Virtual memory question

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Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM. The
system originally came with 512MB of RAM.

Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has it's
own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying there
was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could I
suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
upgraded my computers RAM.

Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave up
on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was using.
I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my system
has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the CD plays
okay.

Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
virtual memory settings others recommend?
 
S

SteveR

Distinguished
Jul 9, 2002
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18,530
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3790d$4261919a$42a1ca4a$19054@FUSE.NET...
> I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM. The
> system originally came with 512MB of RAM.
>
> Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has it's
> own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying
> there was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could
> I suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
> upgraded my computers RAM.
>
> Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave up
> on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
> India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was using.
> I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
> should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my
> system has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the
> CD plays okay.
>
> Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
> virtual memory settings others recommend?
>

Virtual memory also uses free hard drive space.
How much free hard drive space do you have free?

SteveR
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote:
>The tech said that the virtual memory
>should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory.

> Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
>virtual memory settings others recommend?

News to me, though there are all kinds of 'rules of thumb' like that.
I either set "automatic" to let WinDoze manage VM, or I set it to
4000MB (the maximum), usually on a separate partition.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

History Fan wrote:
> I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM. The
> system originally came with 512MB of RAM.
>
> Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has it's
> own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying there
> was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could I
> suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
> upgraded my computers RAM.
>
> Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave up
> on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
> India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was using.
> I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
> should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my system
> has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the CD plays
> okay.
>
> Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
> virtual memory settings others recommend?
>
>
The general rule of thumb is (3/2)*(Physical RAM); so in your case, I'd
suggest ~1536MB. Although these days, esp. with RAM size being measured
in the gigs, it's no where near as necessary. My guess is the program
is too old to see a gig of RAM, and that's why it's giving you trouble.
I've had tons of heavy apps going (Office, GIMP, mozilla, a circuit
simulator, mathematica) with swap turned off on a system w/ XP Pro SP2
and a 1GB of RAM without any problems. Unless the program has a major
memory leak, there's no way that a simple media player could use so much
RAM.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

> Virtual memory also uses free hard drive space.
> How much free hard drive space do you have free?
>

70GB
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3790d$4261919a$42a1ca4a$19054@FUSE.NET...
| I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM. The
| system originally came with 512MB of RAM.
|
| Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has it's
| own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying
there
| was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could I
| suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
| upgraded my computers RAM.
|
| Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave up
| on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
| India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was using.
| I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
| should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my
system
| has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the CD
plays
| okay.
|
| Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
| virtual memory settings others recommend?

This is the best read of which I am aware of on VM in XP.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

--
D

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details. :)

Remove shoes to E-mail.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I just reset the virtual memory to let Windows XP manage it. Now the
minimum is 2MB, the recommended is 1533MB, and the currently allocated is
1533MB.

"HillBillyBuddhist" <hillbillybuddhistshoes@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:MVr8e.4053$Qu2.2479@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com...
> "History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote in message
> news:3790d$4261919a$42a1ca4a$19054@FUSE.NET...
> | I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM.
> The
> | system originally came with 512MB of RAM.
> |
> | Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has
> it's
> | own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying
> there
> | was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could I
> | suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
> | upgraded my computers RAM.
> |
> | Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave
> up
> | on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
> | India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was
> using.
> | I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
> | should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my
> system
> | has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the CD
> plays
> | okay.
> |
> | Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
> | virtual memory settings others recommend?
>
> This is the best read of which I am aware of on VM in XP.
> http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
>
> --
> D
>
> I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
> I was just trying to help.
> Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
> advice herein.
> No warranty is expressed or implied.
> Your mileage may vary.
> See store for details. :)
>
> Remove shoes to E-mail.
>
>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote:
> I just reset the virtual memory to let Windows XP manage it. Now the
>minimum is 2MB, the recommended is 1533MB, and the currently allocated is
>1533MB.

And your old CD plays OK?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"History Fan" <Ihatespam@ireallyreallyhateSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3790d$4261919a$42a1ca4a$19054@FUSE.NET...
> I have a Dell 2400, Windows XP SP2, P4 processor with 1GB of RAM. The
> system originally came with 512MB of RAM.
>
> Shortly after adding more RAM, I tried playing an old CD that has it's
> own built-in media player. To my surprise, a window popped up saying
> there was not enough virtual memory to play this disc. How the heck could
> I suddenly not have enough memory, I wondered. Especially after I just
> upgraded my computers RAM.
>
> Puzzled, I contacted Dell via their tech chat room (I long ago gave up
> on phone calls to Dell since I can barely understand their techs from
> India), and a tech asked me how much virtual memory my computer was using.
> I told him it was set at 1500MB. The tech said that the virtual memory
> should always be 3 times the amount of your regular memory. Since my
> system has 1GB of RAM, I changed the virtual memory to 3000MB and now the
> CD plays okay.
>
> Just wondering if other people have also heard this rule? And what
> virtual memory settings others recommend?

It's not a "rule" so much as a flaw in how Windows operates efficiently.

If you try to apply the "rule" to a system running with just 256mb memory,
theoretically you need 768mb virtual memory.

Now try to apply it to a system like mine running with 4gb memory and the
"rule" says I need 12gb virtual memory.

The "rule" is fundamentally flawed...............the less memory you have,
the more virtual memory (i.e hard drive space) you need.

(FWIW, I disabled virtual memory when my physical memory was at 2gb and have
never looked back)
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Chuckles The Scary Clown" <chuckles@thebigtop.net> wrote:
>Now try to apply it to a system like mine running with 4gb memory and the
>"rule" says I need 12gb virtual memory.

And WinDoze won't let you set a pagefile to more than 4G. Since disk
space is so cheap, I set the page file to a fixed 4G size on my
'performance' machines, and usually give it a separate partition...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

>> I just reset the virtual memory to let Windows XP manage it. Now
>> the
>>minimum is 2MB, the recommended is 1533MB, and the currently allocated is
>>1533MB.
>
> And your old CD plays OK?
>

No, I get the same error message again...."This program requires at
least 3MB of free virtual memory to run."

I never had this problem until I upgraded the RAM from 512 to 1GB.
No big deal, though. This is the only CD that I have this error message.
 
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