Recently we often talk about is lowering the price of DDR memory, DDR266 plummeted from more than 400 yuan to 200 yuan position about a lot of people spend a 512MB or even 1GB of memory, so there is a point of view is also part of the players in the popular that is to disable virtual memory, against Windows page file exchange, ordered the data in memory processing, you can speed up the efficiency of data reading and writing, is it really so?
Depending on the application need to set
First, we must figure out what is "large memory" configuration. Original design of Windows to use virtual memory itself is very expensive because of physical memory, usually no more than 128MB capacity hard disk space required for temporary buffer - that is, you should apply when the number of physical memory and his own memory for the actual a comparison, if the actual application has memory less than the peak, they will encounter trouble.
Generally speaking, if you want to print a large map, 3D animation rendering tasks such as large amounts of data, should not disable virtual memory; If you often have to print a document with a lot of pictures, virtual memory also makes programs against errors. As a class of software like Word before printing to produce a buffer file, and then transferred to the printer, the image size larger, higher resolution, the required buffer capacity is also great, I ago to help design advertising art out of time, the Print a map experiencing temporary files generated nearly 300MB situation. Because Windows and applications themselves will take some memory to run, if you are a 512MB configuration, disable virtual memory, virtual memory is likely to report less than half-way, causing forced out of print paper and ink waste.
Therefore, the task must be based on your application environment to decide whether to disable virtual memory. Even if the virtual memory size of the fixed settings must also be careful, or large-scale application software running low on virtual memory only when prompted, the entire system because of high CPU occupancy rate becomes very slow at this time and then change the not so convenient.
Factors to consider operating system
Under different operating systems, virtual memory settings are different or disabled, can not be generalized.
Because the structure of the problem, Windows 9x/Me more than 256MB of memory on a congenital deficiency, is greater than the amount of memory, Windows 98 will start slow and unstable situation. If you use a large memory with virtual memory disabled, instability will increase. Windows 2000/XP can be effectively managed for the 1GB memory capacity is about more than this number will be instability, as the motherboard BIOS and chipset performance models and different.
In addition, Windows itself, the design is, once found the process into an inactive state, it will be allocated to memory space mapped to the swap file, empty out the physical memory as possible to other activities, the thread is not running out of physical memory began to use the swap file. If the physical memory used up until then called, already too late, in the configuration of the machine is bound to result in lower data transmission and processing of stagnation. Therefore, prohibition of virtual memory, in principle, and the most Windows abnormal, even if there is not the failure to run, will often prompt the virtual memory is not enough, reset and so on, so you troublesome.
How to Disable Virtual Memory
Have a lot of memory capacity for a friend, If you really want to disable virtual memory to speed up the speed, in fact, can compromise, "cheat" than Windows, is to set aside part of the physical memory the virtual into the physical hard disk:
1.Windows 98
Could have added a Config.sys:
DEVICE = C: WINDOWSRAMDRIVE.SYS 23000 / E (where, depending on your Windows partition proper settings)
This sentence is to use virtual memory from the Ramdrive.sys a partition, in which 23,000 is how much physical memory you want to use, the unit is KB, if you have 1GB, you can set this number to around 300,000 to 500,000, or 300 ~ 500MB, then the virtual memory settings to the virtual partition out the program entirely in physical memory on the run.
2.Windows 2000/XP
Must rely on third-party tools to virtual physical hard disk, then put the page file set Pagefile.sys to the virtual disk, to achieve the same effect; or may be in the System.ini in the "[386enh]" at the bottom to join one, ConservativeSwapfileUsage = 1, so that Windows priority physical memory, try not to forcibly disable the virtual memory swap file directly.
Conclusion
In my opinion, disable virtual memory to achieve the acceleration effect is limited, with generally more appropriate default settings for Windows, especially Windows 2000/XP default setting for virtual memory management very well, try not to tamper with, or a problem you are difficult to judge and analysis.
Off-topic: some of the memory failure analysis
Sometimes, Windows some tips and memory-related failures, and memory is not necessarily related; and memory and some seemingly unrelated fault, it really caused memory, very covert.
For example: You use the PQ partition master a tool to turn over a partition cluster size, when the cluster is smaller than the default values, Windows 98 run the disk scan may be reported out of memory, and in Windows 2000 and Windows XP under the normal - and That is, it simply does not matter with the memory.
Another example: sometimes boot into Windows, the system will prompt you to registry errors, whether to resume, when you choose to resume again after the restart, or with a reminder that this fault, but mostly out of memory or the cooling aspects of the problem caused , the need to replace the memory or the fan has.
Therefore, Windows prompts the user sometimes be misleading, if the same repeated failures, their tips can not be resolved, should consider the possibility of false positives Windows.