Some basic ?'s after reading RAM 101

C

calpolyarc

New Member
I'm running software that consistantly spikes my cpu usage to 100%. While at 100% my PF Usage is at 2 Gb's. That means that 2 Gb's of my hard drive is being used for memory right? This figure only seems to be going up, how can I "reset" it?

Also, my physical memory is 2Gb's, 600 mb available and 800 mb system cache. Why is my system cache'ing 800 if I have 600 available?

With my PF usage and System Cache showing the numbers they are, is it time to get more memory? Thanks!
 
calpolyarc said:
Viz Render 2006 (this is what maxes out the cpu)
Click to expand...

Yup, that would do it.

By default, Win dynamically adjusts the swap file size (virtual memory) according to some arcane algorithm dreamed up by some guy running on pure caffienne and too little sleep. For the most part, it works pretty well.

Unless you are running low on hard drive space, and you want to specify exactly how much hard storage Win should be allowed to use, I recommend leaving that alone.

That 800MB cache is not counted among the available 600MB of RAM.

Running that kind of program, you could use a little more RAM, chances are it'll use every last bit of it, too. Keep in mind that the 32-bit Win XP won't handle any more than 4GB of RAM and I've heard that it may not report all of it, though it is available for use. The 64-bit MS products will support up to 16GB RAM.
 
ok a little progress but I'm still not quite grasping it. why doesn't my 'available' RAM go down to near zero? Shouldn't the program use as much RAM as possible? And if it did, then it wouldn't have to swap as much right? It just doesn't seem like it's being as efficient as possible.
 
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