Disk thrashing in Win Me!

[Jammrock]

Maybe I wasn't exactly clear. It's not a function of what you *need*, it's a function of what the system optimally performs at. Depending on who you talk to depends on how much you should use.

Microsoft recommends (via their training material for the MCSE track) RAM size plus 12 MB. That is pretty standard for business uses. Why? I have no phreak'n clue. MS said that's what they suggest for optimal performance, and they programmed the damn thing so I'm not going to second guess them.

Gamers on the other hand have discovered they need a bit more. Look at the Diablo II Support FAQ. They recommend a 300 MB VM up to 128 MB RAM, 384 MB VM for 192 MB RAM and a whopping 512 MB VM for 256 MB RAM for optimal system performance. This is the 2x RAM theory. If it works faster, more power to you. Why 2x? Like I said before, it's not a funcion of what you *need*, it's a function of what the OS is designed to run optimally at.

It all boils down to how much you want to dink with your VM and what works best for your rig. What people say are mearly suggestions using generic fixes suited for most systems. You must also remember that programs are not perfect and have a tendency to leak memory. Which means if you're running a static page file you need a buffer for programs that don't run as clean as they should.

Jammrock

[HedsSpaz]

There is another reason to have a page file that large. This is only sort of related as this applies only to WinNT/2000 however. Under NT, if the OS crashes, either on startup or while it's running, it performs a memory dump. The important part though, is that it dumps the memory to the page/swap file. By default, NT performs a complete memory dump, as such, your page file must be AT LEAST the same size as your RAM. As to why you need a page file that is larger than your RAM, I can't honestly say that I've ever understood why that is either. All I know is that it works, I get better performance, so I do it.

Ian

[Kosh Naranek]

Whether my swapfile is 50, 100, 250 or 500 mb
large i can't measure/see any performance differences.And believe me i use a lot of different apps/games.
I even tried playing diablo II with a 50 mb swap file (and as you know i have 320 mb of ram) no problemo.
And BTW it also depends on how you have configured vcache, either it grabs huge amounts of memory and keep the rest of the system starved and in need of a swapfile, or you tame the beast (vcache) and limit its memory usage to around 10-15 mb and keeps the rest of the system well feed in terms of ram that is.
So the rule of thumb is....there is no rule of thumb, it all depends on how you have configured your system.
And BTW i thought the term Virtual Memory meant that there would always be enough available memory at all times....it just expands the swapfile when needed, even beyond available hdd space.(now that's what i would call virtual )

[Jorden]

I quit the swapfile once and just told Windows 98 (at that time) to load in memory totally. With 256Mb of RAM that was already enough to load Windows in, speed things up and even be able to play games faster.

I'll test it with WinME this weekend, just to see if it works

Jord.

[Brian R.]

Well, I'm certainly glad we cleared that up...

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[Ovi]

Thanks for the link Guru
Brian R: I totally agree that more RAM will improve performance,but then, I'm not in a position to upgrade as of now
But then I doubt that the low amount of RAM causes the problem I mentioned. What I experienced was not general disk thrashing (like when loading apps.),in fact ,Win Me runs very smoothly on my system, and generally doesn't indicate acute shortage of memory. The disk thrashing that I mentioned ( in only two instances of installing/ uninstalling) seemed to be due to some looping process which wasn't stopping or something like that. Otherwise in general, things are fine,games like NFS-PU load up reasonably fast etc.
Thanks
Cheers
Ovi

[Ovi]

Hi everyone
Contrary to my previous post, I did manage to get more RAM, bringing the total to 128 Megs (WooooHoooo ) Anyway, I noticed that when I uninstalled Strata Studio ,there was no dishk thrashing, but when I repeated the process,this time with PCHealth enabled thru Msconfig,the disk thrashing returned,confirming that PCHealth is the culprit!
Btw, more RAM has definitely improved performance, esp in Deus Ex
Cheers
Ovi

[This message has been edited by Ovi (edited 04 December 2000).]

[Brian R.]

You might actually get the problem to pay for itself. Some people will pay to get thrashed, in private of course.

[Rags]

Some do it in public too

[Jorden]

Originally posted by Kosh Naranek:
2. Uninstall Pc Health.
Start/Run "\windows\pchealth\support\pchsetup /uninstall"

Just be warned, that windoze will now and again write some strange messages when it boots, something like : "cannot replace system file %1 with %2 bla bla. " but thats ok it's just because you've removed system restore.

Something extra here... I would go against uninstalling PCHealth from now on. I tried it and what does it do?

• You won't be able to use MSINFO32 again
• No FTP programs work, while you try uploading something to your homepage
• Programs that give you money back by looking at commercials (yes, I'm such a nut ) won't work anymore

And that's only things I tested, and couldn't get to work again.

I've just reinstalled WinME. The only good thing about that is -- besides my programs above working again -- that I now don't have to press a button after booting up, to get WinME to boot as the first Windows in dual boot

Jord.

[Ovi]

Hi Jorden
If you don't want PCHealth, you can disable it thru MSconfig,instead of uninstalling it. That way,it won't load up and unnecessarily interfere with things. Programs like MSInfo32 will still run, as all files are still there.
Cheers
Ovi