Week 6 - Virtual Memory and How It Works

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Virtual memory is a way for your computer to use RAM memory more efficiently.  It is a "copy and paste" function where your computer finds memory in RAM that isn't being used a lot and transfers it onto a section of your hard drive, called the page file in order to save it.  This frees up more RAM to be used for things that are needed quickly.  Its kind of like when you are building a report and you cut and paste a section of wording onto a "second" document in order to save it for later, except it is all done automatically.  Then when its needed, it is just copied and pasted right back into the original document as if it was never gone. This is called thrashing.

Computers nowadays have 32 or 64 megabytes of RAM to be used for all of the programs that you are trying to run at once.  That just isn't enough for it to run effectively.  Your computer would crash or would simply put an error pop up on your screen to alert that it is no longer going to work at this pace.  Using this technique will basically trick your CPU into thinking that it has an endless amount of RAM and will keep just about anything that you want it to.  As long as you have enough RAM to cover your specific need installed into your computer, you will not notice any performance slowing.  If you use a lot of RAM at once, you probably should install more RAM to satisfy that usage and keep it running efficiently.  Hard drive space is a lot less expensive than RAM expansion memory, so it would be best to purchase your computer with enough RAM to expand into. 

Your operating system should have enough of this virtual memory space or page file size for use, but should you want to change the size or location (if you have a partition and would like it to handle your virtual memory), you would find it on Windows 10 in the settings, under the Control Panel→System and Security→System→Advanced tab→Settings→(Under Virtual Memory) Change.  This is the screen that you see to the left.  You can leave it on auto pilot (recommended) or if you need to change it, change the drive location and size of the space needed for the page file.  

References

Tyson, J. (2000, Aug). how Virtual Memory Works. Retrieved April 18, 2020, from HowStuffWorks.com: https://computer.howstuffworks.com/virtual-memory1.htm