Jim, maybe you mentioned earlier, but if you're running
Windows 95 (as opposed to NT), more physical memory may
not solve the problem. Graphical resources are still
limited under Win 95 (though nothing like as severely as
earlier Windows), irrespective of physical memory size.
If you're running NT, more physical memory may help,
but so will increasing the pagefile size(s). In NT 4.0
you can do this on the performance tab of the MyComputer
property sheet. More physical memory will make it run
faster, but increasing the page size will alleviate out
of memory problems at the cost of speed (due to page
swapping).
With 95 or NT
Agreed. Always defrag the disk containing the swap file prior
to increasing its size. If you have NTFS and your not running
Diskkeeper from executive software you should be. I generally reserve 2x physical memory for swap on my non VLSI cad machines. On my
cad machines I allocate 10X because of the memory intensive nature
of these apps.
Note: If you have the wrong chipset, increasing physical
memory may actually slow your system down. Some chipsets
(far too many of the Intel ones) will only cache the
first 64MB of memory. Install more than that and your
system slows down significantly when you access above 64 megs.
Intel 430FX, VX, and TX all have this limitation.
The 430HX chipset can support caching more than 64M but only
with the correct TAG rams that most computers don't have. HQ
MB's can be upgraded such as those from Asus and Tyan.
These are all Pentium Chipsets. Pentium Pro and Pentium II chipsets
don't have this limitation.
If you're running Win 95 and running low on memory physical,
increasing the page file size will help there too. You
can find out what you're low on by running the system meter
applet, which I believe was mentioned earlier on this thread.
(Should be in the Windows directory, but you may have to
install it from the Windows CD-ROM if you didn't select it
in the original install--click Add/Remove software in the
control panel).
There are three resources shown by the
system meter: graphical, user, and virutal memory (I forget exactly
what the virtual memory resource is called in system meter).
If you're running low
on virtual memory, increasing the page file (swap file)
size will help. You increase
the page file for windows 95 from the MyComputer property
sheet. Sorry, since I don't run Win 95 any longer, I forget
the details. I think it's on the performance tab, though.
The real item you want to monitor to look at your memory performance is page faults. Please see my explanation on TA- Hardware & Software
for more info.
later,
Sean |
