VCACHE Question

[steveakaflash]

I read an current article in gamespot.com about optimising windows, and one of the areas was setting a min/max for vcache. I already have my virtual memory set this way. The article says to set the vcache to 16384 min and max. It says dont go higher. This is part of my question..why not higher?

You see, I play Halflife online, and before the 16384 setting, i seemed to get allot of hard disk thrashing after some time of play, and all that was gone http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif after setting the min max to 16384. Problem is, after about an hour, i was kicked back to windows, with a dialogue box saying not enough space to load... I have my virtual memory set at 192, and thats been the culprit when set to 164 or lower, but i figured 192 was enough. Would the vcache setting have caused the problem? What would a larger min/max vcache do...say 32768? BTW, i have 128 megs ram.

Thanks so much for reading,

Steve

[KillerBug]

Whoever wrote that did not know what the are talking about. Here is a basic chart of how mch RAM and Vchache you should have.

Game:
32mb ram, 64mb VCACHE.
64mb ram, 128mb VCACHE.
128mb ram, 200-256mb VCACHE.
128mb+ ram, equal ammount of VCACHE.

Buisiness/windows:
32mb ram, 128mb VCAHCE.
64mb ram, 256mb VCACHE.
128mb ram, 150mb VCACHE.
128+ ram: buisinesses never have this!

Oh, sorry about that, I thought he was talking about virtual memory.

[This message has been edited by KillerBug (edited 07-17-99).]

[BBA]

Whoa... whoa... Killer/Cobain!!!

Yes, set page file size (or otherwise called virtual memory) to equal the actual ram amount or greater.

VCACHE is not the same as virtual memory.

Vcache is a file buffer region of RAM, so it can not possibly ever be greater than the actual amount of ram.

Set it to 1/4 of your ram, in your case I would go 31000 both min and max. You will see a huge difference in program access speed, mostly appearant the second time something is accessed. It will help all programs.

I have 192M and set mine to 50000 min/max and it made a huge difference!

BBA

[steveakaflash]

Thanks BBA, i WAS kinda skeptical with the first response...

Steve

[smoorman]

So, how and where do I change the vcache settings?
Thanks.

[steveakaflash]

Do a "find", start/find files, and look in the windows folder for the "system.ini". In it you'll find a heading named vcache(mine had nothing underneath) All you have to do is put these two lines under the "vcache" heading
MinFileCache="your value"
MaxFileCache="same as above"

It made a huge difference for me to set it at 31000 with my 128 megs of ram...There were no settings in there for vcache b4, so i dont know what windows was doing but i like it now...like a much faster harddrive http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Steve

[BBA]

Two ways!

One is to type "sysedit" at the run dialog box and hit enter, select the system.ini file and browse down to the [VCACHE] line.
Under this line, put an entry exactly like this "MINFILECACHE=XXXXX" and the next line like "MAXFILECACHE=xxxxx" where xxxxx is the size in KB, so 31M is 31000 or so.

The other way is thru sys config app in System Information tools. You can select the same file there and edit it. It's easier the other way.

BBA

[BBA]

Good timing Steve!

BBA

[socalgal]

Hi BBA ~ Could I get your opinion on these settings?

[vcache]
Min/Max=65536
ChunkSize=256

I'm also thinking of setting the swap to 120mg.

The thing is, I have: Win98/256mg sdram. Just scanning Rojak's http://epsilon.silicon.net.my/adrian/ .
I haven't really studied that site since my new build here, so perhaps my questions are premature.

Seems to be a thought there that using Win98 and over 128mg of ram, there is no real need to set vcache?

hmmm.. You don't have that much less ram than mine, and you noticed a big difference... are you using a ChunkSize setting and a fixed Swap also?

Thanks for your suggestions! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[BBA]

I'm not using any chunk size setting. For some reason when I tried that the PC responded slower and took longer to boot/shutdown.


Maybe Win98 just needs a little help once in a while. I just like to tweak things, you know me!

I just ran mine at 600Mhz/ 2.1v and Windows actually loaded! Then it crashed, so I backed down to 558 again. I think I would like a 129Mhz FSB setting!

BBA

[socalgal]

I want to try 133FSB on my Abit BX6, but am afraid (!) of data corruption on my WD 13G UDMA/66, running currently at UDMA 2. Don't want to go to PIO.

How about 126? These are specs from Soyo's 6BA+III, which is starting to look pretty good to me.

FRONT SIDE BUS OPTIONS
66/ 75/ 81/ 83/ 90/ 95/ 100/ 105/ 110/ 112/ 113/ 115/ 117/ 118/ 120/ 122/ 124/ 126/ 133/ 135/ 137/ 138/ 140/ 142/ 144/ 150/ 155MHz

[BBA]

Well, I know were off subject a little so lets post over at OC page...