What is Virtual Memory?

Question

Why does my PC keep saying "Virtual memory too low". It happens on a daily basis. My PC is soooooo slow!!

Answer 1

Virtual memory is space on your hard drive set up by Windows when your computer runs out of physical memory.

Physical memory is RAM. It is called physical memory because it is really a physical memory module in your computer. It is extremely fast because it is highly specialized and designed specifically for loading temporary data as you need it (for example, a song you want to listen to, or Word) and then discarding it when you are done.

If you don't have enough RAM to hold all the things you (or your computer) are trying to do at once, Windows will try to use empty space on your hard drive as extra RAM. This is called virtual memory because it isn't really memory. It is very slow because your hard drive is designed to hold everything you've ever saved, and only serve it up once, when it is first requested, into the RAM. It is not designed to hold things temporarily and constantly make the data available as it is requested.

Typically two things can cause your computer to need virtual memory (which will severely slow your computer down, regardless of cause). One is that your computer simply doesn't have enough memory to do what you need. If you have an older computer this is often the case; a computer that is several years old may only have 128 or 256 megabytes of RAM; that is totally inadequate to run more than a few of today's programs at the same time.

The other possibility is that your computer is so bogged down with spyware, adware and malware (you get these things by downloading smiley face packs, internet games, and pretty much anything else that is not from a major, reliable vendor) that it does not even have enough RAM left over to load up the essentials, like your operating system. If this is the case AND your computer is older, the problem is obviously compounded.

You have a few solutions at your disposal.

a) If you have tons of crap on your computer, your best option would be to re-install your operating system from scratch. This will wipe out all of your programs and files. You should get someone computer-savvy to help you with this, or take your computer to a local PC repair shop - they will usually reload your system for between $50 and $100.

b) If your computer is old, you may be able to buy more RAM. Go to http://www.crucial.com/ and use their site to see if you can purchase more memory for your particular computer model. It will come with instructions and is very easy to install. If your computer is especially old, or your options for upgrading memory are limited or nonexistent, you will need to buy a new PC.

The suggestion to increase the disk space allocated for your virtual memory is incorrect - it will only get rid of the "Virtual Memory Too Low" message - it will not make your computer any faster. (In fact it might make it slower).

Answer 2

Computers have some physical memory calld RAM and at the same time can use part of hard disk as if it was RAM (virtual memory). You can consider virtual memory as very very slow RAM. No these days 80 GB is not enough. I have no knowledge about macs but I would recommand a Intel Core 2 Duo, with 2GB RAM, 250GB Hard disk,...

Answer 3

Answering for others:

Virtual memory is space on your hard drive set up by the operating system you have when your computer runs out of physical memory(RAM).

Your operating system add virtual memory to Random access memory (RAM) when the RAM is not enough to run a program on your computer so that you can run your program.

Answer 4

Virtual memory is temporary memory that your computer uses on it's Hard Drive. Follow these steps to correct thsi issue:

Instructions - Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "Advanced" tab, in the "Performance" section select "Settings", "Advanced" tab, in the "Virtual Memory" section select "Change". Change the values to:

- Initial size (MB): 1.5 x the amount of RAM in your system
- Maximum size (MB): 3 x the amount of RAM in your system (PF Size Limit = 4095 MB)

Then select "Set" and "OK" and reboot.

Answer 5

You are probably running Windows XP with 256Mb of RAM or less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

Your hard drive may be full.
Probably had too many programs running in the background.
You might have malware, (viruses, spyware, adware)
Long time since the Hard Drive was defragged.

Answer 6

the message apperas when there is no free space left on the C drive. Free some space and then run a pc optimizing tool