Large physical memory also requires virtual memory to be discarded [even if your memory has 1 GB]

As the price of physical memory continues to decline, MB or even 1 GB memory has become the standard for installation. The increase in memory capacity has significantly improved the system performance. However, some people have suggested that: when the memory exceeds 1 GB, you do not need to set the virtual memory. You can disable it to save hard disk space. Is that true?

What is virtual memory?

The virtual memory is virtualized. It uses the hard disk space to form a page file (pagefile. sys), mainly used to supplement the memory called by the program when the memory capacity is insufficient. When running a program requires a large amount of data and occupies a large amount of memory, the data exchange center in memory will be "full", but new data will continue to flow, at this time, you must transfer the data that you do not need temporarily to other places to free up space for new data. At this time, the virtual memory formed by using the hard disk space plays a role in receiving "old data. In the era of high memory prices and low capacity, the role of virtual memory in expanding available "Memory" space cannot be underestimated to meet the program operation requirements. Generally, Windows manages virtual memory according to the default settings of the system. This is more convenient, but it is also because of this, its management method is conservative and its work efficiency is low. It often jumps out of the "insufficient memory" prompt.

Can I cancel virtual memory in large memory capacity?

As the memory capacity increases, some people propose to cancel the virtual memory. However, what they did not consider is that as the hardware configuration continues to improve, the operating system, application software, and gaming requirements for system configuration have also increased. When Windows 95 was launched, the demand for memory capacity was only 16 Mb. When Windows 98 was reached, this number had increased to 64 mb. After Windows XP was launched, to run the system smoothly, at least MB of memory is required. It is said that the next-generation operating system has higher requirements for physical memory. Aside from the operating system, the physical memory capacity requirements of games such as Warcraft, extreme speed 7, and Empire time 3 are unprecedented. Compared with their requirements, the current mainstream MB standard memory capacity is only able to meet their basic needs. It can be seen that the virtual memory does not lose its meaning due to the expansion of the physical memory. To smoothly run the latest operating systems, games, and applications, virtual memory is required.

Set the virtual memory size

How much is the virtual memory configured? The recommended practice is to set it to 1.5 to 2 times the physical memory. That is to say, if your physical memory is 128 MB, the virtual memory can be set to 256 MB to MB. However, even with this standard setting, there will also be a "insufficient memory" prompt during use; if the memory capacity exceeds 1 GB, 2 GB of virtual memory is required according to this standard, this is a waste of hard disk space. So how much is the virtual memory suitable? I think we should set the virtual memory size from the actual needs of the program running. The following takes two computers with MB and MB memory respectively as an example:

In Windows 98, the system monitor is used to obtain the size of swap files (virtual memory. Run "attachment" | "system tool" | "system monitor" (this program does not exist in the system installed by default, you can install it by using the Windows Installer in "Add/delete programs" on the control panel ). Open the system monitor window, select "edit" | "add Project", and select "Memory Manager" in "type ", select "swap file size" (1) in the list on the right ). Next, as you keep opening and closing the application, the change file value will fluctuate in the window. In order to ensure that the virtual memory is set to the most reasonable, you should run the program that occupies the most memory at this time, and be able to continuously monitor fluctuations in the file exchange for a period of time. In this way, the system performance can be stable and maintained at the best state. The test shows that the swap file is generally between 128 and MB.

After finding out the most appropriate range value, right-click "my computer" and select "properties" when setting the virtual memory. The System Properties window is displayed, and the "performance" tab is selected, click the "virtual memory" button below to bring up the virtual memory settings window. Click the "user-designated virtual memory Settings" Single-choice button, and select a partition with a large available space for "Hard Disk, enter the appropriate range value in the "minimum" and "maximum" text boxes.

In Windows 2000/XP, you can use the performance monitor to understand the real requirements of the System for virtual memory. Open Control Panel, administrative tools, and performance. In the displayed Performance Monitor window (2), expand Performance Logs and alarms in the left column ", select "counter log" under it, right-click in the blank area on the right, and choose "New Log Settings" from the right-click menu.

In the pop-up dialog box "name", enter any name, such as "type" (3 ). In the displayed window, click "add counter" to enter the next window. In this window, open the "performance object" drop-down list and select "Paging file ", click "select counter from list", and select "% usage peak" in the lower column. Click "select example from List ", select "_ total" in the column below, and then click "add" | "close" to end (4 ).

To view the log file, open the created type log again, click the "Log File" tab, and select "log file type" as "Text File ", click "OK" to return to the "performance" main interface. In this case, you can find an additional "type" project in the column on the right of the log file. If the project is green, it indicates that the project is running. Otherwise, you need to "start" the project. Next, like using the system monitor, in order to obtain the real results of the virtual memory, you still need to run or shut down large applications and games repeatedly. After running the timer, go to the system partition directory "perflogslogs", find type_000001.csv ", and open it with the Notepad program. This log file lists the virtual memory usage by date, time, and usage ratio (5 ). It is observed that the virtual memory originally set to 1 GB can only use 30% at most, that is, the actual usage of the virtual memory is about MB.

After obtaining the real status of the virtual memory through the performance monitor, right-click "my computer" and choose "System Properties"> "advanced" | "Virtual Memory ", click the "change" button below to set the minimum virtual memory value to 300 mb during testing, and the maximum value can be set to two to three times the minimum value or equal to the physical memory value.

Based on the specific requirements of the two machines, we found that when the total memory capacity is less than 256 MB, we set the minimum virtual memory value to 1.5 to 2 times. If the total memory size is greater than 512 MB, it is set to about half of the memory capacity, and between MB and MB, it is set to the same value as the memory capacity.
Storage location of virtual memory files

　　By default, all the virtual memory files are in the drive letter of the root directory. However, because the applications are in this drive letter, the program will frequently call the virtual memory files, therefore, it is easy to form a large number of file fragments, which is not conducive to the improvement of system performance. Therefore, after the "Windows system automatically manages Virtual Memory" is canceled, the virtual memory is often accessed separately. Generally, the virtual memory is stored in a partition with a large remaining space and is not frequently called. If you have more than two hard disks, you can store the virtual memory files on another hard disk, which is more conducive to the stability and improvement of system performance.