Virtual Memory Question

[Strong Lead]

I noticed that my system is running very slow. I often get the bubble telling me that my virtual memory is too low. I suppose it's because I'm running out of HD space.

Well I deleted and burned a lot of files so I have space again. I went into the performance tab and saw that my current Virtual memory was set to 241 MB and the recommended was 474.

Well I reset it so the minimum file size would be the 474 MB and max at something random like 550.

The question, if I bump the virtual memory file size up substantially will I notice performance?

I am running a dinosaur at PIII 450 with 320 mb RAM.

Any advice would be appreciated!

[bonzai]

With that computer configuration, I would change the Performance setting from Custom to System Managed Size. Setting a minimum of 400 is too much if you don't have the hard disk space for it.

Althought I have a AMD1900, I ahve 512ram with 120MB custom set for virtual mem.

[Strong Lead]

but I do now have the space so I was wondering if bigger is better?

[bonzai]

Bigger is not necessarily better. If u make the size on the hard drive too big, then Windows will tend to access the virtual memory more often rather than accessing ur physical memory, thus actually slowing down your computer. It is better to set a fixed custom size, meaning same minimum and maximum, so the size of virtual memory does not change. But with a p3 running on XP is kind of pressing the computer. If it were me, I would let the computer handle the memory by itself since I do alot of multitasking.

[Tuf]

XP handles memory much better than 9X did. For most people letting Windows handle the virtual memory is a better idea than fixing the file size. Depending on the programs you run you can cause some odd behavior by setting the file size too small. If you have noticed in XP you can set it to a maximum of X but if XP wants more for itself it will take more. But other programs don't generally have that luxury.

If you want to increase swap file performance put it on its own partition on a different drive than Windows is on.