I'm having a hard time finding any clear explanation to how the vcache minfilecache/maxfilecache settings work on windows 9x systems and properly configure them. I have seen vague / limited or conflicting sources on how it works and / or what settings to use for "proper" function. 

Some sources put a minfilecache far less than the maxfilecache, others like myself put the same amount for both, then there's what appears to be a guideline on not setting the minfilecache to less than 1/24 of usable ram, which is what i also use alongside the same maxfilecache size, and this generally works in terms of not generating as much "strange" errors, but the caching inside windows significantly goes past this, and someone can correct me if im wrong, but it doesn't appear that win9x has a separate "file / system cache", in other words, minfilecache/maxfilecache and system / file cache are essentially the same thing?

I also came across something interesting mentioned by rloew in a fairly old post, suggesting that if the maxfilecache is set lower than the internal assigned minfilecache that can be checked in a registry area ( HKEY_DYN_DATA\PerfStats\StatData VCACHE\cMinPages ), then it will not respect the settings. At the same time i was researching this matter, i was discussing this with chatgpt, and they said that even if i used the setting in registry for the internal assigned one for minfilecache, it wouldn't matter, because the vcache function is dynamic and constantly changing. 

I also came across another post here "https://web.archive.org/web/20100917110735/http://adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz/Disk_Cache_Optimization/Disk_Cache_Optimization_03.htm", that mentions "But if you set MinFileCache to the same value as MaxFileCache, Win9x would simply ignore it and use the swapfile instead.", which im not sure is accurate or not? Also even if that were correct, that doesn't seem to answer the part on caching overall and why my system's resources quickly deplete with just opening file explorer a few times just after boot, and i'll just assert that my problem is not due to memory leaks, but rather windows aggressively caching, whether dynamically or not, and i dont want aggressive caching. 

For more clarification on the above, the tested systems had 1/24 of system ram for minfilecache/maxfilecache, with maxphyspage=40000, on cold boot system resources were about 94 percent after a little bit sitting at idle, which makes sense if windows caches roughly 42 MB, and the OS is another 20 MB or so added on top, but as soon as i open file explorer, exit and check resources again, it goes quickly down to 8x percent, and even 7x percent after not too long, though it does go back up to 8x again, but it usually stays a few percent lower than 94 for the remaining time. 

And then there are programs like cacheman that modify disk cache size, presumably meant for vache settings, but is that any different than just manually editing the system.ini settings yourself, because if not, the program wouldn't really be useful for that area, other than offering some minor convenience, though there is other settings like vfat contiguous / path cache / name cache / read ahead threshold, but even here, it's not clear as to whether or not those tweaks can help if windows already dynamically adjusts these areas with a supposed "optimal" range? 

Having the minimum file cache equal to the maximum means there will be no variation and the file cache will be fixed to what you have set the maximum at. A setting of 16MB of file cache is too small and the operating system will be restricted at that setting. To fix your situation I would increase the maximum file cache by 4 times of that you have and give that a go. It should not be a problem if you increase it even further. It does affect some programming when going beyond >300MB. It is essential to have a reasonable amount of file cache like 300MB when playing games. City builders like Glory of the Roman Empire require it.

There is exact answer your question. Stan Mitchell, Inside the Windows 95 File System,1997