Interesting use of excess RAM.

This is advisable for people who have more than 1.5GB of RAM. As most of us know, When you have a lot of RAM, Windows doesn't make use of all of it and even when you have plenty of RAM to go around, Windows still likes to use the paging file (Virtual Memory). Forcing Windows to not use the paging file will result in a loss of performance but I found a neat little drier on the internet. Many people peobably have heard of this but it is called a RAMDisk. It literally makes a physical hard disk from your RAM. This would be an excellent place to put your paging file. RAM is a whole lot faster than Hard drives, Sandra tested my SATA150 HDD to be around 49MB/s it tested my RAMdrive to be 1247MB/s. Imagine how fast your PC would be with the paging file in the RAM... It is only recommended for people with a whole lot of unused RAM and only recommened that you use a temporary file such as your paging file since all information is cleared out of RAM when the system is turned off. This makes it an excellent place to put the paging file since Windows tries to clear the paging file on shutdown anyway. I only have 1GB of RAM so I have a small RAMdisk to put my paging file in along with my disk paging file but I have noticed a performance increase.

woah thats soo kool. im going to try it when i get my new comp since it will have 2gb of ram.

does it have to be the whole stick or can it use only half? like if you have an extra 1gb stick can you only use 512mb as a ramdisk or do you have to use all 1gb?

It can use any amount of RAM but the only free ones i've seen only allow for a small amount. The one I downloaded is a trial... but if you're wondering, here is the download link... http://12.98.13.79/evals/rp80-desktop.exe Ramdisk pro 8.0

thats a cool idea. whenever i get around to puttin in another gb, ill try that out.

What the heck is a paging file?

The paging file is your virtual memory. It is a file on your hard drive that Windows uses like RAM but since it is usually on the Hard Drive, it is much slower. To set you paging file in Windows XP:
right click "My Computer" go to "Properties"
In the "Advanced" tab, go to "settings" under the section labled "performance"
Go to the "Advanced" tab of the windows that pops up and click on "Change"
this is your paging file settings.
A good rule to follow is to multiply your current RAM by 1.5 and set that as your paging file size but since RAM is getting so large 1.5 times your RAM is probably too much. I usually leave at least 1GB for my paging file.