Defining Terms

[SageOfTheWabash]

When I look in System info, under memory I see...

"Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB

Available Physical Memory 1.55 GB

Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB

Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB"

What exactly do these terms mean?

 

[kitty500cat]

--According to this

Total physical memory is how much RAM you have installed.

Available physical memory is how much RAM is not in use. So apparently you're currently only using about 450MB of RAM.

--So by the same token, the following is probably also true:

Total virtual memory is how much virtual memory there is.

Available virtual memory is the amount of virtual memory not in use.

It seems, from what I've gathered, that virtual memory is your physical RAM and the parts of your hard disk operating as RAM combined, but I'm not sure. Not all the articles made sense to me

 

[SageOfTheWabash]

Thanx Kitty. That was very helpful.

 

[kitty500cat]

Cool. Glad to know it helped.

Regards

 

[captaincranky]

Mysterious Ways of the Swapfile Fraternaty

The "swap file", and "virtual memory" are the same. When your computer runs out of RAM RAM (the DIMM guys (the black plug in thingys that start most of the arguments around here)), it takes whatever it needs from the HDD swap file. The path to virtual memory management is this: right click "My Computer" >click "Properties"> a tabbed window "system properties" appears. Then Click on "Advanced" in the "Advanced" tab (Yes this is the second one) you will see a button under "Performance" allowing you to allot virtual memory to the system most people set this value to 1 1/2 to 2 times the amount of installed RAM. This assumes you are running XP.

Just kidding about the arguments, although...... The term "Virtual Memory" only applies to the HDD paging file, it has nothing to do with the electronic RAM (the black thingys again).

 

[kitty500cat]

OK, thanks for the clarification.

Regards

 

[CMH]

1. Some of it's playing hard to get.
2. It's just not interested in you.
3. Waiting to see if something better comes along.
4. Secretly dating your friend.
5. Only there for the green card.
6. Commitment issues.
7. Got drunk last night, will be in later, maybe.
8. Houseboat vacation, Mount Shasta.
9. Did you spill coffee on your laptop?
10. Wants to be there for you but, just isn't the right time.

Lawl. Of all threads, you linked straight to that

 

[kitty500cat]

Yeah, well, we just ignore people who post like that...

 

[CCT]

What leads to confusion is this type of report from Windows itself (system information):

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name DEATHSTAR
System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 3 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~3613 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 1014.001, 10/13/2005
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version =
User Name DEATHSTAR\CCT
Time Zone Eastern Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.56 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 4.85 GB
Page File D:\pagefile.sys

In fact, I have the page file on drive D: (none on C set at 3070 min/max - adds more confusion. I read that Windows creates a page file on C: even if you don't assign one. Oh well!


Thus, Page file space = system assigned virtual + user assigned page.