an IDE in a USB 2.0 enclosure is faster than most all drives that come on laptops. I use a cheap ol WD..on sale at Sam's Club IDE in a cheap USB enclosure as an aux. drive for my laptop. Performance is greatly enhanced. Plus I have added 200GB of storage (for under $200.00) to my laptop. To add that much internal HD to a laptop is expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peepnklown Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 If you want something that will really help you out man, check out this website. http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=324&dPage=6 Windows XP does a pretty decent job at setting up your virtual memory but if you like to tweak out your settings the above link should take care of you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just- Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 bwt thanks for the information and probably not worth putting another hd inside my laptop its already heavy enough anyway i do have a usb2 and firewire encloser with a 7200rpm 120G hard disk but the thing is i have recently got upgraded to 2Mb connection and i have 10G left in the external if u know what i mean my ipod 15G cant take all my mp3 anymore, i am going to the far east for easter and going to buy a cheap HD maybe 300G probably 200G hard disk i know i will buy 7200RPM and at least 8MB buffer any suggestions ? yeah i got a dvd burned and i have burned a couple of cds with some old movies or series that i dont see any more but still i need some more HD space Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disturbed Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 well..since you all are talking about HD's ...... id like to ask this question, as to i've never tested this combination....but i've read in severan computer magazines that western digital's WD raptor hard drive (SATA 10000rpm) writes/reads data faster than some SCSI 15000 rpm hard drives.........they even confirmed this with data figures, and ive researched it numerous times, but even WD website claims this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disturbed Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 oh yeah...the question is, if this is true, why go SCSI then hehehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGMAN Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 My rule of thumb for virt mem, is 1.5 times your ram, if you have the hard drive space. I have GB of ram, and my virtual memory is set at 1500MB's. min, and max. Plus i have a 40GB hard drive with 30.7GB avail includin my virt. mem. Now 1 day out of curisoity with my vm set at 1500 I wanted to see how many windows I could have open before I ran out of memory, so i kept opening a new ie window. i had 87 browser windows open before I couldnt open any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REH Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 My rule of thumb for virt mem, is 1.5 times your ram, if you have the hard drive space. I have GB of ram, and my virtual memory is set at 1500MB's. min, and max. Plus i have a 40GB hard drive with 30.7GB avail includin my virt. mem. Now 1 day out of curisoity with my vm set at 1500 I wanted to see how many windows I could have open before I ran out of memory, so i kept opening a new ie window. i had 87 browser windows open before I couldnt open any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blako Posted March 15, 2005 CID Share Posted March 15, 2005 Well, you got a lot of opinions so pull up task manager and add virtual memory usage to you processes columns and do some tests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 16, 2005 CID Share Posted March 16, 2005 oh yeah...the question is, if this is true, why go SCSI then hehehe Exactly... if you're building a gammer box, go with SATA. There is a place for SCSI in raid configuration. Raid offers much more than speed performance when used on corporate servers and graphic workstations.SCSI is old school. SATA is new and has proven its speed capability. Plus it is a hell of a lot less expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwt1953 Posted March 16, 2005 CID Share Posted March 16, 2005 i am going to the far east for easter and going to buy a cheap HD maybe 300G probably 200G hard disk i know i will buy 7200RPM and at least 8MB buffer any suggestions ? The WD Caviars are a good dependable inexpensive IDE drive. That's what I buy for GP storage use. Check out Sams' Club or Costco for deals. Me personally, if I were taking a trip and wanted to haul all my media with me, I'd be burnin' DVDs and not luggin' a bunch of HDs with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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