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Subject:
Re: Adding RAM
From:
Mary Wolden <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 24 May 2001 19:34:11 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
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text/plain (31 lines) 
From: "Jack R Payton" :Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Adding RAM


> Well, thanks for one more piece to the "system resources" puzzle. Next,
> who or what determines the "fixed amount of ram controlled?"
> 
> On Wed, 23 May 2001 17:47:54 -0700 "Mark C. Barron"
> <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> > >I upgraded from 128M to 256M RAM. "System Resources" was 78 percent
> > >"free", before and after. Should this have changed? 256M RAM is
> > >recognized by system.
> >
> > System Resources are based on a fixed amount of ram controlled.  It
> > doesn't
> > matter
> > how much ram you have, this resource space is fixed in size.
> 

Jack,

I think the articles will help you understand some of this better.  System resources refers to specific memory areas within Windows, specifically  the GDI resources(keeps track of the things Windows uses to draw what you see on screen: there are things called pens, brushes, fonts, bitmaps, regions, and palettes, for example) and User Resources (information about all the apps and windows currently running, including dialog boxes, the controls in dialog boxes, etc).  The Operating System you are using determines the fixed amount of System Resources and how they are used. In the case of Win9x, Microsoft has determined the amount of the system resources in the coding of Windows.  Win NT and Win  2000 allocate and handle system resources differently than Win 9x and largely do away with limited resource areas.

Basically as you run apps, open and close windows, the user and gdi resources get allocated.  If a program is coded well, when you close it, all of the resources that were allocated  should be released so they can be used by other programs.  If the programs are not coded well then not all of the resources get released and over time all of the resources will be marked as in use when really they are not.  Eventually there will not be enough free resources for Windows and you may get an "Out of memory" error, the system will begin to behave weirdly, or you may have a fatal crash.

Mary Wolden

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