# Memory usage



## jarod (Oct 22, 2007)

I have seen in website, that to check your mem usage, you go to the performance tab under task manager and it is the 2nd graph. But the problem is, instead of seeing mem usage, i ma seeing PF usage (Page file usage it is)

How can i switch it to be able to see mem usage. Also it is the higher the amount of ram, the faster your com can run and how do i know i need a ram upgrade. Currently at 1GB, thinking of getting a 2 GB

Thanks


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

The second graph is Page File Usage. What you need to look at are the tables underneath. Make sure your machine is running a good representation of the programs you would normally have open so that your system is heavily loaded. The important tables are the Commit Charge and Physical Memory. In Commit Charge, Total shows the physical and pagefile memory currently being used, Limit shows what is available and Peak shows the maximum that has been reached during this session. If Peak approaches Limit, then you need to consider increasing memory. Whether this is physical or virtual depends on the other table. Available shows how much physical memory can be used before switching to virtual memory. If the Total in Commit Charge is much greater than Available, then you should consider increasing your physical memory, otherwise you can increase your virtual memory. To sum up, the more physical memory you have the better.


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## jarod (Oct 22, 2007)

JohnthePilot said:


> Limit shows what is available and Peak shows the maximum that has been reached during this session. If Peak approaches Limit, then you need to consider increasing memory. Whether this is physical or virtual depends on the other table. Available shows how much physical memory can be used before switching to virtual memory. If the Total in Commit Charge is much greater than Available, then you should consider increasing your physical memory, otherwise you can increase your virtual memory. To sum up, the more physical memory you have the better.


I read and understand roughly 90% what you are saying but then after doing some research on other sources, they claim that you can also see the Peak commit charge compared to your total physical memory. If the peak is close or over the total physical, then it is time to upgrade memory. But your way seems to be a longer and more complicated one

Also in the commit table, limit meaning the maximum memory that the system can go (both physical and paging). Is that right



JohnthePilot said:


> If the Total in Commit Charge is much greater than Available, then you should consider increasing your physical memory, otherwise you can increase your virtual memory. To sum up, the more physical memory you have the better.


What is the relation here, total commit charge is total memory usage (both physical and paging) whereelse, available in physical column is remaining physical memory at that moment. So how could we use this relation to determine what memory we need to upgrade. Why can't i just increase paging to replace the additional memory that i need

Thanks


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

jarod said:


> I read and understand roughly 90% what you are saying but then after doing some research on other sources, they claim that you can also see the Peak commit charge compared to your total physical memory. If the peak is close or over the total physical, then it is time to upgrade memory. But your way seems to be a longer and more complicated one


What you have to remember is that not all your physical memory is available for applications. Windows reserves some of it for other purposes. Available memory is the point at which Windows switches to virtual (PageFile) memory.



> Also in the commit table, limit meaning the maximum memory that the system can go (both physical and paging). Is that right?


That's correct.



> What is the relation here, total commit charge is total memory usage (both physical and paging) whereelse, available in physical column is remaining physical memory at that moment. So how could we use this relation to determine what memory we need to upgrade. Why can't i just increase paging to replace the additional memory that i need
> 
> Thanks


Total commit charge is what you are actually using, whereas Peak is the maximum that you used during the present session. The important thing is that whilst you can use virtual memory for occasional peaks, if you are continually using virtual memory under normal usage your machine will be slower than if you were using physical memory, as physical memory is much faster than virtual memory. Using virtual memory also increases the wear on your hard drive. It may also mean that your system cache is not being used and that further slows the system down.


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