How to get Vista to use more memory?

All,

I have Vista Ultimate x64 Extreme, with 8 GB of memory, Q9300, and 2
velociraptors. I do NOT overclock, but would like Vista to use more of
the memory.

Typical load usage of memory is 2GB - about 25% of my total memory
Maximum use of memory was 3GB -

I would rather have Vista use memory than to use swap file. How can I
get this done?

Regards, AraiBob


--
araibob

araibob wrote:
> All,
>
> I have Vista Ultimate x64 Extreme, with 8 GB of memory, Q9300, and 2
> velociraptors. I do NOT overclock, but would like Vista to use more of
> the memory.
>
> Typical load usage of memory is 2GB - about 25% of my total memory
> Maximum use of memory was 3GB -
>
> I would rather have Vista use memory than to use swap file. How can I
> get this done?
>


Run more memory intensive applications. The OS automatically uses all
of the memory it needs. If you're not doing advanced 3D modeling, or
high-end video editing, you've likely no need for that much RAM.


--

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killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

In message <> araibob
<> was claimed to have wrote:

>I would rather have Vista use memory than to use swap file. How can I
>get this done?

Vista doesn't have a swap file, although it does have a page file
(similar, although not the same concept)

What makes you think Vista is paging at all?

Sorry, 'page file'. I use "swap file" and "page file" interchangeably
Old O S programmer Slang is still slang. I don't have specifi
'knowledge that the swap file is in use, however, The Performance tab i
Windows Task manager has these values that make me think so

Total Physical Memory (MB
Total 819
Cached 6712 << using the page file
Free 2

Page File 2300M / 16565M << using the page file

Kernel Memory (MB
Total 38
Paged 294 << using the page file
NonPaged 8

I have also seen threads on this topic (some time ago) and they note
that even when there is lots of memory MS insists on writing things t
the page file

Regards, AraiBo

--
araibob

As far as I understand it, no. Here's a bit from MS themselves:

Pagefile

RAM is a limited resource, whereas virtual memory is, for mos
practical purposes, unlimited. There can be a large number of processe
each with its own 2 GB of private virtual address space. When th
memory in use by all the existing processes exceeds the amount of RA
available, the operating system will move pages (4 KB pieces) of one o
more virtual address spaces to the computer’s hard disk, thu
freeing that RAM frame for other uses. In Windows systems, thes
“paged out” pages are stored in one or more files calle
pagefile.sys in the root of a partition. There can be one such file i
each disk partition. The location and size of the page file i
configured in SystemProperties, Advanced, Performance (click th
Settings button).

A frequently asked question is how big should I make the pagefile?
There is no single answer to this question, because it depends on th
amount of installed RAM and how much virtual memory that workloa
requires. If there is no other information available, the norma
recommendation of 1.5 times the amount of RAM in the computer is a goo
place to start. On server systems, a common objective is to have enoug
RAM so that there is never a shortage and the pagefile is essentially
not used. On these systems, having a really large pagefile may serve n
useful purpose. On the other hand, disk space is usually plentiful, s
having a large pagefile (e.g. 1.5 times the installed RAM) does no
cause a problem and eliminates the need to fuss over how large to mak
it.

----http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223----

Considering your max ram usage you know of is 3GB, I doubt your pag
file gets much use, as it's rare for a user to actually need 8 gig
unless they use some high end multimedia rendering software

--
truthkid

truthkid <> wrote:

>Considering your max ram usage you know of is 3GB, I doubt your page
>file gets much use,

The OP is running the 64-bit version of Vista... the 3GB limitation is
for 32-bit.

You can disable the paging file if you want, but this might cause problems.

See http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2156185,00.asp



On 17/07/2009 02:41, araibob wrote:
> All,
>
> I have Vista Ultimate x64 Extreme, with 8 GB of memory, Q9300, and 2
> velociraptors. I do NOT overclock, but would like Vista to use more of
> the memory.
>
> Typical load usage of memory is 2GB - about 25% of my total memory
> Maximum use of memory was 3GB -
>
> I would rather have Vista use memory than to use swap file. How can I
> get this done?
>
> Regards, AraiBob
>
>

Sirs,

I just noticed that under my ID it says, Newby. I am a newby to this
site, but I have been programming professionally since Feb 1970. I have
been an O S programmer, a D B A, and a whole host of other jobs in my 37
years. I have used more than 30 programming languages (After assembly
all other languages are so so easy). I retired in 2007.

