Desktop memory conflicts

[mntijo]

Hello, I just discovered that I have 3 sticks of 512 ram but when I looked in the system info, there is a difference of 512 between the physical memory and virtual memory. I have a Asus A7V333 MB w/DDR and AMD Athlon(TM)XP2200+ processor. Is physical & virtual memory suppose to match, is so how do I fix this?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Virtual memory will always be higher than physical memory since virtual memory includes physical memory + pagefile. If you exceed physical memory, data starts getting moved to the pagefile (virtual memory). The pagefile is slower than your physical memory.

 

[ulillillia]

Physical memory is not the same as virtual memory. I don't recall what virtual memory is, but physical memory is actual RAM usage. The two almost never match. In fact, I constantly find that virtual memory is noticeably less than physical memory. I find that virtual memory is always higher than physical memory. Given this, I think that virtual memory is how much of that program's actual memory can be put in swap file (memory on the hard drive that is extremely slow in comparison).

 

[Hawkeye22]

The two almost never match. In fact, I constantly find that virtual memory is noticeably less than physical memory. I find that virtual memory is always higher than physical memory.

Ummm, you are contradicting yourself... in adjacent sentences even.

 

[ulillillia]

Virtual memory will always be higher than physical memory since virtual memory includes physical memory + pagefile. If you exceed physical memory, data starts getting moved to the pagefile (virtual memory). The pagefile is slower than your physical memory.

Actually, that is not entirely the case. In my Windows Task Manager, I'm seeing that almost every program I have running, VM Size is greater than mem usage. For example, I have GIMP running where I have 344 MB of RAM being used, but VM usage is only 332 MB - VM is using 12 MB less. Firefox, for me, is using 187 MB with VM Size as 182 MB.

 

[ulillillia]

I accidentally referenced the "peak mem usage" column. Still, I find "mem usage" is almost always higher than VM Size. This screenshot proves this:

 

[Hawkeye22]

Actually, that is not entirely the case. In my Windows Task Manager, I'm seeing that almost every program I have running, VM Size is greater than mem usage. For example, I have GIMP running where I have 344 MB of RAM being used, but VM usage is only 332 MB - VM is using 12 MB less. Firefox, for me, is using 187 MB with VM Size as 182 MB.

You are looking at individual applications. Go to the system information screen. Vitual memory is always higher.

Edit:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-virtual-memory

 

[mntijo]

Best answer selected by mntijo.