From: ams AT ludd DOT luth DOT se (Martin Str|mberg) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: EMM386 limiting memory to 32Mb Date: 21 Jul 1998 21:39:38 GMT Organization: University of Lulea, Sweden Lines: 47 Message-ID: <6p31qq$j6$1@news.luth.se> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: my21.sm.luth.se To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Eli Zaretskii (eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il) wrote: : : On 20 Jul 1998, Martin Str|mberg wrote: : : > : IMHO, that's a bad idea. Swap file should be at least twice the : > : installed RAM size, which is impossible with a RAM disk. : > : > Where do you get such a strange idea from? : : From my experience, where else? It could be that my experience is : skewed, but that shouldn't be a reason to get angry. Who's angry? Sorry if I gave that impression, but I'm just trying to explain to you that what you're saying isn't correct. : > Suppose I have 512MB RAM, then I need 1GB swap space? : : When the garden-variety desktop PC will have 512MB of main memory, I : assure you I will revise my views. Nowadays, 16-32MB are the usual : numbers, and some people have less than that. For such systems, I : think that twice those numbers (i.e., at least 64MB of swap) is a good : rule of thumb. : : The reason is that you can easily have two programs in memory, each : one using memory close to these numbers (for example, GCC which runs : under Emacs, or 2 compilations in two DOS boxes), and you don't want : to run out of VM in that case. Yes, but what you're saying still don't make sense. Supposing that you need a (total) virtual memory of 128MB. If you have 16MB you'd need at least 112MB of swap, while if you have 32MB of swap you'd need at least 96MB. So if you have _more_ memory you need _less_ swap. [Klippa, klapp, kluppit.] : Many people have hard time estimating the worst case. That's where : rules of thumb come in handy. Yes, but the rule of thumb "you need 128MB of (total) virtual memory" is a much more correct rule of thumb than "twice the amount of RAM". [Klippa, klapp, kluppit good advice for people with 512MB of RAM.] New Model Army, Small Town England, MartinS