| Warzau:
The only way to know is to try it. The worst that could happen is that there's improvement. I've never heard of anyone actually having a slowdown with the one line tweak.
You might look at the links I provided in case they explain the effects on 128 MBs of Ram. That said, why not take advantage of enormously cheap RAM and get another 128 Mgs? Just make sure, if it's PC133---even, come to that, PC100 at times---that they are the same speed (nanoseconds, which do vary: two sticks of PC-133 with different nanoseconds will lead to trouble, believe me). For that matter, you'd also do well to get the same brand, to minimize any conflicts.
For the rest---the other tips about tweaking the swapfile (virtual memory) or using a vcache---you'd do better, as the two links in my original post note, to let Windows 98 manage the system. (Windows 95 is another matter.)
How do you know the ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 will improve your performance. The best way is simply to monitor the use of RAM, system resources etc. Windows provides such a meter, but I prefer to use cacheman from Outer Technology. It has nice graphics. Just be sure to IGNORE the vcaching aspect: it will likely gum up Windows 98 management of memory and system resources.
Otherwise, you can simply note that windows will not be accessing your HD very much, if at all. (Since I got 256MBs of RAM 4 months ago and added that tweaking line to system.ini, I have never once got beyond the use of 210 MBs yet---hence never access my HD except to load up a new application once in a while.)
And be very skeptical about other things you hear people do with regard to RAM---e.g., a thread a while ago in DSLR about "defragmenting" RAM. Or programs that claim to provide more RAM without adding it. These usually either don't work or actually make things worse. Windows 98, except for the conservativeswapfile line (which MS now owns up to), is a good manager of memory and resources, though I can't speak about ME at all.
The PC Surgeon General ought to list at every site a caution of this sort: "Warning, too much tweaking can be dangerous to your poor PC's health."
Michael
[text was edited by author 2001-04-20 12:08:31] |
 PinanPremium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-09-02
Murrieta, CA
kudos:1 | When I tried this some time back, my system did indeed respond faster. However, system resources dropped quite a bit faster also. |
| Pinan:
That's odd, your dropping of system resources. There shouldn't be any discernible link I can think of, and all I can say is that with cacheman I monitor both my system resources and RAM usage and have never noticed it. I usually start with about 90% system resources, and even running most of the day, the OS seldom drops below 70% resources. Besides, as one of the links I left noted, low system resources---even down to 30% or lower---shouldn't itself be a problem.
Maybe Ping-Pong's explanation after your post contains some further tweaks worth pursuing.
Be interesting to hear from you about this if you experiment.
Michael |
Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| RE: System Resource levels. I made the one-simple-change to "activate" ConservativeSwapfileUsage and found that the start-up system resources were INcreased 3% on my 400mhz P2 running W98fe. No other changes. Just 3% more.
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I'm a Doctor, Jim--not a rocket scientist... |
