Windows XP forum: Have 2GB RAM- Reccomended amt.of Virtual Memory?

many will tweak themselves to the point of agita with this one.

What I would try first is to turn off paging entirely and see if you run into memory allocation issues (most probably not with 2GB RAM).
This is how I run most of my computers, as this way the O/S and apps all run in physcial RAM rather than paging to/from the hard disks - removes the paging performance hit!!

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I'm gonna try turning off the Paging and see if there are any problems with the machine. Otherwise, I'll just let windows manage it. Thanks again!
Jeff

Dude, you've got plenty enough memory. 2 GB can run most, if not all, the most recent games such as Counter Strike, Halo, etc. Sims is no problem at all compared to those things. Not to mention that you've got a pretty sweet computer, too. :P

Sims 2 is not a particularly high tech game, if you are getting any slow down at all on your computer specs even with only 512MB of ram there is something seriousely wrong somewhere.
Also if you are checking your memory usage and see that for example you are using 1GB of space out of 2GB whist someone elses computer with 1GB of ram is only using 500mb space does not mean any aplications are being memory hogs. RAM is there to be used and if you have the extra space your computer will use as much of it as possible, windows may well cut back when using games on the usage.

your PC is such powerful , that software is not burdensome at all , if your sys recommend you that your virtual memory is problemsome , it means that your PC may have some problem in installation , for example, if your display card is loose or the external connection is loose , the information may be the same that your PC 's virtual memory is insufficient , so your so good PC has not some virtual memory problem , you dont think it at all .

One reason to ditch the page file is to avoid running applications from getting paged to disk and thus decreasing access time.

One reason to keep a page file is that by paging unused applications (and you do get a few such as those that sit idle on your system tray) Windows gets to use your memory as a disk cache and actually decrease the disk access time of whatever is ACTUALLY running.

If you swap back and forth between lots of programs, maybe the first option is better for you. If you use only a few programs at a time, then maybe the second one is better.

I've got 2Gb RAM myself and haven't really noticed much difference on the first option so I went with the second one. I can't be bothered to actually benchmark it and know once and for all what is better, but I do run lots of disk-intensive operations (e.g. processing video files) that I think a disk cache is theoretically a better use for my extra memory (assuming Windows actually makes efficient use of it).

Mike