what is virtual memory?and what are its importance in a computer system?

Answer 1

When your computer runs out of physical memory (the amount of memory you have installed on your machine) it writes what it needs to remember to the hard disc in a swapfile as virtual memory. Your computer will run faster with more physical memory because it does not have to read and write data to the hard disc as often, which takes additional time.

Answer 2

First you need to understand the two types of Memory.
There is hard drive. This is where all your programs are stored. When You boot up your computer it loads the programs from your Hard drive memory, into the RAM memory. RAM memory is a lot faster and is used to help the processor, store and run any program.
But there is only so much RAM on your computer (and why adding more RAM always helps speed up your computer). But one way to help the computer run more smoothly is if a program has run in ram, and it might run again but not right away, the computer well store those "files" back onto the hard drive in "virtual memory" This is just a storage place for programs that the computer has used, but isn't using currently (but could use again).
The reason you need virtual memory is so the computer and keep swapping these files around from virtual memory back to the RAM and so forth.
Look at it like a set of book cases. One set of book cases is your Hard drive, and the highest self is your virtual RAM, one set is your RAM. Your computer is just moving these books around. When it doesn't need the book right away it stores it back on the top shelf so it knows where it can find it. it doesn't have to re-find it again on the hard drive.

Answer 3

Virtual memory is used in a computer system to swap out running applications and/or data, from main memory to some other device. This can be any device, but the typical virtual memory is swapped to a hard disk.
The reason for the swapping is due to the application that has the focus of the user may require additional memory, and if it cannot be allocated in physical memory, it can be expanded onto the disk.
Of course, this causes disk thrashing, etc. That's why it's best to get the most memory you can for you PC, to prevent overuse of virtual memory.
You can always look it up on Wikipedia.

Answer 4

If a computer running Windows requires more memory/RAM then there is installed in the system to run a program, etc, it uses a small section of the hard drive for this purpose. This is called “Virtual” memory, or “Swap Filling”. If the “Swap” file is to small, then you will get a warning that the system can’t perform the operation that you have requested because sufficient “Virtual” memory isn’t available.

You need to enlarge the size of your “virtual memory/swap file”. So, do the following.

Right click “My Computer” and choose “Properties”.
In the “System Properties” window, click the “Advanced” tab.
Under “Performance”, click “Settings”.
In the “Performance Options” window, click “Advanced”.
Under “Virtual memory”, click “Change”.

Increase the size of the “Paging file” so that it is at least twice the size of your RAM. You can increase the size to “Maximum”, it won’t hurt your system at all.


Best cure.

If you really want to eliminate this problem, all you need do is to install more “Memory/RAM”.


One more thing. Let define memory and storage.

RAM (random access memory) is called "Memory"

HDD (hard disk drive) or (hard drive) is called "Storage" or storage device.

Answer 5

Virtual memory is nothing but a file in hard disk. When there is an excessive usage of RAM, Programs which having least priority will reside on hard disk and it execute from hard disk only but not in RAM. If your virtual memory is too low means that your hard disk has less space.