windows xp question

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henry_mullis

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Hey,
I just bought a Delta 1010 card and I use Cool Edit as my software. Anyway, I installed my Delta card and everything was fine for about a day. I don't know if the Delta card has something to do with my problem or if it was just a coincidence. Windows is telling me that my virtual memory is low and it will not let me run certain applications. Also, it tells me to change my paging file because it is non-existent or low. Anyway, I thought maybe that amount of RAM I have plays a role (128 SDRAM) but I am not sure.
Anyway, if you can help then please do.

Thanks
 
Working with recording and digital audio on the computer you should try to get as much ram as possible. I would try to get at least 512 mb of SDRAM.

When I bought my compu, it came with XP and I had so much trouble with all my recording software and my computers resources dissipating very quickly, I reformatted and installed Windows ME and everything works perfect. Anyone else experienced nothing but “bad times,” with XP?
 
Look, I don't know if this is a Windows XP issue, but I know for sure that it isn't a Cool Edit issue. However, I'm interested to know the answer for reasons of my own. So - Henry, Justin - would you mind if I shifted this thread over to the computer forum? You'll get a swarm of responses right away over there. :)
 
Hey dobro,
That's cool. I didn't know what forum to put it under really so i posted it here and under computers. Sorry for any inconvenience.
 
henry_mullis said:
Hey,
I just bought a Delta 1010 card and I use Cool Edit as my software. Anyway, I installed my Delta card and everything was fine for about a day. I don't know if the Delta card has something to do with my problem or if it was just a coincidence. Windows is telling me that my virtual memory is low and it will not let me run certain applications. Also, it tells me to change my paging file because it is non-existent or low. Anyway, I thought maybe that amount of RAM I have plays a role (128 SDRAM) but I am not sure.
Anyway, if you can help then please do.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Set your paging file to fixed size, preferably 2.5 times your physical memory. Put it on a seperate drive or partition from your OS if possible.
 
Definitely get a RAM upgrade. RAM is cheap right now, get up to at least 512, and then set your paging as BDGR recommended, at least double your physical RAM on a separate drive. That should do the trick :D
 
I agree that getting more RAM should be your first step with XP. 256 at least, 512 better.

I would not set your swap file that large however. The 2.5 ratio was good advice back when people were running 32 megs of RAM. However the more RAM you have the lower the ratio needs to be. Unless you are running some very unusual software I would not set your swap file larger than 256 megs.

And before you set a fixed swap file, delete any unneeded or garbage files from your temp directories, browser cache, and recycle bin, then defrag your hard drive.
 
Justin.Irish said:
When I bought my compu, it came with XP and I had so much trouble with all my recording software and my computers resources dissipating very quickly, I reformatted and installed Windows ME and everything works perfect. Anyone else experienced nothing but “bad times,” with XP?
Click to expand...

That was a pretty silly move to go back to ME considering it does not have true WDM driver support and it is Microsoft's worst OS ever. As far as memory managment, it is no better than 95 and 98, and in some cases worse.

I have been using XP (Home and Pro) for a year now and it has been nothing but smooth sailing.
 
brzilian said:


That was a pretty silly move to go back to ME considering it does not have true WDM driver support and it is Microsoft's worst OS ever. As far as memory managment, it is no better than 95 and 98, and in some cases worse.

I have been using XP (Home and Pro) for a year now and it has been nothing but smooth sailing.
Click to expand...

For once I agree with you.
 
RWhite said:
I agree that getting more RAM should be your first step with XP. 256 at least, 512 better.

I would not set your swap file that large however. The 2.5 ratio was good advice back when people were running 32 megs of RAM. However the more RAM you have the lower the ratio needs to be. Unless you are running some very unusual software I would not set your swap file larger than 256 megs.

And before you set a fixed swap file, delete any unneeded or garbage files from your temp directories, browser cache, and recycle bin, then defrag your hard drive.
Click to expand...

Yes defag your hard drive first I should have mentioned that.

BUT THE 2.5 ratio still goes, and no, it does not decrese with the amount of ram.

I have servers at work that have 2 gigs of ram on them, and they have 5 gig swap files. Performance testing has shown that this is still pretty much optimal. (one the perks of my job is playing with systems like this and pushing them to their limits to see what works best. Right before 10 gig ethernet standards were finalized we got to set up a 10 gig test network and try to saturate it. Ever try to saturate a 10 gig pipe? It was way cool)

The way microsoft uses vitual memory, it still works best at 2.5 time the physical memory size. Maybe this will change in the future, but for now thats how it goes.
 
Well I have seen info both ways regarding setting swap file size when you have large amounts of RAM. I guess it's a matter of opinion, I looked for some hard technical articles and didn't find any.

For the record Microsoft recomends 1.5 times your RAM size with no mention of home much RAM you have.
 
It is a matter of opinion, experiance, and vodoo.

The tests we have done on our server farm has been pretty extensive, and in my test lab have tended to bear out the 2.5 rule, but its not hard and fast. If you are only running one app, and your paging file doesnt get hit much, then yeah, you could go with less. But hard drive space is cheap, so I would rather have a big fixed swap file, then have the system maxing it out.
 
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