Thread: Do I need more RAM ?

  1. #46
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I guess we would have to analyze each case individually. There are numerous reasons for things to go slow. Paging is just one of them. Regardless, "unrequested" paging (what's the name of this feature anyway?) can and is interrupted all the time. So I seriously doubt that could be a reason.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  2. #47
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    The point is that it tosses stuff out of RAM even though there's no pressure. Typically running a game can force such a situation, even though the game might not use all RAM available.
    You don't want your game to be responsive? When it suddenly asks for 64 megabytes you'd rather wait as 64 megs get paged to disk?

  3. #48
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    (what's the name of this feature anyway?)
    Among other names, swap backing store.

  4. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
    You don't want your game to be responsive? When it suddenly asks for 64 megabytes you'd rather wait as 64 megs get paged to disk?
    As I explained, they don't hog all the memory. Windows could just page some pages into the swap file, but never remove from the from ram. The memory is enough to go around for everyone, so there's no need for Windows to swap out anything.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  5. #50
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    As I explained, they don't hog all the memory. Windows could just page some pages into the swap file, but never remove from the from ram. The memory is enough to go around for everyone, so there's no need for Windows to swap out anything.
    You have to understand that Windows is incapable of knowing what the expected memory requirements of the applications running on it are at any given time... that is to say, just because 2GB or so RAM is free, doesn't mean that there isn't an application running that could at any given time request all 2GB. If it were to make such an assumption, then it would be a flaw. Think about when XP first came out... the top games on the market would maybe use 256-512mb of RAM. These days it can be significantly more. As an operating system, you must develop not only for the current market but for the future market and as such, they decided to build in a process that frees up as much RAM as it possibly can when there are applications running that have not been accessed in X amount of time.
    Last edited by SlyMaelstrom; 02-05-2008 at 02:16 PM.
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  6. #51
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    It still doesn't make much sense.
    Since the pages are already paged, it should be able to toss them out and give them to the game or active application directly. But it shouldn't toss out pages when the demand isn't there. When there's 1 GB+ of free memory, there's no need to toss out pages from memory. It could just page them in the page file.
    If free memory goes under 256 MB or so, then it would clear memory by removing the pages from ram.

    This is obviously what I don't understand. I'm thinking it's a design limitation. If it's that it simply can't be done, if it's a bug, or if the developers simply didn't expect these scenarios, I don't know.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  7. #52
    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    I remember having 64mb memory and running XP. It wasn't so bad. Just an extra note: I didn't have any firewalls, antiviruses. All possible XP services were turned off, using classic theme, all possible graphics stuff was turned off.

    I still have the same conf with the new computer.
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  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    It still doesn't make much sense.
    Since the pages are already paged, it should be able to toss them out and give them to the game or active application directly. But it shouldn't toss out pages when the demand isn't there. When there's 1 GB+ of free memory, there's no need to toss out pages from memory. It could just page them in the page file.
    If free memory goes under 256 MB or so, then it would clear memory by removing the pages from ram.
    I think this is what brewbuck described in post 40.

  9. #54
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I'm running 3GB with XP and still have slowdowns. The swap mechanism will still 'swap' even with plenty of memory unless you deliberately turn it off.

    The problem with swapping is when XP has to swap every time it attempts a memory access. That will slow things down a lot which is what is happening in your case. With 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, and even 3GB Windows will still swap but it will be more infrequent.

    Microsoft does not recommend turning off the swapping even with plenty of memory. I did and suffered big time. Something about the Windows kernel probably relies on the swapping or something internal to Windows does. Without swapping it runs worse. With memory being extremely cheap and easy to come by I would max out the system. Pile on as much as you can. Windows XP will run up to 4GB of RAM provided you have SP2 and provided you use the /3GB switch in boot.ini. 3GB will be reserved for apps and 1GB for the kernel. I don't know if Windows swaps when it has been allocated a full GB for the OS since my board does not support 4GB.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 02-05-2008 at 05:41 PM.

  10. #55
    Registered User Bajanine's Avatar
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    I have had games that refused to start because of no pagefile.

    If possible I try to always run XP or 2K with 512MB of ram it has been my experience that it is way more responsive. Now, I still have an old Pent III 500MHz running Win 2K that isn't to bad with 3 x 128MB of ram (max). This is my VPN that I use to remotely listen to my music while at work.
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  11. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bajanine View Post
    Now, I still have an old Pent III 500MHz running Win 2K that isn't to bad with 3 x 128MB of ram (max). This is my VPN that I use to remotely listen to my music while at work.
    What's wrong with an iPod now :P?
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  12. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by robwhit View Post
    I think this is what brewbuck described in post 40.
    No, it's not.
    Brewbuck explained that Windows can put pages in the swap file and keep them in memory and immediately toss out the pages from memory if it turns out more memory is needed. But that's not the case here.
    Windows tosses out pages even when memory demand isn't high. So if I run a game and still have 1 GB free memory for the whole period of running the game, it still tosses out stuff out of memory instead of leaving it in the pagefile and memory.
    Which is equal to waste since there's enough memory for everything.
    If there was a spike in memory, Windows could easily throw everything out of RAM to make room for more since it had already saved it in the page file.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neo1 View Post
    What's wrong with an iPod now :P?
    iPods... overpriced
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  13. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    iPods... overpriced
    Actually, the new ones are quite cheap. And alot more handy than connecting to a box at home through a VPN to play music, christ!
    How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

  14. #59
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    >No, it's not.
    Oh ok, it sounded like it was.

  15. #60
    pwns nooblars
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    Neo1, depends, I have about 30GB of music that is my own, then another 10-15 of my girlfriend's music which is a lot more relaxing than mine so I listen to it at times, considering I don't make that much, it is a lot more cost effective to go over the net for my music than to try and anticipate what I want o listen to, since the only mp3 player I have is a little 4GB iPod.

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