At 08:17 AM 3/5/1998 Bill Cohane  wrote:
>
>I was always under the impression that Win95 could access more RAM than
>most motherboards could hold. I guess the question is, how much *physical
>memory* can Win95 utilize. (Win95 utilizes a 4 GB address space, but this
>is paged between RAM and disk.)
>
>I like your idea of making a FAQ for PCBUILD (etc.) and the question
>of how much RAM Win95 can access/utilize comes up a lot. Maybe we should
>look up the definitive answer to this one. I have searched through the
>95 Resource Kit (quickly) but haven't seen this discussed.
>
>BTW, I've wondered whether creating a small RAM drive for the swap file
>would satisfy those programs that refuse to run on a system with tons
>of RAM but no swap file.


Bill:

Ever wonder why people recommend you have a swap file 2.5 times
the amount of RAM you have?  Shouldn't you need a SMALLER
swap file as you have more and more RAM? I don't know what
the actual limits are but around 64MB of RAM, I don't see any more
improvement with Win95 (I think NT is the same but I don't use NT
enough to say for sure). I suspect it's because Windows spends more
time MANAGING the memory rather than USING it.  Therefore, if you
have 128 MB of RAM and notice no improvement after 64MB, you
might consider setting up a 64MB RAM drive.

Aside:  One tip I recommend for PCs with 32MB or more RAM is to
        tell Win95 you have NETWORK computer (Control Panel -
        System - Performance - File System - Hard Drive {settings}).
        Win95 will use larger cache, buffers etc...

Microsoft designed their VMM algorithm to require a swap file, always.
With the 2.5x ratio, one might wonder if there is a direct relationship
to the percentage of RAM in use to the size of the SWAP file (i.e.:
Win95 swaps X MB to disk when Y percent of RAM is utilized).

In any event, with enough RAM, the use of a sufficiently sized RAM
drive for your swap file will HAVE to quicken the actual swap file
access. Only when you run out of space on your RAM drive will
you run into a problem. Which means you can do this on a trial and
error basis (don't use any data you will hate to lose...  <g> ).  Of
course, different software apps will have different needs so results
will vary (the usual disclaimer...).

Considering 64MB of RAM ($88 wholesale) is cheaper than buying
a caching PCI IDE controller or a SCSI drive system, it's worth
considering.

I don't know the scientific answer to this issue. So, I invite the
expression of informed opinions from responsible viewers.  <g>
A FAQ would be great as long as the answer is not paradoxical
(which would lead to much debate, hey?).

Regards,

John Chin