How much physical memory??

[lordmeatball]

Hey everyone-

How much physical memory should I have in my machine to run the sagetv server??

I had 512 running WinXP with 3 mvps. I noticed the available memory was a bit low and CPU utilization was high for sagetvservice.exe.

I put another 512 in (1 gig total), and sagetvservice is using even more memory (about 225 meg with two mvps running).

Is there any easy calculation to determine how much RAM I should have??

Thanks!

[nielm]

In Task Manager / Perfomance, the 'Total Commit Charge' is the total amount of virtual memory used by applications and Windows. If this is less than the amount of your RAM, then you have plenty! If it is a little more than your RAM, then some apps will be swapped out. (Peak is the max RAM used since boot, Limit is the max amount of allocatable memory (RAM+Swap))

If it is a lot more than your RAM then you will be swapping a lot!

Note that when you look at 'Memory usage' in task manager, this is only memory swapped into RAM. To see how much Virtual Memory (both swapped into RAM+Swapped out in pagefile) is in use, enable the Virtual Memory Size column.

[BBCritical]

If this is less than the amount of your RAM, then you have plenty! If it is a little more than your RAM, then some apps will be swapped out

If the peak never exceeds the total then your fine?

[SHS]

You all need change your virtual memory when add more system memory
This for 1GB of ram
Initial size 1536
Max Size 3072

[nielm]

Originally Posted by BBCritical

If the peak never exceeds the total then your fine?

Peak will always exceed Total!

Sorry, I didn't explain myself well earlier

• 
  Total Commit Charge==PF usage (memory used graph) == current amount of allocated virtual memory (RAM+Swap)
• Peak Commit Charge==Maximum amount of allocated virtual memory (RAM+Swap) ever used since boot
• Commit Charge Limit==Total amount of VM available to the system (RAM+Swap)

If Peak *never* exceeds the amount of RAM you have, then you have plenty of RAM.
If under normal use, Total (the PF usage graph) does not exceed the amount of RAM, then you still have enough.

What I am trying to say (badly) is that on an virtual memory system it is not always possible to see from looking at just Free RAM -- the system will swap some rarely unused RAM pages to disk, and will use RAM as a dynamically resizable disk cache. It will also try to keep some RAM free so that if a process needs some, it does not need to swap something out first.

Low RAM will not manifest itself in high CPU usage -- the system will be swapping a lot, and appear to be slow, but the CPU usage will actually be quite low...

[malbec]

So, just to clarify for my case

Total physical memory = 512MB
Peak = 1037MB

=> Buy more RAM

[nielm]

Originally Posted by malbec

Total physical memory = 512MB
Peak = 1037MB

=> Buy more RAM

yes, if that peak happens often. If it was a one-off because you started 15 copies of IE, then maybe not!

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by SHS

You all need change your virtual memory when add more system memory
This for 1GB of ram
Initial size 1536
Max Size 3072

A common misconception leftover from the days when 128mb of RAM was considered a luxury. With 1GB of RAM you can generally disable the pagefile entirely.

On my development PCs which can be running 2-3 copies of Visual Studio, Outlook, Enterprise Manager, Query Analyser, SQL server and the usual assortment of help files, word documents etc I can run with no pagefile with 1GB RAM. On the HTPC I can leave Sage running while playing Doom3 and not require a pagefile.

[SHS]

Used that not a good idea Mark becuases of this
But I never really tested it

[Mark SS]

Exactly what would you do with a windows debug dump in the event that a stop error did occur? I suspect nothing and as such you can ignore the message.

[SHS]

Beside it more then that mark

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html
The problem with Disable Paging of Core Files this cuases min app that run at startup in taskbar to fail to start be of no pagefile.

The best Tweaks I found to be is
Optimize the Pagefile
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown=1" (1 clears the pagefile at shutdown, 0 is the Windows default).

Unload DLLs of Closed Applications
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AlwaysUnloadDLL
and set the "Default" string to "1"

Some other
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1404
http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html

[doc]

Originally Posted by SHS

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown=1" (1 clears the pagefile at shutdown, 0 is the Windows default).

Our security people insisted we did this on our servers. Shutdown times went from 2 to 30 minutes. Luckily they only audit every few years!

[Mark SS]

I suspect this is going to be one of those conversations where we will never agree. What I will say is that on the basis of your suggestions I suspect you are reading hints/tips/advice that you don't fully understand the nature of and assuming them to be true.

Originally Posted by SHS

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html
The problem with Disable Paging of Core Files this cuases min app that run at startup in taskbar to fail to start be of no pagefile.

SOME applications, maybe, possibly. I've tested running without a pagefile on PCs which are stressed way beyond that which the average user will encounter, no problems at all.

The best Tweaks I found to be is
Optimize the Pagefile
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown=1" (1 clears the pagefile at shutdown, 0 is the Windows default).

This isn't a tweak of any sort. As doc hinted its a security feature, there is absolutely no benefit to be had from enabling this unless you want to increase the time it takes for your PC to shutdown.

Unload DLLs of Closed Applications
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AlwaysUnloadDLL
and set the "Default" string to "1"

I'll address this one without even looking up what it does. The naming implies that windows will continue to cache dlls which are not explicitly required by any running application after the application that loaded them is closed. What I'm 100% sure that it will do is kick them out of the cache when it runs out of cache space and needs to load something that will be used by other applications. If I'm wrong, someone say so and I'll go and read up

http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1404

The nonsense about ClearPageFileAtShutdown is enough to stop me reading any more of the article.

http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html

[/quote]

Some of the items in this article are worth doing but not unless you understand what it is your changing. Either way, it has nothing to do with your original comment regarding virtual memory sizing.

My apologies if the tone is harsh but personally, I think its wrong to hand out advice you don't understand.