Lab 4-9 Memory Management in Vista

 

Vista manages memory WAY different from Windows XP using some of the new features of Vista. Vista promises that the more RAM you feed it, the more responsive it will be to you. It uses its new HMMS (Heuristic Memory Management System) technology to achieve this. That means a computer running 1 GB with Vista and a computer running 1 GB with XP will probably be the same, but add another GB to Vista and you’ll see extreme boosts in performance that you would not see with XP.

 

 

Memory Management Technologies in Vista:

o  Superfetch

o  ReadyBoost

 

Superfetch works kind of like pre-fetch works with CPU registers. It starts to learn the programs you use more often and loads them into RAM. So if every time you boot up you open iTunes, Vista will say “Hey, this dude likes music. I shall pre-load iTunes and when he clicks the icon, it will load and he will think I am wicked fast and love me forever.” Superfetch can also give your often used applications priority over background tasks. So if you’re a WOW freak (and let’s face it, most of you are…nerds) and your virus software kicks in, Vista should say “Hmmm, he plays WOW a lot more than McAfee, so we’ll give WOW a higher priority access to RAM.”

 

As you know, ReadyBoost is a way for users who need a short-term boost of RAM to “add RAM” by using a large(ish) flash drive. Insert a flash drive into a USB 2.0 port and Vista will ask you if you want to use ReadyBoost. Say “yes” and the memory manager will start loading data onto the flash drive for faster access, rather than tossing it all onto the hard drive. Hard drive=slow. Flash drive=fast.

 

You need to use a 1 GB USB 2.0 drive or higher and have at least 230 MB available.

 

So how do we optimize Vista?

 

Performance Information and Tools

 

Rate and Improve Your Computer’s Performance

  1. Go into your Control Panels.
  2. Select Performance Information and Tools (Sometimes you have to select System and Maintenance first).
  3. Click “Rate This Computer”
  4. Print your values. (I got an error when I tried it on one VM system, so if that happens print the error.)

 

Adjust your visual effects

Vista’s pretty “aero” effects are BIG RAM hogs. You can adjust the effects if you need to run on a machine that is running slowly due to lower RAM.

  1. Go back to Performance Information and Tools.
  2. Click on Adjust Your Visual Effects
  3. Click on Adjust for best performance.
  5. What did it do?

 

 

 

  1. Click the Advanced tab. Notice that you can adjust the processor allocation. If you’re running a server, you’re going to want to choose Background Services, because you generally don’t run a lot of applications on a server. Leave it at Programs because that’s best for your system.
  2. Click on Virtual Memory and click Change. By default Vista automatically manages the page file. Turn that off.
  3. Click custom size. Set the initial size at 16 MB and the max at 512 MB. Click Set. (You can change this back to system managed if you find it’s running slower.)
  5. Note: You can put page files across multiple drives! If you have 3 drives in your system, you can move the page file off the drive that holds your operating system, and onto the other two drives. Doing this speeds up performance, sometimes dramatically. Your hard drive can only handle one operation at a time, so if it needs to read the drive for the pagefile and it needs to read the drive for the OS, it’s going to slow down when using virtual memory.
  6. What is virtual memory?

 

 

 

  1. What is a benefit of moving your page file off your system drive and onto another drive?

 

 

 

  1. When might you do NO page file?