3 replies
To do this, open the "Control Panel" window and double-click on the "System" icon. The system dialog window will open. Click on the "Performance" tab and then click on the "Virtual Memory" button.
Click on the option that says "Let me specify myown virtual memory settings." This will make the options below that statement become active. Click on the drop-down list beside "Hard disk:" to select the hard drive that you wish to configure virtual memory for. Remember that a good rule of thumb is to equally split virtual memory between the number of physical hard disks you have.
The amount of hard drive space you allocate for virtual memory is important. If you allocate too little, you will get "Out of Memory" errors. If you find that you need to keep increasing the size of the virtual memory, you probably are also finding that your system is sluggish and accesses the hard drive constantly. In that case, you should consider buying more RAM to keep the ratio between RAM and virtual memory about 2:1. Some applications enjoy having lots of virtual memory space but do not access it very much. In that case, large paging files work well.
One trick that can improve the performance of virtual memory (especially when large amounts of virtual memory are needed), is to make the minimum and maximum sizes of the virtual memory file identical. This forces the operating system to allocate the entire paging file when you start the machine. That keeps the paging file from having to grow while programs are running, which improves performance. Many video applications recommend this technique to avoid pauses while reading or writing video information between hard disk and tape.
(continued in comments..)
.
.
Another factor in the performance of virtual memory is the location of the pagefile. If your system has multiple physical hard drives (not multiple drive letters, but actual drives), you can spread the work among them by making smaller pagefiles on each drive. This simple modification will significantly speed up any system that makes heavy use of virtual memory.
Take a look at this site for the full explaination and illustrations. It's a great resource for understanding and setting virtual memory.
"How Virtual Memory Works"
http://www.howstuffworks.com/virtual-memory.htm
(REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URL.)
Good luck,
Maxwell
.
.
More Windows 2000 specific articles:
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/memory-win2k/index.shtml
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/0/86.asp
http://windows.about.com/library/weekly/aa001112a.htm
(REMOVE SPACES from the pasted URLs.)
Maxwell
This discussion is closed to new replies.
Trending Windows Forum posts
Sort by Trending