Thread: Virtual RAM

Originally Posted by ninja9578

It only makes your computer run faster if you run out of memory. *nix uses a lazy page swapping system, meaning everything stays in RAM until the OS needs more.

Does that apply if I'm using Windows 7? (Because I am.)

Virtual memory / swap space is a section of hard disk that is reserved by the OS for when the system runs out of memory

Hard disks are considerably slower than RAM, so no, it will not speed up a system (the only thing swap space does is mitigate the chances of running out of memory

The only way to speed up a system is
1) get faster hardware
2) use more efficient software

Originally Posted by Ynot

Virtual memory / swap space is a section of hard disk that is reserved by the OS for when the system runs out of memory

Hard disks are considerably slower than RAM, so no, it will not speed up a system (the only thing swap space does is mitigate the chances of running out of memory

The only way to speed up a system is
1) get faster hardware
2) use more efficient software

Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

Virtual RAM is 10,000x slower than RAM, it will never speed up anything, just allow more stuff to run.

I believe it's possible to use USB drives as pagefiles in Windows Vista and Windows 7. This might be slightly more efficient than a harddrive based pagefile, however, getting more RAM is always a better way to go about it. RAM is incredibly cheap anyway.