Optimize WinXP virtual memory detailed [multiple map]

What is virtual memory?

Virtual Memory is Windows XP as part of the hard disk space used as memory. Virtual memory is essential even if physical memory is large. Virtual memory on the hard disk is actually a huge file, the file name is PageFile.Sys, usually can not be seen. The resource manager's protection of system files must be turned off to see this file. Virtual memory is sometimes referred to as a "page file" or from the file name of the file.

Setting up the hard disk

Optimizing the virtual memory, why do you want to set the hard disk? This is because virtual memory files (also known as page files) are stored on the hard disk, and improving the performance of the hard disk can also improve the performance of the memory to some extent.

1. Enable disk write cache

Right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties -> Hardware" to open the device manager to find the hard disk currently in use. Click the right mouse button to select an attribute. In the Policy page of the hard disk properties, turn on Enable Write Cache on Disk, as shown in Figure 1.

This option will activate the write cache of the hard disk, thus improving the read and write speed of the hard disk. However, be aware that after this feature is turned on, if the computer suddenly loses power, it may result in irreparable data loss. It is therefore best to turn this feature back on with a UPS. Of course, if you don't do any important data processing work when you use your computer normally, it doesn't matter if you don't have a UPS. This function will not cause too much damage to the system.

2. Open Ultra MDA

In the device management, select "Basic/Secondary IDE Controller" in IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, right click and select "Properties" to open Advanced Settings page. The most important setting item here is the "transport mode". Generally, you should select "DMA (if available)", as shown in Figure 2.

3. Configuring recovery options

When a fatal error occurs during Windows XP, a snapshot of the memory is saved as a file for system debugging, for most For ordinary users, this file is of no use, but it will affect the performance of virtual memory. So it should be closed.

Right-click on My Computer, select Properties -> Advanced, click the Settings button under Performance, and select Advanced in Performance Options. . There is a "memory usage" option. If you set it to "system cache", Windows XP will use about 4MB of physical memory as the cache for reading and writing the hard disk, which can greatly improve the data exchange between physical memory and virtual memory. speed. By default, this option is turned off. If your computer has sufficient physical memory, such as 256M or more, it is best to turn this option on. However, if physical memory is tight, you should still leave the default options, as shown in Figure 3.

Page File Settings

Page File Size Calculation

The page file size varies from computer to computer. Regarding the page file size setting, there are two widely spread "formulas", "physical memory X2.5" or "physical memory X1.5". These two calculation methods are simple, but not applicable to all computers. The most accurate way to set the page file size is to look at the page file size that the computer actually uses in normal operation.

With the built-in logging function of Windows XP, you can monitor the size of the page file normally used by your computer for the most accurate settings. The specific steps are as follows.

1. Right click on "My Computer", select "Properties -> Advanced", click the "Settings" button under "Performance", then select the "Advanced" page, click The Change button under Virtual Memory. Select "Custom Size" and set both "Start Size" and "Maximum" to 300M, which is just a temporary setting. Restart the computer after the setup is complete for the settings to take effect.

2. Go to Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> Management Tools, open Performance, expand Performance Logs and Warnings, and select Counter Log. Right-click on the right side of the window and select "New Log Settings", as shown in Figure 4.

Third, the casual setting of a log name, such as "monitor the virtual memory size", shown in Figure 5.

Fourth, in the "General" page, click the "Add Counters" button, shown in Figure 6.

selected in the "Performance object" in the "Paging File", then select the "Select counters from list" following "% Usage Peak", and "select examples from the list" on the right, select " _Total". Finally click the "Add" and "Close" buttons, as shown in Figure 7.

V. Don't forget to remember the location and file name of the log file in the "Log File" page. We need to check this log later to determine how much virtual memory Windows XP usually uses. In this example, the log files are stored in the D:Perflog directory, as shown in Figure 8.

Also set the "log file type" to "text file", which is easy to read, as shown in Figure 9.

Then you can see just in front of the new log entry into a green icon, which indicates that the log monitoring system has been in virtual memory. If the icon is still red, you should right-click and select "Start" to start the log.

After opening this CVS file for a while, we can see the following entries, as shown in Figure 10. This log file records

use this period of time in the page file, pay attention to where the unit is%, not MB. With a simple calculation, we can get the minimum size of the page file, the formula is "page file size X percentage". For example, in this example, the maximum usage ratio of virtual memory is 31%, 300MBX31%=93MB, which is the minimum value of virtual memory (note that 300MB is the temporary value of the previous setting).

If the physical memory is large, consider setting the "start size" and "maximum" of the page file to be equal, equal to the size calculated in the previous step. In this way, disk fragmentation will not occur due to page file transition expansion. The side effect is that the "maximum value" is set to be small. In case of accidental virtual memory overrun, the system may crash.
Set Page File

Now go back to the "Virtual Memory" settings dialog and select the custom size and set the "Initial Size" and "Maximum" according to the above calculation results, as shown in Figure 11. Here we set the "initial size" to 91M and the "maximum" to 200M, which is safer.

Defragmenting Page Files

Windows XP requires a lot of access to page files. If the page files are fragmented, system performance will be seriously affected and the hard disk will be shortened. Service life. So it is necessary for us to defragment the page files on a regular basis.

But don't forget that the page file is a system key file that Windows XP cannot access when it is running. So defragmenting it is not an easy task. We have two options to choose from. One is to install Windows dual system, and then start another Windows to defragment the partition where Windows XP is located. The second is to use specialized tool software, such as System File Defragmenter.