what is the normal amount of virtual memory you should have your cpu set for?

Question

mine is set at 1534 mb and i got a gig of Ram and P4 proccessor

Answer 1

Generally, you should set your virtual memory to 1.5 x RAM. In your case, your computer is already set to use 1.5GB. However, the more RAM you have the less you have to stick to this rule. In fact, if you are using Windows XP, you can safely decrease it to 512MB. It is important to remember that virtual memory is actually hard drive space (i.e. ROM) converted by Windows to act like RAM. In addition, virtual memory is much slower than RAM. By having too much virtual memory, Windows will use more virtual memory than it should thereby slowing performance. If you set a lower virtual memory, it will force Windows to use the faster RAM. If you are using Windows XP, some experts recommend not using any virtual memory if you have at least 1GB of RAM.

PC World Magazine

"Tip 2: Swap When You Need To
Windows designates a portion of hard-disk space as virtual memory (also called the "swapfile" or "pagefile") to supplement RAM. The OS assigns some virtual-memory space to all processes, and the virtual memory itself gets used even if some RAM is still available. Accessing a hard disk is always slower than using RAM, so if your system has oodles of memory, you may improve performance slightly by telling Windows not to use the pagefile for some of its own code until it has used up available RAM. How much memory is in an oodle? That depends on the number and types of applications you typically run on your system--but don't make this adjustment unless your PC has at least 1GB of RAM.

To make Windows use virtual memory only as a last resort, you have to edit the Windows Registry. And because anything can happen when you change your Registry, you must back it up first; see "Care and Feeding of the Windows Registry" for instructions. (Note that Microsoft recommends against eliminating your pagefile entirely.)

With your Registry backup in place, choose Start, Run, type regedit, and press . In the tree pane on the left, navigate to and select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\
Control\Session Manager\Memory Management. Double-click the Disable, Paging,Executive icon in the right pane. Change the '0' in the Value data box to 1, click OK, and restart your computer." -- written by Scott Dunn (http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,127734/printable.html)

Answer 2

I have 768 Megs of ram and my Virtual memory is set at 2 gigs

Answer 3

It is absolutely right on. Windows usually likes to allocate about 2.5 times the physical RAM for a swap file. This means it is spot on.

Answer 4

A general rule of thumb is to set it to double your physical RAM. So you want yours as 2048 mb

Answer 5

That amount is correct. It should be set at 1.5 times the ram.

Answer 6

Windows sets that automatically.

Answer 7

Just set it to "System Managed Size", and let windows allocate it for you.

Answer 8

1.5 times the amount of system ram you have.