Memory question

I have 1 gig of memory with a P4 2.66ghz CPU, WinXp Pro OS, and a MSI GeForceFX5200 128mB 8x videocard. I remember on my 1.1ghz Celeron system with 384 mB f memory, my programs would take up more memory (ie Halflife). I see now that my programs take less memory. I was wondering how I can tell them to use more memory. I told windows to optimize for programs rather than services. I figure by letting my programs use more memory, they would run a helluvalot better. If this is problem, how do I fix it?

 

Maybe you can try to make the swap file smaller.

Right click on my computer, go to properties, go to the advanced tab, then in the performance section click on settings, then go to the advanced tab. In the virtual memory section click on change. Select the custom button and change the settings. There's usually a range. Mine is from 768mb to 1536mb. Try putting the same value as the min and max swap file size.

Don't go below the recommended size, which is indicated at the bottom of the window.

EDIT: I'm moving the thread in the "Operating Systems and Tweaks" section

 

Tweak your Memory usage

IMHO, the easiest way to get much better perfomance with XP than out-of-the-box, is to get XTEQ-setup free from www.xteq.com. It'll let you turn up the I/O Lock Pages from the stock 1/2mb up to 128mb. Also, you can force 16-bit apps (if you run any) to run in seperate memory space to increase stability. Finally, use it to disallow XP's ability to page the kernel (to the HDD), thus increasing performance even more at the expense of RAM. You should notice a big performance gain after this. XTEQ --> SYSTEM --> MEMORY

 

I didn't think of this earlier, but you can turn off a fairly useless, performance-eating feature of W2K / XP by adding the following to your registry:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001

That'll turn off the feature of Windows that constantly writes timestamps to files every time they are accessed, increasing HDD performance. I can't really see the usefullness of "Last Used" timestamps personally, but it's easy to turn back on if you change your mind later. Just change the dword value to 00000000 instead of 00000001.