virtual memory or whatever its called

Abstraction

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having serious probs with running loads of audio channels, vstis and effects all at the same time, and turning things off when theyre not playing and back on when they are playing is becoming a real pain in the rump. i should be getting a new pc soon but as a short term solution i wondered if i could allocate a bit more of my hard drive as virtual memory so...

how do i change the size of my page file and how do i work out how big (or small) to make it?

if ive completely got the wrong end of the stick about how all that stuff works is there anything else i can do to get things running a bit smoother?
 
Hmm - to be honest you don't really want it accessing the disk at all when you're running audio channels if you can help it.

If you're running XP:

In System Properties(My Computer/Properties)/Advanced/Performance/Advanced, set the 'Processor Scheduling' radio button to 'Background Services', as ASIO, DX and VSTi tasks are all background processes.

If you have 256MB or less, set your virtual memory in System Properties/Virtual Memory/Change (both min and max) to double the amount you have (512MB in the case of 256MB). If you have 512MB or more, you don't really need that much virtual memory, all it'll do is futz with the disk access, so set it to 384MB.

The 'Background Services' tweak is the important one though.

J.
 
RAM is cheap at the moment, throw some more at it, you could always try to use it in your next PC.
 
I've always thought that VM would conflict with some audio applications or drivers, at least on Mac. Or maybe just during installation tho, but not too sure. Better check on this.

Can anyone clarify? Me not good on computer's settings :?


Ta
 
NDY said:
I've always thought that VM would conflict with some audio applications or drivers, at least on Mac. Or maybe just during installation tho, but not too sure. Better check on this.

Can anyone clarify? Me not good on computer's settings :?

On OS9 and earlier, Virtual Memory should be switched OFF.

For OS X, as far as I know, what works for Windows XP should also hold true.

RezN8 said:
RAM is cheap at the moment, throw some more at it, you could always try to use it in your next PC.

I'd need Goz to clarify, but I'm pretty sure that you're going to want the fastest RAM you can afford for your next PC, so while you *can* expand the RAM in your current machine, it might be false economy to do so. Of course, that depends how old your current machine is - My old machine ran on PC133 (Quick for 1999), my new one runs on PC2700 [333DDR].

J.
 
NDY said:
I've always thought that VM would conflict with some audio applications or drivers...Can anyone clarify? Me not good on computer's settings :?


Virtual memory is good in that it can prevent your machine from crashing when physical memory is exhausted. This makes it great for things that must stay up, like fileservers and web servers, for example. Availibility takes priority over performance for these things. (Anyone who ever used Netware 3 will know what it's like not having VM - it just froze when the RAM ran out... great.)

For running audio apps, performance is everything. If you're paging to disk, this kills performance. More RAM sticks required. BTW - reads from RAM are about 1000 times faster than reads from disk.

Check the performance tab in XP's task manager - this can give an idea of whether you are paging to disk or just running out of CPU.

J's suggestion with setting MIN and MAX size the same is good, 'cos then at least if your *are* paging, Windows won't be farting about trying to grow the page file on the fly.
 
JPsychodelicacy said:
Hmm - to be honest you don't really want it accessing the disk at all when you're running audio channels if you can help it.

If you're running XP:

In System Properties(My Computer/Properties)/Advanced/Performance/Advanced, set the 'Processor Scheduling' radio button to 'Background Services', as ASIO, DX and VSTi tasks are all background processes.

If you have 256MB or less, set your virtual memory in System Properties/Virtual Memory/Change (both min and max) to double the amount you have (512MB in the case of 256MB). If you have 512MB or more, you don't really need that much virtual memory, all it'll do is futz with the disk access, so set it to 384MB.

The 'Background Services' tweak is the important one though.

7J.

nice one J for the tip, but i seem to remember the minimum recommended RAM for running XP is 256.... tis why i didn't bother putting XP on my old 64Mb ram machine...

Andrew
 
Double_Helix said:
yeah i want to have ddr in my new pc, this one has sd ram (i think)

DDR is SDRAM, just a later iteration of the design.

Warwick Bassmonkey said:
(Anyone who ever used Netware 3 will know what it's like not having VM - it just froze when the RAM ran out... great.)

Ahh yes, the days of Novell - had a friend even geekier than I was who was into x86 assembler, used to use Ethernet traps to remote control the machines in school. ;)

andrew said:
nice one J for the tip, but i seem to remember the minimum recommended RAM for running XP is 256.... tis why i didn't bother putting XP on my old 64Mb ram machine...

Fair enough - wouldn't recommend less than 512 myself, but there are always people who try ;)

Remember seeing a 486DX2 struggling with Win95 OSR2 once - was quite painful to watch...

J.
 
JPsychodelicacy said:
Remember seeing a 486DX2 struggling with Win95 OSR2 once - was quite painful to watch...
J.

Pah! You've not seen a machine struggle 'til you've had Oracle Enterprise Edition running on a Sun Sparcstation 1 with 32MB of RAM. You can literally hear the bytes clattering through the disk heads one by one.

</g33k :offtopic:>
 
This thread is like one huge ball of acne and dandruff all wrapped in a sweaty Star Trek t-shirt.

I bet none of you have ever had it off with a lady have you...

:rolleyes:
 
Warwick Bassmonkey said:
Pah! You've not seen a machine struggle 'til you've had Oracle Enterprise Edition running on a Sun Sparcstation 1 with 32MB of RAM. You can literally hear the bytes clattering through the disk heads one by one.

</g33k :offtopic:>


Exhibit A M'Lud.

And don't think I'm fooled by your wife and child Chris - she could have set that up with a turkey baster.
 
Ott^ said:
This thread is like one huge ball of acne and dandruff all wrapped in a sweaty Star Trek t-shirt.

I bet none of you have ever had it off with a lady have you...

:rolleyes:

thats rich, Mr "pH34r tH4 l33tN3sS bought-his-laptop-in-tokyo" Ott
 
pH34r m3 0r 3y3 \/\/1lL h4><0R j00 4Nd fu><0R j00r 80><.

3y3 p\/\/n r00T 0n 4lL j00r 80><3s...

\/\/00t!
 
Does anyone know where I am?

I'm fairly certain that clicking this thread activated some kind of internet portal. I just wanted to bid on "L@@K!!! Wooden Jesus Collectible PAYPALONLY" Seller: Liltykesrcool004
 
Ott^ said:
pH34r m3 0r 3y3 \/\/1lL h4><0R j00 4Nd fu><0R j00r 80><.

3y3 p\/\/n r00T 0n 4lL j00r 80><3s...

\/\/00t!

Roughly translated as, "I went 3 years without even getting a sniff of a lady's front bottom."

I remember you telling me you'd forgotten what they looked like.

Smug now though, aren't we?
 
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