On 20 Mar 99, at 18:02, Jun Qian wrote:

> my computer has 64Mb RAM running win98. I want to set the virtual
> memory to min 100Mb max 200Mb. what will happen if a program requires
> more ram than 264Mb? will the system hang or it just slow down?

  That's not quite how it works.

  When a process obtains memory that it may write to, space for it is
allocated in the swap file so that it can be written to disk if its
spot in RAM is needed for another process (or another part of the same
process).  If this allocation fails, an "out of memory" error will be
returned; in your example case, this would happen when the total
allocated swap file reaches 200 MB.  While some real RAM is used for
other things, the majority is kind of a "window" onto the swap file,
and you can't simply add one to the other and get a meaningful number.

  Many experienced users recommend a permanent static swap file --
setting the minimum and maximum to the same number.  Early versions of
Win95 would appear to "hang" while compressing the swap file after an
application exited, and a dynamically growing/shrinking swap file is
likely to contribute to fragmentation on a drive.  [This is one of the
arguments for also putting it on its own partition, if possible.]

> I sometimes need to edit photos (possible apply complex effect to
> large photos)  using PaintShop pro 5. will games run ok with this
> virtual memory setting?

  Recommendations about "size of swap file = N x size of RAM" are based
on the assumption that your installed RAM is appropriate to your
application load.  While 64MB is plenty for most games, you may find
it's a little tight for big PhotoShop jobs.  [Whether it will pay to
try and add another 64MB of RAM without replacing your motherboard (and
CPU?) will depend on what you have now.]


David G

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