Virtual Memory Problem..

Everytime i try to play football manager 08 on my computer,

I always get about into my 2nd pre-season game, then it comes up with 'Virtual memory low' then it close's the game down.

Not only that but my computer goes extremly slow when playing Fm08, compared to my dads computer..

Here are my computers spec's...

Microsoft Windows XP

Professional

Verison 2002

Intel®

Celeron® CPU 1.70GHz

1.70 GHz, 480 MB of RAM

I know that they are poor but if there anything that i can buy that i can add to my computer to speed up my game?

Like something to add to the USB port?

Im really not the best with computers so maybe so links to items on ebay(etc) will be helpfull cheers!

Do you have any other programs running whilst you are trying to play FM? (including mp3 players, download programs etc)

Have you told your anti-virus not to scan the folders that FM uses for its' temporary files?

Have you checked for viruses or malware recently and if so what programs did you use?

Have you defragmented your hard drive recently?

first thing id suggest for that is get some more RAM in, upgrade to at least 1gb, probably higher as its dirt cheap atm...

Forgot to add, more RAM will help but you will always be held back by the CPU.

Also, how many leagues/divisions are you trying to run and at what database size?

The more you run, the slower your game and the more likely you are to run into these kinds of problems.

first thing id suggest for that is get some more RAM in, upgrade to at least 1gb, probably higher as its dirt cheap atm...

How do you upgrade??

And to other person is there think i can buy to 'upgrade' CPU?

Thanks for quick replys btw (y)

Forgot to add, more RAM will help but you will always be held back by the CPU.

Also, how many leagues/divisions are you trying to run and at what database size?

The more you run, the slower your game and the more likely you are to run into these kinds of problems.

Only English Leagues On Large Database...

Only English Leagues On Large Database...

If you dropped the database size down to small, it would run faster and for longer before issues arise.

Upgrading your CPU may or may not be feasible/beneficial. To really benefit, you would ideally want to go for a dual-core which would more than likely result in a need to upgrade your RAM and motherboard also.

Upgrading your RAM would be the most realistic option but wouldn't massively change the speed on your particular setup, in my opinion.

The other questions I asked were, for me, far more important to be answered as good PC maintenance can make even the most feeble of PC's run better than expected.

I don't think you should be having a "virtual memory low" problem at all with the computer you have. They're not too far from what I have.

Have you changed the virtual memory settings? How much free disk space do you have?

More Ram. Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram.

Everytime i try to play football manager 08 on my computer,

I always get about into my 2nd pre-season game, then it comes up with 'Virtual memory low' then it close's the game down.

Not only that but my computer goes extremly slow when playing Fm08, compared to my dads computer..

Here are my computers spec's...

Microsoft Windows XP

Professional

Verison 2002

Intel®

Celeron® CPU 1.70GHz

1.70 GHz, 480 MB of RAM

I know that they are poor but if there anything that i can buy that i can add to my computer to speed up my game?

Like something to add to the USB port?

Im really not the best with computers so maybe so links to items on ebay(etc) will be helpfull cheers!

Upgrade the RAM;

Although I reckon it will still be slow. That particular problem with the virtual memory will go away for sure though. My old PC was similar to yours and since I added more RAM to it FM didn't give me any problems... just was slow as hell when processing matches.

Nothing you can buy to put in your USB to speed up your PC; it's all hardware such as Ram and Processor that go inside the big box

To upgrade you can either take it into your local PC shop and get them to do it or buy the stuff you need from Ebay but, by the sounds of it, you don't have enough PC knowledge so I'd recommend the first one.

Wait...... 480mb of ram? Is that possible?

But no, you don't need to upgrade your memory that critically. Of course you would benefit if you did, and they are pretty cheap by now, but for starters -> Up your virtual memory!

To do this with any decent result, you'll need to have a few GB disk space available... Do this: (Some of the terms might be incorrect since my OS is in danish)

- Go to "Control Panel"

- Go to "System"

- Click the "Advanced" tab

- Click "Settings" in the "Performance" field.

- Click the "Advanced" tab in there, locate "Virtual Memory" and click "Change".

"Virtual Memory" creates a file on a drive that works like memory. Make sure you have the desired drive selected in the Virtual Memory window.

Make sure that "Userdefined size" is selected and enter something like "2048" in both boxes. Press "define" and close the window.

Done Note: This requires you have AT LEAST 2GB's of free disk space

I also have a small amount of RAM in my computer atm, since I burned off my 4 gig's (woops ). I currently have 512mb RAM, and I found that setting my V. Mem. to 2048 killed off the "Low V. Mem."-message and made browsing in FM faster and smoother, since it stores more FM data. With low RAM you'd normally experience that browsing between stuff in FM (ex. going from Tactics to News to Scouting etc.) is very slow and annoying. Virtual RAM does the same. Stores the recent data and information you have accessed, so it can load these things up quicker than loading them all over again. This off course doesn't work as fast as RAM since it's limited to the speed of the drive, which works slower than RAM. But it is a decent solution if you don't want to by RAM right away.

Hope it was understandable and helpful. If you can't set it up properly, write back and I'll try to explain it better.

Cheers

RAM will make your computer faster, it allows your computer to do more at the same time.

