925MB commit charge

[Byan]

I recently removed my page file, seeing as now that I have a gig of ram, it doesn't seem like I am going to need it..
no problems so far..


only thing is that, my commit charge is out of 925MB, when I have a gig of ram.., why is this?

thanx in advanced,
Byan

[Steve R Jones]

The commit charge is the amount of memory allocated to programs and the system. With Virt memory, the number can be higher than the amount of installed ram.


I wouldn't turn off virtual memory. Many program will want to use it regarless of how ram is installed. It they can't find it...CRASH.

[Byan]

I am doing a little bit of experimenting without one, if something happends the first thing I am going to do is turn it back on..

but anyways, why would my commit charge limit ever be lower then my amount of physical ram..


also, you can't turn off virtual memory.., its always there.., but since I don't have a page file, my virtual memory should be the amount of phsical memory I have

[SuperSparks]

You are not doing yourself any favours by not having a pagefile. And you seem to have misunderstood what virtual memory is - physical memory is the actual RAM, virtual memory is the pagefile, ie disk space that is useed to store memory that can't be accommodated in physical memory.

Even with 1GB or more of physical RAM, the pagefile (virtual memory) is still used to store memory addresses that are demanded by some apps, but aren't actually required for storing data. If you do away with the pagefile then those unneeded addresses will have to be stored in RAM, thus wasting a lot of memory addresses that could otherwise be used for real data or program instructions. All you are doing by not having a pagefile is gaining some (very cheap these days) disk space, while pretty much guaranteeing that you will have a system crash sooner or later, and you don't gain any performance because the pagefile isn't actually storng any real data for the majority of the time.

The best article that I've ever read on how virtual memory works is here:

Virtual Memory in Windows XP

[Train]

Hit that wall one time and I sure hope you are good with DOS type commands, cause you are going to lose something and you just might save the operating system.

In my case, I had to give the virtual a 15GB partition, to stop the problem. Only lost 2GB of data myself. Still a couple hours worth of work had to be redone.