Virtual Memory - I want to speed up the computer

Increasing the memory, above what you have now, will not speed up the PC.  It will allow more memory for some memory intensive operations or allow more windows (programs) to be opened at one time but that's all.  Unless you are using some high end (commercial) graphics or CAD programs, very large spreadsheets, etc what memory you have is more than sufficient.

"Virtual memory" is actually temporary space on the hard drive for extensions if all of the RAM is used up.  That should be left to Windows to control. 

Why do you think the computer is not "fast enough"?  You have one of the latest PC's and CPU's made.  There is a higher speed CPU (e.g. 3.0) but it's extra speed would never be noticed operating the PC. 

Some people recommend setting a fixed max/initial virtual memory setting, and in older OS's this was the case; but in actual tests that I've seen posted, under WinXP this provides no benefit over using system managed virtual memory.  What can provide some (extremely minimal) increase is if you put the vitual memory on a different hard drive that the programs(s) you may be running when it is accessed, also the drive with the virtual memory should have a decent cache size.  For example, if this is for gaming, if all your games are installed on your 40GB Primary drive, place the virtually memory on your secondary 160GB drive.  Ideally, this should be created in its own partition first thing after formatting the drive (places the virtual memory in its own partition at the front of the drive) - this last step is likely not worth the hassle though with an established hard drive with programs/data already on it.  However, as I said above, these changes will result in extremely minimal performance increases. 

As someone else mentioned, your system would seem to be fairly fast already.  What are you doing that makes it seem not fast enough?

Since the swap file is used only if there is insufficient real memory, and the sysyem will warn you if there is insufficient swap space, and using swap space is slow - there is only one viable conclusion add real memory if you believe that there is insufficient swap space.  Adding read memory has some limitations, if the machine doesn't really meed more memory adding memory will not improve peformance.  Windows XP Pro has a limination of 4 Gigabytes of real memory, but I am not sure if XP Home has the same or smaller limination.  P.S. I now the first part ot the first sentrnance is not absolutely true, "but it is close enough for government work".   There is also a limination on swap space, 4 gigabytes per disk. I believe.

A fixed size page file doesn't become fragmented as much as a system managed one. This can increase performance over time if you use the page file often. You can get a utility to defrag the page file here:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml

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alcheme wrote:    I adjusted my performance to re-load from system cache. Does that actually make a difference? Why?

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Message Edited by gryjhnhpe on 01-04-2004 11:27 AM

As you have two drives, maybe this might help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314482&Product=winxp

Some info from blackviper here:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm

That is indeed a good swap volume