how to get the best from 2 GB ram

Hi there

as in my sing i have 2 GB of ram but while running more than 4 Apps the usage of ram is only 27% and Firefox doesn't start up as fast as i want

first
1) is there any thing to do to increase the ram usage and make the OS run more smooth
2)is it good to disable pagefile

 

Firefox isn't starting as fast because it has to do networking stuff that takes time, and RAM really won't help much. I'd download the FasterFox extension, but that is about all you can do. Programs only take as much as they need to do their job efficiently, so 27% is about all you're going to end up using I'm afraid.

So...
1) Not really...at least I don't think so.
2) You do NOT want to disable the Windows pagefile. Some programs always use it, even with 2GB of RAM, so you kind of shoot yourself in the foot by doing that.

 

I have 2GB RAM, and I run XP without a page file 90% of the time. I do a standard stuff like internet, email, movies and a bit of web/windows programming with IIS and VS .Net. I only need to turn it on for loading new games.

IMO if you don’t play demanding games or don't run memory intensive applications like data base servers, then turning off page file is not a big risk. However if you get a memory error and if the application or windows crashes while running without a page file, you may loose any unsaved data.

 

Some applications (like Photoshop) REQUIRE a pagefile to exist. Set it to something like 256MB, and leave it be. It won't be used unless you need it, really, so there's no harm in leaving it enabled, except for the hard drive space it uses.

 

I agree with night about downloading the Fasterfox extension. My Firefox comes up pretty fast with it.

 

I would set your file to 2GB anyway...XP can only address 4GB, so 2GB+2GB is will give it anything it could possibly use and it saves you some hard drive space.

 

Ah, yes Photoshop (slipped my mind). There are few applications like that which won’t work without the swap file. If you do decide to turn it off, then remember to turn it on if you get some weird error with some application (because the error message may not always give out an out of memory message)

Despite the errors, I personally feel a noticeable difference without the swap file.

 

I don't believe Fasterfox helps increase startup time. I think it only helps change internet settings within the software to help increase browsing speed. The program that will speed up startup is Firefox Preloader.

This will actually load Firefox into RAM when Windows starts. That way, the software does not need to load it later. It may slow your Windows start time a bit, but I think this is what you're looking for.

 

That could be. It could be Windows has a really crappy algorithm for swapping out pages, and constantly accesses things that are paged to disk, making the system seem slower. Or it could be something else

The ONLY thing that I could see it being is that it's taking up memory bus bandwidth reading and writing to the disk, or perhaps the algorithm for determining dirty or old pages is somehow really, really bad. But I doubt that.

 

I'm sure you're probably right on that. Have you tried FF Preloader? Now my curiousity is piqued.

 

LOL

No matter what, if there is a HDD page file windows will use it. You can check your self. Load up several applications : several instances of MS Word + PowerPoint with data, couple of IE browser instances and play a movie and a mp3, after few minutes try switching between them. With swap file there is ALWAYS a small delay and some hdd activity, but it is instantaneous without the swap. Try it out and you’ll see what I mean.

Windows will swap out all minimized applications after a while. Therefore if you keep many applications minimized but switch between them regularly, then you can definitely feel the difference.

 

Lol, I guess I'll be a beta tester for you... downloading it right now...

Matt

 

hello

i try to diable the page file and if there will be any problem i will check

i have downloaded Fasterfirefox from more than month but know i just play with the options and set the memory cache capacity more than 600mb

FFpreloader doesn't do it and it's run at the same startup speed thanks

know my fire fox use +40mb and sometimes it reaches +70mb and i have no problem

while there's no page file
and these programs are running:
open office write
open office impress
paint.net
acer arcade
Thunderbird
Firefox
Flashget
WMP
acer ePerfomance
and some programs at the back ground
then i can reach 41% hardly
and then i turn on spider-man 2 game(old game)
and psx emulator
i can reach 48%
that's all while turning off the paging file
so the most one uses the ram is soffice (i think this is for openoffice)
i said let's close all applications and try to open one by one again
then

wow open office application can run in less that 0.5 sec
the same for paint.net

and there's nothing slow down my computer

feel free to post more tricks to get the best out of our wasted and unused 1.5GB free memory

 

Theoretically, if you have sufficient RAM, you should be able to get away with disabling your pagefile, since its purpose is to act as RAM if you run out... however, I'd be careful with that... 2 GB and higher should be ok I'd assume...

