One of the children's computers is apparently running slower than normal (according to the child).
I can't find anything particularly wrong, but this shows this in the MSInfo32 display...
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) - 4.00GB
Total Physical Memory - 3.00GB
Available Physical Memory - 1.00GB
Total Virtual Memory - 5.99GB
Available Virtual Memory - 3.26GB
Page File Space - 3.00GB
Can anybody explain to me, or point me somewhere I can read, why the Total Physical Memory is only 3GB and the Available Physical Memory is only 1GB?
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I can only do a very vague "stuff is reserved for operating system, graphics etc".
Someone will be along soon who can explain it better.
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Mind you, it seems MSINFO32 has had it's own problems... support.microsoft.com/kb/950233
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I will make an assumption... this is running 32-bit Windows. If that is a correct assumption it won't be able to see all 4GB RAM. So that can explain the total 3GB physical memory. Available implies there's 1GB of that available - the rest is being used.
Bear in mind Windows 32-bit operating systems only have 2GB memory space available for user space. The rest is kernel space and for the operating system.
Having said that, why have you got close to 6GB VM?
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If I run the command on my Windows 7 64-bit laptop with 8GB RAM:
Installed Physical Memory 8GB (correct)
Total Physical Memory (7.8GB (correct - the rest is used by the inbuilt graphics)
Available Physical Memory 4.36GB (so I'm using about 3.5GB)
Total Virtual Memory 8.8GB - well I have 1GB paging file (so correct)
So I conclude it's 64-bit Windows and ignore my other post. Missing memory is probably down to the graphics - have you checked in the BIOS? Probably 1GB RAM reserved/used by graphics adapter.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 13 Jun 13 at 19:01
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Actually is 32-bit. I thought that meant it could see up to and including 4GB?
It has separate Graphics board/memory.
I have no clue why I have 6GB VM, I don't think its a choice I made intentionally. Should I change it? If so, how?
She does play games on it, quite excessive things like Crysis, which are real resource killers.
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By the way, in the course of looking at this I found that Google Chrome was an awful resource consumer.
So I installed the Canary release which has pretty much halved the memory used by Chrome.
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Also worth noting that this is an older machine - 7 years I think, so hardly state of the art.
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>> Actually is 32-bit. I thought that meant it could see up to and including 4GB?
It can, but non stuff has to be loaded into memory in fixed memory locations, so its "reserved" from the rest of the OS. The amount is variable by machine and other factors, you can with a lot of tweaking of the registry get 3.2 - 3.3 GB available for use.
>> It has separate Graphics board/memory.
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>> I have no clue why I have 6GB VM, I don't think its a choice
>> I made intentionally. Should I change it? If so, how?
Its a default, think its 10% of the total drive space to start, but can of course go up. You got a 60gb c: drive? You can change this amount, even move it to another drive. Some tuners say its not best to have OS swap memory on the same drive.
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This computer has 5 x 1TB drives. Things such as swap files will be installed in whatever was their default location.
The C: drive has +/- 700GB available.
It seems that it runs with about 35% memory availability. Now, it would seem to me that if it never bursts above 90% ( an in this case probably 70%) then it is not memory constricted, or am I being overly simplistic?
I fear it might be running into that area where Zero's format/install plan may have some merit.
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Is it really running slowly though? Or are they hoping to get a newer/faster computer? Running Crysis on a 7 year old computer isn't going to be great is it? No point putting too fast a graphics card in there because the CPU won't be fast enough to really make use of it.
So when they say it's slow, what do they mean? Slow to boot? Slow to login? Slow when using for general work? Or not good enough for Crysis? Crysis (and Far Cry) are both resource intensive games. Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3 on the hand are even more resource hungry - you could put the fastest CPU and GPU in a system and they would still hammer them if you turn everything up to max quality.
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Good thoughts.
Firstly, by "slow" she means "slower than last week". And I think she might have a point, although its difficult to be sure. It seems to be related to file opening though, rather than processing.
If she wanted a new machine, then she'd say so. But given its an XPS 720 her chances aren't great. 7 years ago it was phenomenal, even these days its pretty good.