With 480 RAM, your computer cannot do much at the same time and FM uses quite some RAM, especially when you play on large and with multiple leagues on.

If you have more RAM, the computer has more freedom and can process more at the same time. Your computer will process more things and thus your games run quicker. I do have to say, 480 is a rather odd number. I have seen odd numbers before, but I never knew how people got it.

The virtual memory thing, well it could be that your page file is simply not enough, in comparison to your RAM. If your computer uses a lot of RAM, the computer uses the virtual memory to store things, until they are needed. If that fills up, the computer cannot do anything, until it is done processing the RAM and virtual memory. Remember, some things always get priority, thus you never have 100% access to your RAM.

You could try to increase your page file, which you can find like this: right click my computer > properties > advanced tab > performance settings button > advanced.

There you'll find the option to alter your page file and increase or decrease your virtual memory.

I suggest getting more RAM though, which you can buy at PC Hardware stores. If you don't know how to put it in your computer, let someone else do it. You don't want to scratch your motherboard, or anything inside your computer.

Edit: Socdk just beat me to it.

You shouldn't just enter some general value in User Defined size as you don't want the pagefile getting fragmented.

You shouldn't just enter some general value in User Defined size as you don't want the pagefile getting fragmented.

To be honest I'm not a super wiz with a computer. I know some basics and a few in-depth things... But my "skills" are limited. (Hence burning off 4 gig's of RAM)

What do you mean by "some general value" and what harm can it cause? I don't want to hurt my computer anymore than I already have, so if I should change something please let me know

I'm no whizz either and everything I know has come from the dubious source that is the internet. But my basic understanding is this.

When you boot up Windows creates the pagefiles however you have it set up.

If your selected size doesn't fit a 'contiguous' space on your drive the pagefile gets fragmented.

Now since XP loves it's VM it will always throw elements of all running processes into VM.

If one of those processes VM gets fragmented it means the drive head having to shift further to get the relevant info.

TBH I don't know what the quantifiable difference is and it probably depends on the technical specifics of your drive.

If you want to check in XP

Start > Programs > Applications > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

Highlight the drive you have your pagefile(s) on (if you have a single physical drive that is partitioned then you should put the pagefile on the same partition containing your OS)

Click Analyze.

When it's finished click View Report and it will tell you if the pagefile is fragmented in there.

Or you can just look at the pretty little picture . The green parts are unmoveable files and these sections are your pagefile as far as I know. You want to see a contiguous green part.

What I meant by 'some general value' is if you are going to set fixed values to optimise it you need to do it relative to your usual usage. In most general cases ticking the option that lets XP manage it is fine. If it throws up a warning about needing to resize I don't believe any harm comes from it as I assume Windows is coded to avoid corruption by moving active stuff around and stopping access while the pagefile is increased. My XP does this even when set to User Defined.

So as long as you have plenty of drive space where you have your page file and it occupies one contiguous chunk it's size isn't really an issue. There is alot of conjecture about pagefiles especially in the gaming world and you really have to judge for yourself (gamers swear by making the VM small to force Windows into using Physical RAM and Microsoft people say they're seeing an improvement that isn't actually happening). So if you feel like your game is 'quicker' then leave it as is. It might be that it does make a difference if you have alot of processes running at once as it makes it more efficient in that Windows doesn't have to juggle stuff in and out. But that's just theory and only the Windows programmers know exactly how it works.

And to the opening poster Windows should just adjust the pagefile rather than shut the game down. Never seen it or messed with it so more conjecture but I would guess it doesn't just increase the pagefile because of space on your system drive.

Oh okay like that... But as far as I know, that's why you enter a standard RAM-value (like 128 - 256 - 512 - 1024 - 2048)... Innit?

If your worried about the page file fragmenting...

Set it.

Restart.

Defrag.

Restart.

Play.

Simple really.

But yeah, you need more ram. The processor isn't great, but the ram is really crippling you.

With vista, you can boost your ram with a fast usb stick... Then again, upgrading to vista would hurt you far more than it'd help, with less than half a gig of ram!

Note: The usb stick speedup thing is faster than hard disk paging but slower than real RAM.

Oh okay like that... But as far as I know, that's why you enter a standard RAM-value (like 128 - 256 - 512 - 1024 - 2048)... Innit?

You can enter any value you want, although it's recommended large enough to deal with crash dumps, Windows will tell you as much if you try to make it smaller.

RAM in those values is a different kettle of fish

Need some ram.

Go on start, run , dxdiag.

Then paste your motherboard so we can tel lyou which type of ram to get.

Wait...... 480mb of ram? Is that possible?

32MB of his ram is being used by shared intergrated graphics... so only displays 480MB ram.

I also had this problem with my laptop... initially its cos your computer has probably clogged up lots of crap over the years... and now 480MB ram is not good enough to run the game... initially i completely re-installed windows(dont bother with this) which helped bcos then only basics were running alongside fm... but i did go and put 2GB of Ram in it in the end.. basically RAM won't make it much faster but atleast it will allow you to run the game! i would suggest upgrading to 1GB(do this). Thats your solution.

I did experience same problem as Jordramsfan with similar computer specs. I simply cleaned up on the hard disk, plenty of programs I diden`t use, defragmented the disk and haven`t experienced further problems. I am however running three leuages, with a medium size database.