I built my newest PC in Nov 2008, and put 8GB memory so that it would
NEVER have to swap / page program or data. I also installed Vista
Ultimate (first time to use Vista). I had the notion that Vista was a
'real' OS and that I could set parameters that would manage this kind of
thing. I just don't know the RegEdit places to do such settings.

I have seen recent emails and articles stating that such an option does
exist. In fact, on page 33 of the July 2009 issue of Maximum PC notes
the product TweakVI from TotalIdea has exactly this setting. What and
where is this setting? What are the correct values?

Regards, AraiBob aka AwryBob aka ArayBob


--
araibob

Manny Weisbord;1091456 Wrote:
> truthkid <> wrote:
> > > >
> > >Considering your max ram usage you know of is 3GB, I doubt your page
> > >file gets much use, > >
>
> The OP is running the 64-bit version of Vista... the 3GB limitatio
> is
> for 32-bit.

The OP is the one that mentioned the 3GB, I can read. He said:

Typical load usage of memory is 2GB - about 25% of my total memory
Maximum use of memory was 3GB

--
truthkid

In message <> araibob
<> was claimed to have wrote:

>Sorry, 'page file'. I use "swap file" and "page file" interchangeably.

I only mention it because this is actually one case where a more
traditional "swap" system and Windows "page file" system are very
different, and understanding those differences are critical to
understanding pagefile use.

>Old O S programmer Slang is still slang. I don't have specific
>'knowledge that the swap file is in use, however, The Performance tab in
>Windows Task manager has these values that make me think so.
>
>Total Physical Memory (MB)
>Total 8190
>Cached 6712 << using the page file?
>Free 28

Cached is actually the opposite, this is memory that is otherwise
available, but is being used to cache something on disk in memory.

So despite being used, this is as good as free RAM in that it can be
released at a moment's notice, but should the resources that it's
caching become needed, it will result in a performance increase.

>Page File 2300M / 16565M << using the page file?

Page File is a bit of a misnomer here, this actually indicates that,
aside from caching, the OS has 2300M of allocated memory to running
processes.

This allocated memory can be backed by physical memory, or by disk
(either in the pagefile, or elsewhere in many cases.) For example, when
a large program loads into memory, the EXE or data files are mapped to
memory, but the data is not necessarily kept in memory at all times.

Rather then writing data back out to the pagefile, Windows know that it
can release the memory when needed, and re-read the original data from
disk on demand.

The pagefile counter gives you an idea of the total number of allocated
pages in use, when combined with the data from the Memory tab, you can
get an idea of how many pages would need to come from disk vs physical
RAM.

>Kernel Memory (MB)
>Total 382
>Paged 294 << using the page file?
>NonPaged 87

"Paged" here is actually the kernel's version of a pagefile, it's not
necessarily paged to disk right, but rather, it's the memory that is
paged (whether those pages are in RAM, in the pagefile or elsewhere on
disk), vs NonPaged which is address space directly used by the kernel
(typically for lower level drivers, and lower level kernel components
including the paging subsystem itself)

>I have also seen threads on this topic (some time ago) and they noted
>that even when there is lots of memory MS insists on writing things to
>the page file.

Many things are actually paged automatically, but few are actually
"written" to the page file as much as just space in the page file is
reserved.

For example, if an application requests a 1GB chunk of memory address
space, but doesn't write anything to it and the OS can't immediate
satisfy the request from available memory, this address space is "paged
out" to the pagefile without anything actually being written (although
the pagefile may be expanded to satisfy the memory request) -- This is
the most common situation people are referring to when they talk about
Windows insisting on writing some things to the page file.

In your case, with the ratio of total ram minus cached vs the page file
allocation being where it is, I doubt you're seeing any performance
impact due to paging.

You can set up performance counters to monitor page file use as well as
read and written pages if you want, but unless you're doing something
that uses 8GB of memory (virtual machines, video or large photo
encoding, etc) I'd be surprised if you ever see any significant amount
of any data being written to the pagefile.