Funny you should mention Far Cry 3 - don;t you find that a terminally boring and crap game? She loves it, but I think its awful. Crysis for me. Although the graphics on her machine aren't butch enough for the Crysis 3, it runs the other three Crysis games (1, 2, Warhead) very well.
Also she has all Call of Duty (of which I think there are now 6) and they seem to run fine.
I am about to research, buy and install a graphics board for exactly that game (Crysis 3). Thoughts welcome.
On this issue though it seems to me that the machine is running slower than it was. however, my primary question was the fact that I simply didn't understand the MSINFO output around memory.
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>> I am about to research, buy and install a graphics board for exactly that game
>> (Crysis 3). Thoughts welcome.
Dont. The machine may be "pretty good" but its still going to be a boat anchor to one of todays fast video cards.
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I'd take your point if I was in the UK.
A graphics card here is a totally feasible upgrade.
If I was going to buy a new machine then I'd buy a custom machine in the UK with the thoughts of spending in the £700 - £1000 range. That's just not a feasible approach here, you can't trust anyone enough.
And I don't think I know enough to build one myself.
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And I'd pay you to build one for me, but I doubt we'd get it through customs.
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>> And I don't think I know enough to build one myself.
If you can swap out a graphics card you can build a system.
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I could put it together easily enough, but I'd never know which bits to buy and what would go with what.
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A new thread then perhaps?
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The beauty is that you just buy the bits you need, not those you already have (e.g. disk, case, keyboard etc etc)
Frees up money to pay for better components.
If your case is standard then it's pretty much going to be motherboard, processor and memory, then whatever disks and graphics card you want. Imagine that nice shiny and ever-so-quick SSD drive...
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This is a Dell XPS 720 so it was top-end spec when new. It should be easy to upgrade but from the likely spec the two changes I'd do first are:
1. Clone the system drive to an SSD - may need to clear it down a bit to make it small enough for a reasonable sized SSD
2. Get something like and nVidia GTX 660 which will play the latest games at 1080P resolutions with most top end settings enabled.
Probably don't need to do more than that. What graphics card is in there now? If it's seven years old then my old/spare GTS250 might even be better - anyone local to me is welcome to that for free.
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The system drive is just a Western Digital product which shows as 1.3TB which I guess is probably 1.5TB.
I have 250GB used. Its boot time is mostly ok, but not really an issue since it spends most of its life on anyway. It doesn't get rebooted much more often than once every week or two.
I'm prettydisciplined in that nothing other than windows and software is supposed to be on that disk. There should be no data other than my sandbox, but all the family have user accounts.
(I realise having said that, that there must be more within the 250GB, but I doubt its anything important).
What/How much would I really gain from an SSD in the real world?
It current has an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX. Honestly that would actually be fine except Crysis 3 refuses to launch because apparently that's not sufficient.
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>> It current has an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Crysis 3 needs a DirectX 11 GPU to run but the GTX 8800 is a DirectX 10 capable card. There are posts online suggesting there is a DirectX 10 patch for the game but I'd assume they were malware. The Cryengine 3 supports only DirectX 11.
So if the real requirement is to play Crysis 3, then the minimum upgrade needed is a DirectX 11 graphics card. Something around the price of the GTX 660 should be fine.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 15 Jun 13 at 09:07
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>>If your case is standard then it's pretty much going to be motherboard, processor and memory, then whatever disks and graphics card you want. Imagine that nice shiny and ever-so-quick SSD drive...
So, all peripherals are ok including the 29" monitor.
Disks are ok, it has 5 large disks, and I've probably got another half dozen or so if I need them.
I get the need for processor, and the memory.
Is it a new Motherboard simply to house the memory and CPU and connect to everything else?
Is there more to choosing a motherboard other than it'll fit in the space?
Do I really need an SSD? Not worried about boot time.
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Yep, motherboards are specific to generations of CPU, so essentially you choose your CPU (for me that's usually a cost based decision) and get a decent motherboard (doesn't need to be top spec but has to be the right one for your CPU, and have the capacity to take the amount of memory you want).
Memory comes in different sizes, I think DDR3 is still the top one so you may already have that (but I doubt it). I expect you know it comes in different speeds, and ideally needs to be in matched sets where more than one stick is in use.
