OT: does the PC have adequate memory?

[[email protected]]

Hi,

How do I determine if the computer has enough memory (not disk space)? Any advice will be helpful.....

 

[Rex Clark]

internal cmd memory
displays physical ram

----- Original Message -----
| Hi,
|
| How do I determine if the computer has enough memory (not disk space)?
Any advice will be helpful.....

 

[[email protected]]

Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my programs?
----- Original Message -----
From: Rex Clark
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 1:54 AM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?


internal cmd memory
displays physical ram

----- Original Message -----
| Hi,
|
| How do I determine if the computer has enough memory (not disk space)?
Any advice will be helpful.....

 

[Rex Clark]

That's a hard one but minimum would be 512MB 1 gig or better optimal
Bill Gates once said "who would need more 640K"

----- Original Message -----
| Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my programs?

 

[[email protected]]

Here is the output from mem and memory..... What should the memory load be when it's just sitting?



655360 bytes total conventional memory
655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
632672 largest executable program size

1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
941056 bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

87 % Memory load

534,556,672 bytes total physical RAM
64,962,560 bytes available physical RAM

1,306,992,640 bytes total page file
478,294,016 bytes available page file

2,147,352,576 bytes total virtual RAM
2,058,727,424 bytes available virtual RAM

65,536 characters total alias
61,619 characters free

65,536 characters total function
65,496 characters free

131,072 characters total history
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 2:16 AM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?


Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my programs?
----- Original Message -----
From: Rex Clark
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 1:54 AM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?


internal cmd memory
displays physical ram

----- Original Message -----
| Hi,
|
| How do I determine if the computer has enough memory (not disk space)?
Any advice will be helpful.....

 

[Rex Clark]

| Here is the output from mem and memory..... What should the memory load
be when it's just sitting?
| 655360 bytes total conventional memory
| 655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
| 632672 largest executable program size
|
| 1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
| 0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
| 941056 bytes available XMS memory
| MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

Irrelevant standard emulated DOS support in Xp

| 87 % Memory load
|
| 534,556,672 bytes total physical RAM
| 64,962,560 bytes available physical RAM
|
| 1,306,992,640 bytes total page file
| 478,294,016 bytes available page file
|
| 2,147,352,576 bytes total virtual RAM
| 2,058,727,424 bytes available virtual RAM
|
| 65,536 characters total alias
| 61,619 characters free
|
| 65,536 characters total function
| 65,496 characters free
|
| 131,072 characters total history

Loading seems very high My configuration is similar to yours in Physical ram
installed with more physical ram available. You have it set to use more RAM
to run applications. Pc's are very rarely IDLE they are always doing ~stuff~
in the background "transparent" to the user. That may explain why the
loading is so high.

As a comparison only

56 % Memory load

536,330,240 bytes total physical RAM
231,772,160 bytes available physical RAM

1,307,963,392 bytes total page file
985,305,088 bytes available page file

2,147,352,576 bytes total virtual RAM
2,096,721,920 bytes available virtual RAM

16,384 characters total alias
15,306 characters free

32,768 characters total function
32,767 characters free

8,192 characters total history

 

[K_Meinhard]

[email protected] wrote:

> Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my
> programs?

You don't tell us your Operating System. MS has announced minimum
configurations for each OS. Generally you want to at least double that
amount to work fluently.

If you experience long breaks in your work with the system seemingly
frozen, your computer is probably swapping memory ti disk and back, a
sure sign of not enough memory.

On the other hand there is an upper limit to the memory your OS can
handle. IIRC CP doesn't use memory above 3 GByte or so.

Many XP systems work well with 2 GByte, amd an update from 1GByte or
less can make your system faster.

* Klaus Meinhard *
4DOS Info - Info for DOS
www.4dos.info

 

[samintz]

The thing to look at is the amount of physical RAM vs. the commit charge.
Obviously, Windows supports virtual memory so you can actually have more
"stuff" loaded (commit charge) than there is physical RAM available.
However, you dramtically slow down the performance of your PC when all
that disk I/O needs to happen to swap pages in and out of RAM.

Ideally, your commit charge will always be less than total physical RAM.

You can view those values using Task Manager or Process Explorer. The
latter gives more detail, but the former will tell you what you need to
know.

-Scott

[email protected] wrote:


Quote:

>
> Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my
> programs?
>
>
>

 

[[email protected]]

So one of the main differences is the % memory load. what is a good range for that to be? And assuming i don't want to quit any programs, would I be better off adding more RAM or what are the ways to get the memory load % down?
----- Original Message -----
From: Rex Clark
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 6:07 AM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?


Quote:

| Here is the output from mem and memory..... What should the memory load
be when it's just sitting?
| 655360 bytes total conventional memory
| 655360 bytes available to MS-DOS
| 632672 largest executable program size
|
| 1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
| 0 bytes available contiguous extended memory
| 941056 bytes available XMS memory
| MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

Irrelevant standard emulated DOS support in Xp


Quote:
| 87 % Memory load
|
| 534,556,672 bytes total physical RAM
| 64,962,560 bytes available physical RAM
|
| 1,306,992,640 bytes total page file
| 478,294,016 bytes available page file
|
| 2,147,352,576 bytes total virtual RAM
| 2,058,727,424 bytes available virtual RAM
|
| 65,536 characters total alias
| 61,619 characters free
|
| 65,536 characters total function
| 65,496 characters free
|
| 131,072 characters total history

Loading seems very high My configuration is similar to yours in Physical ram
installed with more physical ram available. You have it set to use more RAM
to run applications. Pc's are very rarely IDLE they are always doing ~stuff~
in the background "transparent" to the user. That may explain why the
loading is so high.