Oh, and the Firefox Preloader works great. I'm using Vista, by the way. Firefox is loading as quickly as Notepad for goodness sake... I'm sure if I disabled Vista's windows effects (fading in), it'd be instantaneous.

Matt

 

Yeah, I have used FF Preloader, and it does work great. FF will open at a similar speed to IE, which is much faster than normal. Since you aren't concerned with using extra RAM, that program would definitely be the way to go.

Without the preloader, the more extensions and home pages you have, the slower FF loads (at least from my experience).

 

Don't close programs.
If you've got enough RAM, leave Firefox running. Then you don't have to wait for it to start up.
Seriously, that's actually a fairly common technique (Mac OS does this automatically under the hood. Same with pocket pc's. In an ideal world, you shouldn't need to close applications. Just minimize them when you're done with them.
Sometimes this might not be practical (because you're low on memory, or the app has a memory leak or whatever else), which just goes to show that we don't live in a perfect world after all. But when possible, just minimize your apps instead of closing them.

Only if you desperately need the harddisk space that gets freed.
It won't speed up your system or anything.
And it means there's a risk of your apps crashing due to running out of memory.

 

I'll try it then.

 

I can't say I've ever noticed the delay, but paging doesn't necessarily slow things down. (Just because it writes data to the pagefile doesn't mean it flushes them from RAM. It might keep data in both for a while, so that if it needs to free memory, it can just flush some RAM, since the data is already in the pagefile, and if it doesn't need to do that, it's still got a RAM copy of the data, so it doesn't need to wait to read back from the pagefile.

 

BTW , i tried Firefox preloader again and first i restart my computer i notice no startup time diffrenet

I'm happily that i have session manager extension
you'll ask me why?
because FFPreloader seem to load a hidden about:blank page at start up so it doesn't restore your session and session seem to be my problem so just use this useful Ext.

 

You can disable some unneeded Processes under msconfig/services. That makes the system overall faster in my experience. All disable unneeded startup processes

Also defraging helps.

I never tried FasterFox, never though FF was slow enough to need it.

 

Ok then.

Yet another great post by Jalf.

Matt

 

Ever since upgrading to 2gb, I run exclusively without a swap file. Not to save HD space, but for the performance benefits.

 

Reading this theory for the second time, I realized that Firefox might not be the best example since it has a memory leak.

Nonetheless, good concept.

Matt

 

Memory leak or no, it stays at around 90-100mb for me when idling after some hours of use. If I open lots of pictured tabs, it can increase to 150/200/higher mb, but after closing the tabs, it drops down to 100mb again.

So if you have 2gb of RAM, it still makes sense to just leave Firefox running. It doesn't just consume more and more memory until it's taken up both gigs.

 

Quite honestly, 100MB is not acceptable for a web browser... and 200MB is just outrageous.

I love Firefox, and its memory leak isn't going to stop me from using it, but I would like it fixed... For instance, right now, I have 3 tabs open, on both Firefox and IE. Same tabs on both.

Firefox: 100MB
IE: 25MB

Hopefully this will get fixed in a patch or in Firefox 3. Also, Firefox takes nearly twice as long to load than IE, if you're not using Firefox Preloader - which, honestly, could use some improvement. (When you restart Firefox for add-on installation, Preloader stays running, so you never really restarted it...)

Matt

 

100mb was significant when I had 512mb of ram, but with 2gigs, it's a drop in the bucket. Right now, with 3 tabs open, I'm on ~86mb. The 200mb figure I quoted came from when I opened 36 tabs of text and images. I'd expect any browser to jump significantly in memory under such strain. Not outrageous - just realistic.

I guess it depends on what you expect from a browser with respect to the resources you have available. I don't consider Firefox's memory use to be a problem with the amount of memory I have. I don't know how long IE takes to load or how much memory it uses, because I stopped using IE as my main browser years ago, and have to desire to return to it. On my comp, Firefox + add ons opens in seconds, consumes an acceptable footprint, and does everything I need it to. If it used 50mb instead of 100mb, it would make a difference on my old computer, but it wouldn't change anything on my new one.

 

Could the Firefox Preloader be why crapcleaner says to close Firefox so it can clean the cache, when I don't have Firefox open? I was going to make a post on this awhile back and I forgot.

 

Yep, that'd be why. That's another thing... I was trying to install PS months ago and couldn't figure it out.