Most ordinary computers are ATX form factor, which defines the motherboard dimensions. Your Dell appears to be a fairly proprietary form factor so looks like you'd need a new case, which often comes with power supply - which you'd need to make sure was man enough to run all those disks - if you really need them all (that'd be a pretty big case...). You could look at getting a disk caddy so you can put disks in an out as you need them, but might just be better to invest in a couple of 3Tb drives if you really need the space.
An SSD C drive with all your programs would speed loading of heavy duty games, and loading the transitions between scenes, but not essential.
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Rather showing Smokie, that I'm out of my depth.
I shall have a go over the weekend at trying to detail what I would buy from what's available here. Then perhaps you lot can critique.
as always, appreciate it.
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When someone says to me "build me a new computer" it goes like this.
Question "how much do you want to spend"
Question "How fast do you want it"
Given those answers the next two steps are always the same
The CPU will come from a company starting with the letter I. Any CPU from a company starting with A will be ignored.
The Motherboard will always come from a company that spells its name ASUS
After those two tablets of stone, you can pretty well much do what you can afford.
So how much do you want to spend?
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I'd download and run PC benchmark, then use the import baseline function to compare it with other similar PCs, should show up a HW bottleneck:-
www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm
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I suspect this Dell XPS 720 is still fast enough for most things required of it. But it will never run Crysis 3 with a DirectX 10 graphics card. A new GPU is needed that is DirectX 11 capable. But not the cheapest because then performance won't be very good compared to the current GTX 8800.
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Its probably not a straight "lack of memory" issue anyway, it rarely is unless its physically very under specified.
Having 5 big drives on a 32 bit windows system is going to slow it down anyway.
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>>Having 5 big drives on a 32 bit windows system is going to slow it down anyway
Surely only when its accessing them?
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Yes and no. Its accessing them all the time, its caching stuff, its a an overhead.
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What CPU is in the Dell XPS 720 you've got? If you did want a newer graphics card (and have Windows 7 or later) to get DirectX 11 in games then you might not need to spend a great deal. But the CPU would have to be good enough to push even a £140 graphics card.
As for the speed of the system, I'd be running up perf mon to see what's happening, especially if you suspect disks are slow.
My one question is why have so many drives in the PC? Is it holding data that other systems are accessing (like media?) and is that perhaps slowing things down? And what sort of data? How fast does it change? Is indexing service turned on? Lots of unknowns.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 13 Jun 13 at 22:26
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A quick Google shows probably an overclocked 3.2GHz quad Intel Core 2 processor in the XPS 720 (QX6800?).... which should be fast enough. I'd seriously consider no better than an nVidia GTX 660 though. Probably plenty quick enough up to full HD resolution for gaming.
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>> Probably plenty quick enough up to full HD resolution for gaming.
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Easily. I'm still running an old 3.00 Ghz Phenom II x4, driving 2 Radeon 5770s in crossfire. That'll copy with 1920x1080 with all the eye-candy on all but the very latest games.
There are a few recent titles where I'm forced to drop the antialiasing a bit to keep the frame rates up.
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As you say, quad Intel Core 2.
Drives on the PC;
C; Normal software, little or no data. 700GB free
D: Childrens Films & Television 221GB free
E: Grown up Television 270GB free
F: Music & Films 31GB free
H: General data and Photographs 356GB free
All the machines in the house access it, it used to be my machine. Although that sharing doesn't seem to be causing any issue.
The data doesn't really change, simply grows.
Indexing is turned off.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 14 Jun 13 at 00:00
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What's the best way of storing data and not accessing it for some considerable time? (removing it from machine)
Onto a spare disk and then on a shelf?
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But you reckon the data is safe on a hard disk for some extensive period?
I do recall there was a number of years, but I cannot for life of me remember how many.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 14 Jun 13 at 00:56
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>> But you reckon the data is safe on a hard disk for some extensive period?
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>> I do recall there was a number of years, but I cannot for life of
>> me remember how many.
All media has a life expectancy. Even if you find the perfect 100% time safe media, the technology to access will have long since gone.
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>>the technology to access will have long since gone.
I doubt that. I have a gramophone player for 78s. Somewhere I have a TK50/70 drive.
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>> >>the technology to access will have long since gone.
