what is the diff b/w memory and virtual memory on my windows xp and how do i get more of it on my PC?

Question

when i do a search with a recovery program after a while it gives me a message that say virtual memory is low so what can i do i have windows xp

Answer 1

There is main memory (RAM), and then there's virtual memory. Virtual memory is actually a representation of all the space available in memory. It includes the size of the RAM in your system along with the swapfile space on the hard drive. It's more complex than that, but that's the easiest way of looking at it.

Most of the time when you hear someone mention virtual memory, they're referring to the swap file on your hard drive. The swap file is used periodically by the operating system when the information it's looking for isn't available in the much faster "main memory" or RAM. Because the swap file is on your hard drive, it's much, much slower to access.

As for changing the size, I wouldn't worry about that. There used to be a lot of tips and tricks out there for tweaking the swap file under Windows 98, but since the release of Windows 2000, that's become a thing of the past. Both 2000 and XP are built on NT, and memory management is very effective at its default settings.

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Update:

Looking at the post below, I just want to clarify one thing. The saying that "the more memory the better" is not necessarily true. if you are struggling at the minimum requirement of 128MB, for example, and then you update to 256MB, you will notice a steep improvement in overall performance. Going from 256 to 512 is significant too. As you continue to add more RAM, the amount of jump in performance begins to decrease. You start putting more in than you're getting back..

There's generally a good equilibrium for Windows XP right around the 512MB mark, with 1GB being more than enough for most systems.

Answer 2

RAM memory is the memory stick(s) in side your computer. Virtual memory is a portion of your hard drive that is used for "house cleaning" (stack pointer functions etc.) and is set at the OS default. The question of "more" depends on what you have in mind. Generally, there is no such thing as too much memory, (ignoring the limit that the CPU can find) so that is just a question of buying more and plugging it in. Too complicated to hold class here re expanding virtual memory, how, why, and the advantages and disadvantages. You are better off to leave that alone until you are more "ITed" to tackle such things. The default setting should be fine for most cases.

Answer 3

What ever RAM you have installed on your system is the main memory of your system. you can always get it by purchessing more RAM and plugging it in your motherboard RAM slots. Most motherboard will support maximum of 2 or 4 GB of RAM.
Virtual memory is concept in operating system by which every programm running on your system gets a view as if it have its own 4gb of memory(in case of 32bit windows). that it can access. This allows the programm to utilise more memory than you have installed on your machine. The amount of virtual memory that is available is (any 32bit os for that matter) is 4gb and you can not change that. At the max you can change is the pageing file size of your machine. you can use system property page -> advance tab->performance options.

Answer 4

Memory refers to RAM the actual DIMM (Dual in line memory module) hardware chip that is in the computer. Virtual memory refers to space allocated on your computrs Harddrive by windows just in case your RAM chip gets overloaded your computer can use HDD space to store temp info, stopping your PC from crashing. Virtual memory is way too slow from actual memory chip. Its suggested to have minimum of 512 MB ram on the system. More the RAM better performance.