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Settings to maximize use of 256 MB RAM?

T

tonetgs

Member
Hi. I was able to pick up a 128 MB stick of RAM from a friend and now have a total of 256 MB RAM in my computer. Both sticks of RAM are Crucial PC133 memory. I have an Intel 500 MHz processor with a Soyo 6BA+IV motherboard, two hard drives (27.3 GB Western Digital and 30 GB IBM), and am running Windows 98SE. I realize 256 MB RAM is kind of overkill, especially with my current config, but hey, it was cheap.

My question is: what changes, if any, do I need to make in Windows or in my motherboard set-up program to maximize the use of the additional RAM? An initial search of the Web gave me varying responses from don't do anything (i.e., let Windows handle virtual memory) to set up a swap file on your next logical non-booting drive with the max/min set at twice the amount of RAM you have.

Any help?

Thanks,
Tonet
 
Put "ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1" into your System.ini file so you can trick windows out of some swapping thats not needed...
 
as far as i know
that trick doesnt work

i think m$ listed that somewhere stating it changed the meaning of that setting
 
yep
they are wrong now

i remember reading that in MS Knowledge base

it is no longer conserving anything after win98
 
a note about the swapfile placement
it is best to place a swapfile on a non-system drive (a drive without the windows directory or program files)
AND that drive is BEST of it is on an alternate channel of the system drive
eg, best to be on a secondary master/slave

about the swapfile size
i remember seeing benchmarks actually benchmarking different swapfile size/cache size
as far as i know
CACHEMAN doesnt work well in win98 anymore
as well as self defined swapfile size

swapfile/cache size tricks are all Win95 trick, not win98
m$ did some optimisation on 98 and it does use swapfile/cache a bit more intelligently than 95
and it is as intelligent as you manually defining cache/swapfile size
benchmark shows best to leave win98 to manage everything
 
I found that I ran into the Windows "Low on memory" error either using cacheman in WinMe or letting the OS manage the vcache settings (forgot which did what, but remembered both had negative effects when many many windows were opened after some time). Right now I limit WinMe to a maximum of 64 MB of RAM for vcache and that seems to keep things running smoothly without having the low memory errors.
 
Yup, Cacheman actually decreases performance now. Back when I had 128mb RAM, I ran some benchmarks comparing various CACHEMAN settings to default "Network Server" -- somehow, all of the cacheman settings managed to lower my 3D gaming performance.
 
tonetgs:
find Rojak Pot's new web site where he has extensive benchmarks on swapfile optimization. Bottom line is to use Norton's Speed Disk to place a fixed swapfile on the outer tracks of your C: drive which is the fastest part of the drive. Speed Disk also is a much faster and better defrag program than MS's.

Using a separate drive and tying up another IDE channel buys you little or nothing especially if that drive shares the channel with another (and probably slower) device.

Super6
 
MS Article on swap file

xtreme2k is wrong, this option does help with lots of RAM. What this option does is it tells Win98 to use Win95-like swapfile management. Win95 never swapped to the swapfile until it had to. This resulted in poor performance because you had to wait for Win95 to swap, and load the app or whatever. Win98 is different in that it will pre-emptively swap to the swapfile, even if there is free RAM available. This is in hopes to raise performance because the data is already swapped. So setting the above option tells Win98 not to swap ahead of time. If you have lots of RAM, you won't be swapping hardly at all, and thus you don't need this new feature of Win98.


 
You can disable this feature, causing the system to behave as Windows 95 does, at some cost in overall system performance. Add the following entry to the System.ini file, in its [386Enh] section:

 
also
Windows 98 added a new feature, PageFile_Call_Async_Manager, that allows the Memory Manager to asynchronously write out page file (swap file) buffers during periods of time when VFAT file system activity is not busy.
things are swapped out when the VFAT is not in use, therefore will not slow down but can only speed up your system by swapping ahead
 
I added the line to my system.ini and changed Page File minimum/maximum to 2/400<--- How do I do this? What's the page file thingy??
 


<< things are swapped out when the VFAT is not in use, therefore will not slow down but can only speed up your system by swapping ahead >>



But if you have 256 megs of RAM, you won't be swapping at all. Very little if any. So why have Win98 swap when you don't need it too? I used this option under Win98 with 256 megs and NEVER saw swapfile in use. With today's fast hard drives that use UDMA, and loads of RAM, this option begs to be used. There is simply no need to swap, period.
 
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