Kbase 17830: How NT Manages Memory and Recommendations to Improve It
| Autor |
Progress Software Corporation - Progress |
| Acesso |
Público |
| Publicação |
10/15/2008 |
|
Status: Verified
GOAL:
How Windows NT Manages Memory & Recommendations on How to Improve it.
FACT(s) (Environment):
Windows NT 32 Intel/Windows 2000
FIX:
Windows users typically measure memory management by the available physical memory section of the Performance tab in NT Task Manager. Even a simple Progress 4GL statement causes this value to drop down to under 4 MB during the process, regardless of how much RAM is installed on the machine.
Available physical memory is actually a measure of file cache increase that is your virtual page file as physical RAM is exhausted. When performance problems strike, users generally attribute this status display as the cause of the performance problems. This is not the case.
It is recommended that you use the graphical memory usage display on the Performance tab in Task Manager to accurately monitor memory use.
On Windows NT, the amount of RAM is completely managed by the operating system and no application has any direct control over this memory. Here is where to modify settings that are related to performance:
- Server performance parameters.
Used for adjusting memory usage, the parameters can be found in the Services Tab of the Network Control Panel. Windows NT offers four choices for tuning server performance:
- Minimize Memory Used.
- Balance.
- Maximize Throughput for File Sharing.
- Maximize Throughput for Network Applications.
It has been generally recognized that the best performance is seen by setting the Maximize Throughput for Network Applications.
- The Performance Tab of the System Control Panel.
Settings from this tab control how much memory should be allocated for foreground and background processes. Both must be taken into account for Windows NT servers.
Therefore, it is best to set the bar in the middle.
- The Total Page File Size.
This is also found in the system control panel. Size should be at least 200 MB or twice the size of physical RAM. Multiple page files spread across multiple disks is typically recommended.