win98 memory management question

[bikerbrom]

Hi all, i'm having trouble understanding win98 memory settings/use

I've read that win98 gets no benefit from more than around 192mb RAM, so users can limit it to that in 'virtual memory' (I have 512mb RAM total).

If I did that, would it mean that the total RAM available to both win98 and programmes running within win98 was 192mb?

Or would win98 only be allocated 192mb, while the programmes running within win98 can freely use the remaining 320mb of RAM?

I have 512mb RAM, do the settings below look like they will give me the best performance while eating as little of my meagre RAM as possible?

-my computer-right click-properties-perfomance-'virtual memory':

user-defined: at at least 2.5 times the amount of RAM, e.g. 1536, same for both min and max values so win98 doesn't spend precious processing effort on constantly resizing it.

and under the 'file system' tab- set it to 'desktop computer' (not networks server, which really slows everything down).

-And I've limited how much win98 can use for file buffer space:

(system.ini - the '386Enh' & 'vcache' sections - values are in Kb):

[386Enh]

ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

[vcache]

MinFileCache=65536

MaxFileCache=65536

ChunkSize=512 (someone tested lots of different settings and found 512 gave the best perfomance)

NameCache=2048

DirectoryCache=48

Edited September 28, 2008 by bikerbrom

[bikerbrom]

ok, so I learned a little more about this.......

-clear the 'clipboard' after copying something big, as win98 holds the clipboard contents in memory- can do this by just copying something small, e.g. a single letter.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofive...php/t29312.html

TakuSkan wrote: "people change the role of their Win98 systems from Desktop to Server however ........ The Server role caches more information about files and directories in memory, so Win98 doesn't need to search the disk. It can generally improve performance as long as there's enough memory to begin with.

How to change the typical role:

1. Click Start->Settings->Control Panel->System.

2. Click the Performance tab, then the File System button.

3. Under the Hard Disk tab, select Desktop.

4. Click OK to apply the changes.

5. Restart the computer. "

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835645

"Increasing the cache size makes your storage devices faster, while decreasing it gives you more memory for running apps."

"defragment free memory so Windows doesn’t spend time and effort keeping track of several smaller chunks of memory. With Windows 98 you can do this yourself by choosing Start, Shut Down and then cancelling the shut down process."

http://apptools.com/rants/resources.php

Gary White says of win98:

"many applications install small programs that are started when the system starts. Each of these use resources.

As you run various applications, each application further depletes these system resources. Theoretically, when an application terminates, the resources it used should be returned to the operating system to use for other applications. In the real world, this doesn't always happen. In some cases, it is normal. Some shared resources are not loaded until an application requests them. Those are not normally released when the application terminates."

"The Windows NT memory model is the answer. Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP share a vastly different memory model. Under this NT based memory management system, resources are not limited. As long as you have enough physical memory (RAM) or virtual memory (disk space) your applications will not run out of resources. The Windows NT memory system allocates resources dynamically. As long as the memory is available, your application can have it.

Even better, each application gets its own virtual copy of the operating system. That means that, applications are isolated and, if an error occurs, system memory is not corrupted. When an application terminates, all the memory allocated to it is released back to the operating system. "

FAT32 HDD:

based on 32 bits, which can only be arranged in 67,108,864 ways, so any HDD partition can only be divided into 67,108,864 clusters maximum, with a cluster size limit of 32,768bytes, multiply the two and you get a max possible HDD partition size of 2 terrabytes. (from 'the unauthorised guide to ms win98se')

also gives HDD/cluster sizes:

8-16GB - 8192bytes

16-32gb - 16,382bytes

over 32gb - 32,768bytes (divided by 1024 = 32kb)

Edited September 25, 2008 by bikerbrom

[cannie]

I have 512mb RAM, do the settings below look like they will give me the best performance while eating as little of my meagre RAM as possible?

I also use Windows 98 SE and 512 mb, which is the maximum memory allowed. This amount is used completely when needed, but it is not recommended to use it all for file cache.

I used the program Boostspeed to configure it and it established the following values at System.ini:

MinFileCache=0

MaxFileCache=393216

chunksize=512

I have Windows 98/XP in double boot. XP doesn't have resource problems at all, but has other snags instead that make me use rather Windows 98 whenever possible.

All NT OS (Windows NT, 2000, Server 2003, XP and Vista) are network OS (there's always an "Administrator"), being Windows 98 SE the last OS created by Microsoft for ordinary "users".

Edited September 25, 2008 by cannie

[dencorso]

I also use Windows 98 SE and 512 mb, which is the maximum memory allowed.

Sorry, but you can use more than that. It's easy. And your XP will be happy with more RAM, too!

Please read Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM and the links thereof.

[cannie]

-

Edited September 30, 2008 by cannie

[cannie]

Wrong entry. Please disregard.

Edited September 30, 2008 by cannie

[cannie]

Sorry, but you can use more than that. It's easy. And your XP will be happy with more RAM, too!

Please read Day-to-day running Win 9x/ME with more than 1 GiB RAM and the links thereof.

I had problems long ago with the memory size, and somebody explained to me that a bug in Windows 98 crops up if you have more than 512MB of memory installed, and for this reason the OS reported the problem saying "There is not enough memory available to run this program. Quit one or more programs, and then try again".

I reduced the size to 512MB and left Boostspeed configure the memory the way I explained, and I have not changed anything afterwards.

In that time I didn't even know the existence of this forum.

Now I see there are other solutions for this problem.

Excellent news!

Thank you very much, dencorso!

Edited September 30, 2008 by cannie