Thread: Virtual RAM

A friend told me that he knows a guy who is running 7 Gigs of RAM, along with 20 Gigs of Virtual RAM.
What exactly is Virtual RAM, how does it work, could it speed up my computer, and how would I go about installing it?

Virtual memory only comes into play if you run low on RAM, I think.

It is basically just a certain amount of hard drive space saved for emergencies. And I am sure most computers have like roughly 1GB as default. You can change it somewhere, can't remember where.


I'm pretty sure that is correct anyway.

Virtual RAM is where the OS starts putting what's in the RAM out to disk when it's running out so that the active program runs faster. There is no such thing as 20GB of virtual ram, the OS will use as much as it needs until it runs out of space.

So I can't add partition off a part of my hard drive as virtual RAM and use it to speed up my computer? Like to make my games run better?

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.

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.)