Understanding Virtual Memory And Its Associated Error “virtual Memory Too Low”

Understanding Virtual Memory And Its Associated Error “virtual Memory Too Low”

Virtual memory is, as the name suggests, does not exist physically, but it seems to exist in main storage. It borrows space from the disk drive. It uses both hardware and software to compensate for the memory shortages by temporarily transferring data, to and fro, RAM and disk storage.

This is a common error, and it usually happens when there is an insufficient amount of memory allocated for virtual memory or when there is a memory leak. You can resolve this issue by either increasing the size of the page file or by having extra RAM. You can increase the size of a page file by going to system and security in Control Panel and click on Settings in the advanced tab present in the performance pane.

Understanding Virtual Memory And Its Associated Error “virtual Memory Too Low”

Its job is to simply balance the load currently in the physical memory to maintain the responsiveness and performance of the system. If there is no virtual memory or like when you disable the virtual memory, and this is possible in Microsoft Windows if you have plenty of physical memory, all the programs you will be running will be loaded directly to the physical memory.

It will be added to the existing memory being used by the system or by Microsoft Windows. As the memory usage rises, the performance of the computer degrades rapidly. Now, with the help of the virtual memory, part of the usage in the physical memory will be transferred to the virtual memory.

When data is unloaded from the physical memory, it will free up memory space and thus improves the performance as you open applications. They work side by side. It improves the performance and responsiveness but it will not make your computer extremely fast because the overall performance of the machine is still dependent on the hardware you are using particularly the processor.

The processing speed will never go beyond the limit of your CPU. That’s why even if you increase the size of your virtual memory, the speed or the performance will still be the same. If you want to make it faster, upgrade the processor, memory modules, video card, and so on.

Now, if you receive a low memory error like “System.OutOfMemoryException”, it means you’ve exhausted or used up all the available memory resources on your computer and the program can’t continue. If you are using a program when you receive this error, save your work, close the application, and then restart the computer.

After booting, start the program you are using and continue with your work but don’t open any unnecessary applications in the background while working. This way you can dedicate the available memory to your program and avoid receiving the “System.OutOfMemoryException” error. If this doesn’t work even if you didn’t open additional programs, try increasing the virtual memory.

To see the amount of virtual memory you have, for Windows XP users, right-click “My Computer” then select “Properties”. Go to “Advanced” tab then under “Performance”, click “Settings”. In “Performance Options” screen, go to “Advanced” tab then at the bottom you will see the “Virtual memory” section. The amount indicated here, in MB, is the amount or size of your virtual memory.

If you see like “4000 MB” like in my computer, it means 4 GB. Now, to increase your virtual memory, in “Virtual memory” section, click “Change”. Now, in the “Virtual Memory” dialog, increase the amount of virtual memory your computer is using. To do this, select “Custom size” then in “Initial size” and “Maximum size” fields, enter the same value in MB.

For example, 1000 is equivalent to 1 GB. According to an old rule of thumb, the ideal page file size or virtual memory size should be double your RAM or 1.5x your RAM but you don’t really need to follow this. Check the actual amount of RAM installed on your computer and apply the rule.

For example, if you have 512 MB RAM, your virtual memory should be 1 GB or 768 MB. In both fields, enter without quotes “1000” for 1 GB or “768” for 768 MB then click “Set” and then “OK”. When you are prompted to restart the computer, click to restart the computer. If the problem continues, upgrade your memory by adding more RAM.