In article <v2F### [at] econymdemoncouk>, mik### [at] nospamplease 
says...
> Wasn't it Tim Nikias who wrote:
> >No no! I meant I have 512 MB RAM, and sometimes it
> >seems that the disk is swapping although peak level
> >is somewhat lower (I know that windows etc need
> >RAM too, but I feel like there's some RAM unused
> >while swapping).
> 
> I've heard that Windows can sometimes be a little reluctant to release
> some of the memory it has grabbed for caching files. There are some
> freeware programs that can be used to persuade it to release the file
> cache when the memory is needed by other programs.
> 
> 

Hugo and Mark have made reference to how so much extra memory just gets 
gobbled up the instant you install another line of RAM.  I didn't realise 
it was actually one half of all RAM, but it figures with my empirical 
observations.

You have to really ask whether Windows is wasting your money by swiping 
128MB or 256MB of your RAM for caches.  These are PCs, not fileservers 
nor minicomputers!

Again for the Win98 users, you can set the cache to a size of your 
choosing.  (BTW I agree with Warp: MSConfig is a great utility for 
managing this stuff and what is autoloaded by your registry!)

Again in the system.ini file, put in some entries like this:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=16384
MaxFileCache=16384

If you don't have a [vcache] tag, place it after the [386Enh] section.  
You may choose other cache sizes, but they must be binary powers.  They 
are values in kBytes, so the above clamps your cache to 16MB, with no 
growth nor shrinkage.  I think that as single-user stations, few of us 
would find any real performance gain with a cache bigger than 32MB.

Cheers,
    Brian.
-- 
bel### [at] gilcomau

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