Tweaking
your System Memory
Last
Updated on September 26, 2000 by Thomas
McGuire - Page 4/8
Windows
98/Millennium users
Before you begin doing anything else you'll want to
edit your system.ini
(Click on Start, Run type in system.ini
& hit Enter).
Under the [386Enh]
heading Add the line ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
(Make sure to leave a blank line between this & the next
heading). This can significantly
reduce Virtual memory use as it makes Windows use RAM before
the Swapfile. This is particularly beneficial for those with
128MB RAM or more. Save the changes & reboot
your system for the change to take effect.
Calculating
Virtual memory
Before you can set your Virtual memory you’ll want
to get an idea of what to actually set
it too. Some recommend using a general formula, e.g.
Physical RAM*2.5. This is incorrect however. Using that
formula, a person with 16MB RAM should set 40MB, while a
person with 128MB RAM should set 320MB. Clearly the person
with little RAM needs a greater amount of Virtual memory
than the person with a lot of RAM.
To begin with, let Windows manage your virtual memory settings. Then install System
monitor. Click on Start,
Settings, Control panel, Add/Remove
programs. Select the Windows setup tab & then
System tools. Select System
monitor & install it.
Reboot your system for the changes to take effect.
Open up System
monitor (Click on Start, Programs, Accessories,
System Tools, System Monitor), select Edit
then Add item.
Add Swapfile size
as shown below. These are the items that System monitor will
now track for you. You can remove/add other items by
clicking on Edit
then Add/Remove
item.
Over the next few days load up System monitor &
let it track your Swapfile size. Click on Options
then Chart &
set the update interval as you see fit I’d recommend
setting it to 30 seconds or 1 minute, depending on how long
you intend to be monitoring for. Make sure to Start
logging (Click on File
then Start logging) & save the logs so that you’ll be able to
reference usage over the days.
It would be best to start tracking your usage when
you go to play a game or something that will put your PC
under a bit of stress. Run a few time-demos or play Unreal
tournament against some bots. This will give you an idea of
your Virtual memory needs, however don’t go overboard with
the testing you want to track normal
usage, not excessive usage. The results are displayed as
shown below.
The graph to be concerned with is the Swapfile
size. Once you’re satisfied with your monitor it’s
time to consult your log. Open the sysmon.log (or whatever you saved it as) with Notepad. You’ll be greeted with something like this.
Unfortunately the size is saved in byte
size, rather than in MB’s.
To convert into MB’s, take the largest value from the log
& divide it by 1048576 (1024*1024). So in the
above example it would be 113246208/1048576=110MB (108
rounded up). Obviously you should only be concerned with
calculating the highest value, rounding up to the nearest 10
MB’S, e.g. if you get 143.8MB round it up to 150MB.
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