For those with more than 64mb of RAM...(Windoze tweak tip)

[OuTpaTienT]

Hey, I just learned a new tweak for Windoze (I can't believe there's still some I don't know!). But if you have plenty of RAM (>64mb) and wonder why Windoze still seems to use the swapfile much more than you'd think it needs to, then try this:

In system.ini under the 386enh section, add

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

After a reboot it increases win98's memory usuage efficiency by 40%.

I'm still trying it out myself. I'll report back with yea/nea results.

[neo_otyugh]

trying it now...gonna see how it works...thanks

[Smokey]

I'm trying it too...

[Chef Mark]

Thanks for the tip - I'll try it tonight when I get home and report then.


Chef

[grandslammer]

Well, i tried it. I had to get like 9 programs running at the same time before i got any swap file usage at all. Do you think this will adversely affect prformance? I haven't been using it long enough to give any major feedback about this, but it does make me curious.

I figured it would lessen swap file usage, but i mean it killed swap file usage completely until I had 9 count 'em, nine progs in use.

Waiting to hear from others on this one.

Good Luck...

Mikey

[alfaguy]

can I get this to work with NT4?

I'll try this at home tonight on my 98, but at work I use nt4, or for that case how about nt4 server? my 2 servers could use some tweaking.

[Ziz]

I have 96M and my typical memory usage (I'm assuming you're referring to System Resources in Device Manager) averages around 80%...does that mean with this tweak I'll get 120%? Does that make sense?

[Underclocked]

Ziz, no he isn't talking about free resources. His tweak is to enable better use of fixed, installed memory and thereby reducing use of the swap file on the hard drive.

[SysOpt]

I was going to try it but I'm not using Win98 anymore (installed Win2k).

FYI: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q223/2/94.ASP

[alpha]

Will this turn things bad if I only have 64megs?

[JW310]

What the swap file is, is a file set up on the hard drive that Windows uses as "Virtual Memory" when it uses all available physical memory. It is much more efficient to make the best use out of physical memory before going to virtual memory (swap file).

Haven't tried this trick, myself... Don't know if it'll work with Win2k.

JW

[arn]

I tried it , it works, it gave me 10 meg more of free ram (Using RamPage).

I'm confused, wouldn't that mean that its swaping out that other 10 to the HDD?

arn

[stylin19]

here's a pretty good explaination:

conservative swap (http://members.aol.com/AXCEL216/98-4.htm#COSW)

[This message has been edited by stylin19 (edited 03-13-2000).]

[pickel]

The way I read this is..if you let Windows manage your virtual memory...Right????

[sparki]

hey been trying this out for a while now played a BIIGGGGG session of UT after sysopt server i went and bought it. must of been on for over 2.5 hrs i started to find that the game had the effectof a laggy net server i've got 196 MB. i think it used as mush physical as it could then though i'll use the swap file now. it speeds up access in windoze ref:above but when playing games i suggeest turning it off.

[jadison]

I tried it and I don't see any real improvement...id u could explain what exactly swap file usage is, I might better be able to understand. Thankx

[oxOGradiusOxo]

I also tried the tweak, but with some limited success.

I have 128MB of ram installed on my system. I worked on my website a little, but it's FAR FAR from being done. ( http://www.virtualtrends.com/gradius ) I had Adobe Photoshop 5, Adobe Illustrator 8, 3 IE Windows, Macromedia Dreamweaver 3, with only 3 things in the system tray (CPUidle, my SBLive! tray thing, and Logitech Wingman Profiler) I tried opening my CD player to listen to a CD, and an OUT OF MEMORY PLEASE CLOSE SOME APPLICATIONS message came up. Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen that happen.
Windows started to slow down, and I almost thought it was going to lock up on me because I could open/close any windows and save my work. Luckily, after a few minutes of paitent waiting, I saved, closed, rebooted, and changed back to my default settings.