My computer says its low on virtual memory. What does this mean?

Question

-Is it because Ive got quite a few films, photoshop files (which I know are large files), a game installed, and some music saved on my computer?

Answer 1

Having all these things on your computer, does not affect your memory in any way, unless you are running all these processes at the same time. However, if you are running low on hard drive space that can affect your virtual memory.

Virtual memory is a part of your hard space that is used as memory, and is referred to as a page file.

The page file size should be 1.5 times the size of actual memory installed in your computer. For example, if you 768 MB of RAM installed on your computer, then you would set the size of your page file by using this formula: 768 x 1.5 = 1152 MB.

To check the size of your page file, just do the following:

> Right-click on My Computer
> Select Properties
> Click on the Advanced tab
> Select Settings under the Performance section
> Select Advanced tab
> Under Virtual Memory check the size
> If needed, adjust by selecting Change

System managed size is the default, and should be approximately 1.5 times actual memory installed, but this is not always the case.

To manually set the page size yourself, highlight your hard drive (C:) and select Custom Size. Enter a minimum size of 768 and a maximum size of 1152.

Some people will try setting their page file even larger than the recommended 1.5 times RAM, but I find that this does not actually improve the performance of my computer. But I do not use programs very much, such as Photoshop, that can be memory intensive.

When in doubt, I highly recommend using the Help and Support Knowledgebase that is located right on your computer. Microsoft Windows comes with a wonderful program, Help and Support Center, that I use almost daily. Especially, if you are using Windows XP, you can learn so much about your computer just by reading these articles.

Sometimes, I just bounce around from article to article, and before I know it 2 hours has gone by.

Answer 2

Virtual memory is actual hard drive space on your PC. Because your PC has a limited amount of "real" RAM memory, it will move things in and out of memory as needed by using a swap file on the hard drive.

For instance, if you open a large document, the computer will only hold the current page you are reading in its memory. The rest is in the swap file. When you scroll to another section, sometimes you will see everything stop for a second and then continue scrolling. That was Windows moving the current section out of memory and into the swap file, then loading the next section.

That swap file is referred to as virtual memory. The more things you have open, the larger the swap files has to become. Windows places a limited (based on the free space on your dirve) on how big the swap file can become. If you have to exceed that limit, you will get a warning that it is low on virtual memory. Windows will increase the swap file and continue running. It is just warning you that it is increasing the swap file size. Its size will be reset on the next reboot.

When a swap file becomes that large, it will slow the PC - takes longer to load and unload things into memory - and increase the risk of crashing. That is why it warns you.

What can you do? First, increase the amount of physical RAM memory in the PC. This will reduce the amount of stuff that has to be moved to vritual memory.

Second, reduce the number of programs you have running in the background. Click the Start Button, click Run and type in: msconfig
Go to the startup tab of the window that loads
You will see all the programs that is being "pre-loaded" on your PC. Uncheck any and all that you do not need to load and startup (You will still be able to run the using their regular icons, they just will not pre-load on startup). You can recheck any if you find you need them.

Finally, check how much free hard drive space you have. If it is below 10% of your drive, that will cause virtual memory errors because Windows can not increase the swap file - no more hard drive space.

Answer 3

No it means that your memory is not sufficient for running a certain app. It has only a little to do with the space in your hard disk.
However I can give you a way to increase virtual memory (but you will need some hard disk space):
On Windows XP
Right-click My computer
Select the Advanced tab
Click the first Settings button
Select Advanced
Set both radio buttons (the dots) to the first choice on the left (Programs I think it says)
Then click the Change button
Change the values in the boxes to something larger, but make sure that you have at least twice the empty drive space of the number in the 2nd box

Answer 4

Virtual Memory is a designated amount of hard drive space that Windows uses as if it was RAM. Try increasing it in small amounts until you don't get this message any more. This will work assuming you have free space available on your hard drive. As others are suggesting, adding more RAM couldn't hurt either, but make sure your replace it with exactly the same type of RAM as you have now. Assuming you're a home-based user, try not to go more than about 48-72 hours between reboots.

Answer 5

Virtual memory is hard disk space that Windows uses as memory. This is different to physical memory, which are the memory modules that you buy and install on your computer motherboard.

If you get the message a lot, the thing to do is to free up as much disk space as you can. Burn some of the music/video on to dvds or cd roms and remove them from the hard disk. Uninstall games that you've finished or haven't played in a while.

You can, of course, install a new hard disk - a decent one would cost about £50 - £60.

Answer 6

The data in RAM is logically organized into pages usually of 4KB size. Because of limitation of RAM system takes small part (us ally double the size of your RAM) for storing the page on your hard disk. This portion is called virtual memory. whenever some process wants to access some data if it is not present in RAM then page fault occurs and respective page is loaded from virtual memory.

You have not mention which operating system you are using.
if you are using Linux operating system then you can increase your swap partition area double the size of your RAM.

If you are using windows then check that your hard drive has enough free space. if it is not then remove unnecessary things. Then everything will be OK. Low on virtual memory decrease the performance of your system.

Answer 7

You have not enough space in disk for the Windows swap file. You may have at least 20% of free space in your hard drive, otherwise the system turns itself too slow.

By now, you can make free space deleting temporary files.

But, if watch movies, and have too many music files, you need a larger hard drive (at least 80 GB).

Answer 8

You need to free up some hard disk space! You've filled your hard drive up and Virtual memory is kept on your hard disk. Burn your videos to DVD and then delete them from your drive. Use the link to download a free program to clean your drive of junk and space wasting files.

Answer 9

it means that you dont have memory on computer

the best way will be to add more RAM
if u cant afford,increase the virtual memory by

control panel>>>system>>>advanced tab

in that performance settings then advanced
in virtual memory option click change

select the drive and enter a higher number and click set

it should do it

Answer 10

If you are using win98 you can up the file size for the memory use. In winxp I think it uses the whole hard drive.