Analyze with Real Time MonitoringThe first step in Memory Management is analyzing the current condition of your PC Memory. In Windows you are afforded two options for real time monitoring of your computer resources; Task Manager and Performance Monitor. Task manager provides access to the current state of applications, processes, performance, and networking. You may access Task Manager by using the Control-Alt-Del key combination and the selecting Task Manger or Control-Shift-ESC will launch Task Manager directly. Selecting the Performance Tab speaks for itself, if you want to evaluate PC Performance what do we need to look at? The load on the CPU, and Memory. You will see Page File Usage gets a lot of attention and there are three memory statistics also being tracked, Physical, Kernel, and Commit Charge.
PC memory management is a combination of evaluationg the fixed amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) the computer has and the virtual memory that is created. The virtual memory store is located on the hard drive, data is "paged" into this area. There is a certain amount of paging going on all the time, not only when the need exceeds the RAM. In the screenshot above the Paging File Usage and History show how much of the pagefile is actually being used. Use this to determine if the pagefile is an appropriate size. If this counter gets to 100%, the pagefile is full and performance will be severly impacted. Ideally you should manage your virtual memory to keep this below 75%. My Video Improving Performance with Memory will review manging virtual memory. Physical Memory is the total of your RAM. Kernel Memory is used by the operating system, you see that it maintains some paged memory and an amount of non-paged, direct access memory. Nonpaged is only available to the operating system. Commit Charge represents the total allocated to programs and the operating system; RAM and virtual, so the Limit will exceed your Total seen under Physical Memory. Analyzing the real time performance indictors can provide you with the information you need to determine why you may be experiencing a decrease in performance. Another option available in certain Microsoft Operating Systems (XP Pro and Server) is Performance Monitor, it is available in the Administrative Tools group. In this video I review adding Page File Monitoring in Performance Monitor. Page File % Usage should be less than 75% When Performance Tuning only modify one setting or property at a time. If the result of your changes actually decrease performance, you'll have to start over. Once you have analyzed your system and tweaked your virtual memory you are able to make an educated decision in regard to your memory management and if the next appropriate step is to add more physical memory. More Tuning Tips
From Control PanelSystem System Properties Advanced Tab - Performance - Settings Advanced Tab Processor Scheduling - Select Background Services Memory Usage - Select System Cache Try one at a time to see if you notice better system performance. Also see PC Memory Page for more tips
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