Virtual Memory: What the heck is it? How do I adjust it?

[pulstart]

Games: Diablo2 and especially Deus Ex keep giving me errors about 10 minutes into the game. Basically I will be playing either game for about 10 minutes, and it will give me an error message about virtual memory being low and it has to "make" something. I especially get BIG hits of lag (as if my Hard drive we're struggling to read/write; I have RAID 0 running (2) IBM 75GXP 15GB). I have 128MB of PC133 Infineon running at 133MHz on an Abit KT7-RAID. Do you think getting another stick of Infineon (making a total of 256MB) will end these persistent "Virtual Memory" errors I get with the games mentioned above? Funny thing is, this error only occurs with these particular games, and not Quake3 Arena, or UT, or even Half Life (which runs like a dream on my Win2k). How do I adjust this virtual memory value? I have 4 partitions: (C: BOOT) (D: SYSTEM) (E:MOVIES) (F: MUSIC) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[woodsman]

Speed up Windows 95
Platform: Windows 95
User Level: Intermed.
Submitted by: Brandon Carpenter
Speed up Windows by reducing the amount of time it fools around with virtual memory. Go to Start, Settings,
and click on Control Panel. Double click on System. Note the amount of RAM in your computer. This can be
found on the General tab. Click on the Performance tab and then on the Virtual Memory button. Windows 95
runs optimally with 16 megs of RAM. If you have 16 megs or more click on "Let me specify my own virtual
memory settings:". Put a zero in the minimum box. Put the amount of RAM you have in the Maximum box. For
instance, if I have 32MB of RAM, I would put "32" in the Maximum box. For those with less than 16MB, you can
speed up your machine by specifying 2 1/2 times your RAM in the Maximum box (8MB would be 20MB). Click
on OK. When the warning is displayed click on YES. Click on OK and then OK again to restart your machine.
Edit, sorry about that, I didn't see you running 2k. And it definitely hogs ram. It never hurts to add another 128 mb stick
woodsman

 

[paulip88]

That seems unusual. I am assuming that you are running Win2K, since that is what you implied in your post. Go to the system control panel and look at the advanced tab. Click the performance options button.

The setting for the total page file size should be 192MB if you have 128MB of RAM. If it isn't, set it to that or something higher if you like.

If the problem persists, there might be some bigger problem at hand.

As for the suggestion given above:
I don't think that would be a good idea with Win2K. Win2K is a memory hog and turning off virtual memory would make your problem even worse. Don't try it. It won't help.