How to Free Up your Virtual Memory
Level of difficulty: Intermediate
When you run several applications at the same time like downloading music, watching music or online gaming, you are utilizing a large part of your computer’s RAM or random access memory. The RAM is a type of data storage for your computer. It comes in the form of integrated circuits which allow the access of the data stored in a random order. If your computer system lacks the sufficient amount of required RAM, it will begin running using your virtual memory. Virtual memory refers to a technique in the computer system that provides the application with the impression that it possesses an adjacent and functioning memory even when it could be fragmented physically and could even overflow to the disk storage. The systems that employ this technique have made the programming of larger programs a breeze and the usage of real memory such as the RAM has become more efficient. Virtual memories have allowed resources to become virtualized as memories for particular systems as opposed to large pools of memory that are being virtualized into small pools of memories for several various systems.
Materials Needed:- RAM
- Computer
- Virtual Memory
Step 1
The Windows Operating System sets the paging file size at a minimum based on the amount of the random access memory or RAM installed in your computer system plus another 300 megabytes. When you are constantly receiving warnings from your computer stating that your virtual memory is falling dangerously low, you may have to increase your virtual memory’s size.
Step 2
Increasing the size of your computer system’s virtual memory should not cost you a thing. Doing so should begin by clicking on the Start button and then proceeding to the Control Panel. From there, you will have to click on System.
Step 3
Look for the Advanced System settings which will then be displayed on the left panel and click on it. When the new tab is displayed, click on the Advanced tab and underneath the Performance tab, click on Settings.
Step 4
Find the Advanced button and then click on it again. Locate the virtual memory tab and under it, click on the Change button. Uncheck the option box which automatically manages the paging file size for all of the drives.
Step 5
Under the tab Drive, choose the drive that you wish to modify the size of the virtual memory of. Click on Custom size and then select the new size that you wish to set the virtual memory to. Click on the Set button and then lastly, click on OK.
Step 6
Increasing the size of your computer system’s virtual memory would require you to restart your computer. However, decreasing the virtual memory size does not require you to do so.