my computer only has 512mb of ram and right now its using 600and some thing how is this possible?

Question

my computer only has 512 mb of ram and right now its using more that 600mb of ram and i still have the computer going fast how id this possible. i though my computer was supposed to go slow once i was using more that 512 or some thing

here is the picture that i put in photo bucket and dont worry it dosent have any viruses becasue its form photo bucket please just look at the picture so you can get a better idea of what im talking about

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j246/kevingp12/taskmanager.jpg

answer this question the best and ill pick you as the best answer

Answer 1

Commit charge is your page file usage. Here's an article:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virtual-memory.htm



It's a little out of date but the fundamentals are the same.

Answer 2

Your computer has put some of that 600MB onto what is called "virual memory", it's stored in a special place on your hard drive. If you think of your computer's memory as a bucket, it can only hold 512MB in the bucket, but it can take things in and out of virtual memory.



When your computer uses more memory than it has actual RAM, then it can become slow because taking things out of virtual memory is slow (your hard drive is pretty slow compared to RAM). However, that only happens when you try to use a program that has data stored in virtual memory.



In your situation, every program you're using is all in the 512 RAM, and the extra data in your virtual memory is not really needed. Your computer therefore does not need to wait for the hard drive, and thus you're not slowing down (yet). As you use more and more things, you will eventually need to get data out of virtual memory, and things will become slow.

Answer 3

Basically what Windows does by default is create what is called a "swap file". A swap file is what allows windows to "swap out" a chunk of memory that has the least current use but is needed "temporarily" by another running process. As I have stated, it is temporary, as soon as the "borrowing" process is done, the memory is restored from the swap file. Window's default setting is about twice the amount of installed system memory. As for performance, if your system is having to do a lot of "memory swapping", you may notice your computer running a little sluggishly. This is because RAM access is much faster than reading from a file on disk - RAM has no moving parts! If your computer is slowing down on occasion, it may be time to upgrade your system RAM.



I hope this helps out!



Cheers!

Answer 4

1. I run http://pclinuxos.com which is only one, of over 800 'Nix OSes, all of which are immune to the "114,000 Microsoft Virus Definitions"



2. just out of good habit I don't look at photos. No need.



3. Modern OSes use Virtual RAM aka Swap file, on the hard drive. It can be as big as the remaining empty space on that hard drive.



You might have 512Mb of hard RAM, but, the hard drive will let you run another huge chunk of space as virtual memory, at slower hard drive access speeds. In windows, it is automatic and often screws up.



In GNU/Linux, we usually format that hard drive swap file as a separate partition, with 512 MB to 1 Gb. Never crashes.

Answer 5

Windows uses something which is called Virtual Memory. What it does is reserves some hard disk area and when it needs to, it swaps data from the physical memory (RAM) to the hard disk (Virtual Memory). Then when it can, it swaps it back into physical memory. This is how you can use more memory than the actual RAM installed on your machine !



Hope this helps

Answer 6

That is your commit charge. Which just states how much memory is allocated to programs. You have to remember that you also have a windows swap file that acts as memory along with your physical memory. Your total commit charge should be the sum of your swap file and your physical memory. But you should pay attention to the physical memory, thats what is important.

Answer 7

that's virtual memory you're looking at windows uses hard disk space as temporary memory and you'll find that according to your picture the virtual is 613meg while you still have 124meg of physical memory free more than enough