It is not a very smart program and I guess neither am I.
Go ask MS about their memory management in their various operating systems. Ask them why there is a practical limit of 512 MB on Windows 98 (I mean for me ok?) and of course your question.
This won't tell you either but....
<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q99/7/07.asp&NoWebContent=1" target="_new">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q99/7/07.asp&NoWebContent=1</A>
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/ferds3/memory_management.htm
" target="_new">http://www.geocities.com/ferds3/memory_management.htm
</A>
Memory Management
We already know that Windows uses special drivers to manage memory. In Windows 3.x, HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE allow you to manage your upper/high memory settings within DOS, and Windows itself was responsible for Virtual Memory management. Windows 9x is a little different.
Before we go to far, I want to explain EXACTLY what virtual memory is. Under DOS, we didn't have the concept of Virtual Memory. Windows 3.x introduced it as a way to expand the available amount of memory in a computer to run more applications at once. It uses the hard drive as a memory page file or swap file. When your memory fills up beyond a certain point, RAM instructions are sent to a file on the hard drive and stored there much the same way they are in regular RAM. The difference is that RAM is about 300 times faster than your hard drive. So although virtual memory gave you the ability to run larger programs and more of them at the same time, it slowed down the running of these programs by making them dependant on hard drive speed.
I guess the important implication here is <b> "beyond a certain point";</b> that is where the memory management algorithm kicks in.
<A HREF="http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/courses/3013-A01/slides/vmem.pdf" target="_new">http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/courses/3013-A01/slides/vmem.pdf</A>
<b>A sensible balance between free and used memory:</b>
<A HREF="http://www.jps.at/dev/kurs/3-7.html" target="_new">http://www.jps.at/dev/kurs/3-7.html</A>
<A HREF="http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:3UeWsWIQa-kJ
eople.msoe.edu/~barnicks/courses/cs384/papers19992000/buyssej-Term.pdf+%22memory+management%22+Windows+%22page+file%22+algorithm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8" target="_new">http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:3UeWsWIQa-kJ
eople.msoe.edu/~barnicks/courses/cs384/papers19992000/buyssej-Term.pdf+%22memory+management%22+Windows+%22page+file%22+algorithm&hl=en&ie=UTF-8</A>
Warning!
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/5374/1-56205-788-x/ch13/ch13.htm" target="_new">http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/5374/1-56205-788-x/ch13/ch13.htm</A>
WARNING Disabling virtual memory completely is not recommended. Doing so can cause the system to lock and also can prevent the computer from rebooting properly. In addition, overall system performance decreases dramatically.
You probably have seen Out of Memory error messages while running multiple Windows-based applications under Windows 3.x, even though the system still reported several megabytes of available free memory when you consulted the Help About dialog box. What you encountered, although you probably didn't know it, was a condition in which the system could not allocate an internal memory resource in a Windows API function call because it didn't have enough space available in the memory heap.
Windows 3.x maintains heaps for system components called GDI and USER. Each heap is 64 KB in size and is used for storing GDI or memory object information allocated when an application calls a Windows API. The GDI (Graphic Device Interface) space is used to describe and "tag" objects like windows, dialog boxes, icons, and so on. USER space is used to control input and output for device drivers, such as the keyboard, video card, and printer. Both USER and GDI only have a finite amount of memory assigned to them, but Windows 98 has more and better USER and GDI memory allocation than either Windows 3.x or Windows 95.
Why does the sea rush to shore? Why do the stars go on shining? It's just the way it is!
The loving are the daring!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Flinx on 07/23/03 02:30 PM.</EM></FONT></P>