As a comparison only

56 % Memory load

536,330,240 bytes total physical RAM
231,772,160 bytes available physical RAM

1,307,963,392 bytes total page file
985,305,088 bytes available page file

2,147,352,576 bytes total virtual RAM
2,096,721,920 bytes available virtual RAM

16,384 characters total alias
15,306 characters free

32,768 characters total function
32,767 characters free

8,192 characters total history

 

[[email protected]]

So the commit charge is:

current - 1152000
limit - 1530000
peak - 1307000

????
----- Original Message -----
From: samintz
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 10:32 AM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?


The thing to look at is the amount of physical RAM vs. the commit charge.
Obviously, Windows supports virtual memory so you can actually have more
"stuff" loaded (commit charge) than there is physical RAM available.
However, you dramtically slow down the performance of your PC when all
that disk I/O needs to happen to swap pages in and out of RAM.

Ideally, your commit charge will always be less than total physical RAM.

You can view those values using Task Manager or Process Explorer. The
latter gives more detail, but the former will tell you what you need to
know.

-Scott

[email protected] wrote:


Quote:


Quote:
>
> Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my
> programs?
>
>
>

 

[samintz]

That says your commit charge is 1.1GB with a peak load of 1.3GB. If you
have less than 1.3GB of RAM then you are disk thrashing and should upgrade
your RAM to 2GB.

-Scott

"[email protected]" <> wrote on 09/19/2008
01:47:42 PM:

> So the commit charge is:
>
> current - 1152000
> limit - 1530000
> peak - 1307000
>
> ????
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: samintz
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 10:32 AM
> Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?
>
>
> The thing to look at is the amount of physical RAM vs. the commit

charge.

> Obviously, Windows supports virtual memory so you can actually have more

> "stuff" loaded (commit charge) than there is physical RAM available.
> However, you dramtically slow down the performance of your PC when all
> that disk I/O needs to happen to swap pages in and out of RAM.
>
> Ideally, your commit charge will always be less than total physical RAM.
>
> You can view those values using Task Manager or Process Explorer. The
> latter gives more detail, but the former will tell you what you need to
> know.
>
> -Scott
>
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>
> Quote:
>
>
> Quote:
> >
> > Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my
> > programs?
> >
> >
> >
>
>

 

[logic]

[email protected] wrote:

>
> Yes but how do I know if I have an adequate amount, given all my
> programs?

The authoritative way to check is to run PerfMon.exe and have it graph "Page
Faults/sec" (in the "Memory" category) while you do at least typical use of
your computer. It won't be 0 when things are happening, because paging is
not only used when there isn't enough memory but also as the primary means
of loading file data into memory, but if you are getting high numbers
continually, you don't have enough memory.

To give a benchmark, on the computer where I'm writing this e-mail, I
currently have the following applications open:

Outlook 2000
Internet Explorer
SurroundSCM Source Control Client
2 x 4NT Prompt
2 x Visual Basic 6
Notepad
4 x Explorer Folder Windows
2 x SQL Query Analyzer
WorkUpdate Console (internal app that holds 100+ MB of state information
and continuously updates it)
RegEdit
PerfMon
2 x PingerThinger (system tray applet I wrote that pings an IP once every 20
seconds and graphs it)
SQL Server Agent
Pageant
Intel Graphics Tray Icon
UltraVNC

There are also a number of background processes and services running, a
total of 61 using some 718 MB of RAM. The machine has 1 GB of physical RAM,
which is about adequate for this level of use, and PerfMon is showing an
average of 150 page faults/sec. The average is high because of peaks of
500-1000 as I switch from application to application (occasional peaks are

>2000); the typical values are less than 150, and when I sit there watching

PerfMon, the "Last" value is frequently less than 15.

If you see numbers higher than I'm seeing, and if your system seems sluggish
and to be always accessing the hard drive, then you probably don't have
enough memory. If you get numbers the same as or better than I'm seeing and
your hard drive light only flickers occasionally when you're not asking
programs to access files, you're probably doing just fine. :-)

Jonathan Gilbert

 

[logic]

From: logic
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 1:51 PM
Showed up in forum: Friday, September 19, 2008 3:27 PM
Subject: RE: [Open Forum-t-463] OT: does the PC have adequate memory?

>
> The authoritative way to check is to run PerfMon.exe and have it graph
> "Page Faults/sec" (in the "Memory" category) while you do at least
> typical use of your computer.

[snip]

> ..., a total of 61 using some 718 MB of RAM. The machine has 1 GB of
> physical RAM, which is about adequate for this level of use, and PerfMon
> is showing an average of 150 page faults/sec. The average is high because
> of peaks of 500-1000 as I switch from application to application
> (occasional peaks are >2000); the typical values are less than 150, and
> when I sit there watching PerfMon, the "Last" value is frequently less
> than 15.

After I sent the last e-mail, I left the system sitting doing nothing for a
while and it settled down to an average of 36 with a maximum of 156 over a
100-second interval. The graph looked sort of like a heartbeat, with a spike
every 5 seconds.

I was going to send this reply to myself last Friday but the message took so
long to arrive in the forum that I forgot about it.

Jonathan Gilbetr