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>> I doubt that. I have a gramophone player for 78s.
I dont. Not many have.
Somewhere I have a TK50/70
>> drive.
I don't have one of those either
Got an 8" floppy drive? 7" floppy? 5.25 inch floppy? 3.5 inch even? laser disk? Betamax? reel to reel tape? (computer and audio) compact cassette? 8 track?
Dont doubt it, its an increasing problem. Not to mention backwards compatibility of file types.
Now back to you original question, yes hard drive is as good as any other method.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 14 Jun 13 at 11:57
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>> Now back to you original question, yes hard drive is as good as any other
>> method.
How about using one of the online storage services eg. MS Skydrive, or a more specialist provider?
Although uploading can be a PITA depending on your upload connection speed. And uploads seem to cripple download speeds at home - I'm not allowed to upload anything if son is online gaming.
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>> Now back to you original question, yes hard drive is as good as any other method.
I've found over time that some DVDRs that were fine are not readable anymore. This is for disks that were holding copies of software for work (so not critical) but were stored in a dry/cool place. So I wouldn't trust my important files to only writable media. I'd trust a hard drive for longer term storage... but I'd also have copies of anything important (that cannot be replaced) on DVDR or BDR.
As mentioned above, I'd also consider online storage for valuable data as an extra copy. I've got over 70GB storage for free (for now) with Dropbox... so photos/music stored there too.
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>Can anybody explain to me,
Could it be:
You have 4GB of installed RAM but the BIOS has reserved everything above 3GB as IO address space for your graphics card and anything else on the PCI bus so your Total Physical Memory is 3GB.
The Windows kernel, device drivers, shared libraries, service processes and running applications have grabbed most of your 3GB Physical Memory so Windows has left you with 1GB of Available Physical Memory.
You have 3GB of swap space so Total Virtual is Physical plus swap - 6GB.
Available Virtual is Available Physical plus unallocated swap space. 3.26GB implies that you have 740MB of swap that is already in use.
I know next to sod all about Windows internals but I expect MS will have (ahem) adopted features from their competitors and now use paging rather than swapping so that 740MB will be data that hasn't been accessed for a while.
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>> now use paging rather than swapping
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You know next to sod all about computers in general ;-)
Swapping is the act of moving unused, but still active, memory pages to disk. i.e. swapping is a feature of paging.
It's been that way since paged memory architectures were first invented, oddly enough to enable the use of non-memory storage as swap space. Ferranti did it first on the Atlas in 1962 (thanks Wibblepedia) and I don't see that as one of MS's "competititors".
Page memory architecture and swapping has been around in Windows since Win 3.0. Well, that's what the Wibblepedia says, but I'm pretty sure it was in Win 386 before that.....
That windows Task Manager has a load of extra columns you can enable in the view menu. One of the more interesting is "Page faults". A page fault occurs when a memory page required by a process is not immediately available in RAM and has to be fetched from elsewhere (usually swap space).
I see that Linux's "top" command will show page fault (swapping) details, but I'm stuck with HP-UX which doesn't....
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>You know next to sod all about computers in general ;-)
Shhh! Don't tell everyone or they'll be ripping what little is left of my code out of a certain *IX OS!
>Swapping is the act of moving unused, but still active, memory pages to disk. i.e. swapping is a feature of
>paging.
Wrong.
Traditionally, swapping refers to ancient memory management where the address space of a whole process would be swapped out to disk. Very easy to implement because it didn't need special hardware support.
Paging was the successor to swapping and refers to a method where individual memory pages are paged in and out to disk. Memory was split up into pages, usually 4KB, and real locations were referenced through a Page Table. The advantages of dispersed location and better granularity were often impacted by software overhead on systems without hardware MMU support. Paging space allocation and every increasing Page Table size were also problems.
Current paging is more correctly 'segmented' paging, but it's still known as 'Paging'.
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Thanks Kevin. That brought back a few memories of when I used to do operating system internals with Wang, we used paging files and page tables and the rest... Repairing a disc VTOC manually was always fun too.. Spent many happy hours trawling through control mode dumps to diagnose a problem... that sorted out the men from the boys!!!
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Memory Display MSINFO32 - smokie
