This is a perplexing phenomena I have no answer for. I have 1GB of ram, and during a busy flight I will show ~320mb of physical ram being used by FS9.exe, a similar amount of virtual memory, another 100mb of physical ram for the OS and everything else, leaving some 580mb or so apparently unused. This seems odd to me! What is the purpose of the swap file in this situation? I noticed most other active processes did the same thing--divide up memory use between physical and virtual memory. I want an OS that uses physical ram first, then goes for virtual ram. Can anyone explain this?Noel

I simply disabled swap file in my windows, also have 1GB seems to work fine. My computer (rightclick) go to advanced click performance setting advanced, on the bottom virtual memory click change Choose "NO PAGE FILE" click SET ok, ok ,ok reboot OK.. and no page file...Now I don't know if it works or not in task manager still shows page file usage but maybe it makes it from RAM I really have no clue, but after doing so and running FlightSim I noticed that available Physical Mem did go down as to when the page file was enabled now it uses like half at least sometimes more. Who knows

Hello,Did you also notice an increase of FPS?What are positive or negative results of NOT having a page file?Thanks in advance

The positives: Faster computer boot Faster computer shut down Less HDD activity in memory intenssive aplications Less HDD fragmentation Faster opening of aplications Faster task switchThe not so positive: After boot, computer uses more ram thus less available to aplications you eventualy migh get out of available memory ( but the risk of this, using 1GB of ram is MINIMAL!!!The Negatives: Dont know any.Jos

>...>you eventualy migh get out of available>memory ( but the risk of this, using 1GB of ram is MINIMAL!!!>>The Negatives: Dont know any.>>Jos

From my experience with printers....I have an HP.....they use up LOTS of memory. I attempted to print some charts while flying the other day and my FPS went south. So I'd say that you you do a lot of printing, then you definitely need the swap file.

I wasn't aware of those formating or printing problems because when I use FS it's the ONLY aplication running, maybe that's why I don't have ANY PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS ;). When working normaly with the pc (lots of i.e pages, word processor, Statistical programs, media player, printer and scanner) I also don't have problems. My Swap file is allways off for the past 1,5 years no probles whatsoever.... but then again it's up to one's personal experience, do that at your own risk.Jos

>I simply disabled swap file in my windows, also have 1GB>seems to work fine. My computer (rightclick) go to advanced>click performance setting advanced, on the bottom virtual>memory click change Choose "NO PAGE FILE" click SET ok, ok ,ok>reboot OK.. and no page file...>Now I don't know if it works or not in task manager still>shows page file usage but maybe it makes it from RAM I really>have no clue, but after doing so and running FlightSim I>noticed that available Physical Mem did go down as to when the>page file was enabled now it uses like half at least sometimes>more. Who knowsWin2K Pro does not seem to offer this check box. You put zero in min and max, unfortunately the OS resets a page file. Don't know of a work around.

Hello Jos

There was also a thread about forcing Windows XP to use swap file only for essential core files. Here is the link http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchJ.J.JJ StruyfBraine-L'AlleudBelgiumhttp://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg

Hi JJ,I have this Reg Key set to 1 since ... but I did not see any positive impact on FS9.Have a nice day

I personaly note good improvements starting with stable FPS i.e: my max FPS achievabal remains the same with or without SWAP file! Whoever flying around in intenssive scenerys I note that that HDD activity is extremely reduced, it only needs to add the textures to the available ram and not "create" ram and then add the textures, thus making the expirience A LOT SMOOTHER...This is the main inprovement I notice in FS! There are others but more related to the whole system.Jos

Nor did I Emile. But the guy that issued the post said that you need more than 512MB of RAM to see a positive impact and I have only 512MB, so I did not wonder. What's your RAM size?Salut!JJ StruyfBraine-L'AlleudBelgiumhttp://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg

Hi JJ,Ram = 1 Gbyte, XP Pro SP1, P4 2.4, GF 4 TI4600I will try without Virtual memory and inform

Did you read the figures from the task manager? VM is not same as the paging file. Let me explain this phenomenon....The amount of virtual memory available to programs equals to the amount of phsyical memory (RAM) + the size of the paging file. A program does not know what VM consists of and only sees the memory as a whole since the memory is provided by the OS. The OS controls the amount of RAM vs paging file that a program consumes. A running program needs a mininum amount of RAM to run on, inactive code can be paged out to the paging file to free some RAM WHEN there is not enough physical memory. The VM value that you read from the task manager does not always mean the program is using the paging file. Inactive code in a program is ready to got paged out to the paging file, but will be likely to stay in the RAM until the OS runs out of RAM. So provided there is no program hogging the memory, most programs will be likely to stay in the RAM.To observe this, try to run an application (say OE, IE etc). The initial mem usage will be larger than the VM size since the OS assigns more RAM that a program needs (for better performance wise). After minimizing the program, the mem usage will drop down but the size of the VM does not change. The VM of the minimized program will be likely consists of only RAM at this time. You can see there is no disk activity after minimizing the program, so the program is still in the RAM.The behavior of VM is solely a low-level OS job, you cannot take control over it. If you want everything runs in the physical memory, you need to turn off the paging file. However, this is not a good practice except you have got LOTS of RAM. Windows sometime will warn you with an annoying messaage "VM size is too low" even when there is lots of physical memory available........Err... am I off topic? heheSo as long as you have got lots of avaliable memory and FS9 does not jerk you are doing very fine. I have a 2400+XP + 1GB of DDR333 and FS9 runs like a dream. With NTFS disk compression on FS9 runs even better. Hard disk activity is always a main draw-back of the system performance.