Second Life virtual memory

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Second Life is good for aspies to learn social skills, or so I hear. I downloaded it and can't play because I have insufficient virtual memory. Could somebody please tell me, in small words that even an idiot could understand, what I should do now? (Assume I am impoverished.)

virtual memory is hard disk space used as extra memory, if your computer doesn't have a lot of memory this error will show almost no matter what you do (if you have a lot of programs running), installing more memory may help fix this, if you are at all unsure, ask someone with technical knowledge or a computer shop for help

The short answer is to give yourself more virtual memory.

Assuming you are running Windows, this probably boils down to just making sure that you have some HDD space, and then letting Windows allocate it as it needs it. (Control Panel/System or My Computer/Properties, dig in to where the virtual memory is set... where you'll see an option "Let Windows work it out for itself", or words to that effect). Then reboot you computer.

If you run Linux, just grab some disk space and "swapon" it.

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Unfortunately, SecondLife is pretty greedy, both on memory size and display capabilities. There's a good chance that you'll find it unusable. I find it marginally usable with a 1.7GHz P4 processor, 512Mbyes RAM and a GeForce4.

When a program genuinely uses far more real memory than you actually have, you get "thrashing". The operating system is continuously swapping out (to disc) data that hasn't been accessed for a bit, and then fetching back data that the program wants to see.

If you look at http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php, you'll see what it reckons. 512Mbytes RAM is minimal - hence my problem.

Thank you both. That was really useful. I checked the innards of this thing, like you suggested, and I am not only financially impoverished, I am memory impoverished: 256 MB. If minimum these days is 256, no wonder Second Life and Test Drive Unlimited don't run.

I really really *really* really!! ! want to run these programs.

My computer is at least 6 years old. It was more than adequate at the time, methinks. So - how about if I forget how financially impoverished I am and put a new computer on my credit card? (not asking about financial advisability, but computer bliss-out possibility)

Question: If I buy new PC, how do I put put all old stuff on new one?

Question: is there any inherent preference for PC over laptop? I've never had a laptop but I'd like to.

Thank you!

If your PC is ONLY 6 years old, you may well be able to add memory quite cheaply. Mine is ten years old, and memory for it has become a but like gold dust. I could upgrade to 1GByte (max), but it would be almost as expensive as switching to a new motherboard with 2GBytes!

If you can dig out manufacturer/model for your machine, you should be able to look up the price of extra RAM.

Also, if you are serious about getting a new machine... what are you running on your old one? With Windows, some things are easy to transfer/reinstall, or will be coming as part of the new package, but some you may need to to buy again. (Unless you switch to Linux, and get everything free, that is... but I suspect you're not up for that.)

If Your computer takes DDR1 Memory [PC2700] you can get a 512MB Stick for a good $30. I just have a couple with me right now. However it will cost you $60 for a 512MB stick if your CPU uses SDMemory. If you mainly only use your computer for a few games, web browsing, and word processing[ Like Most People] i would just add a new hard drive [ Its $30 for a good 80GB on Ebay.] More Memory and a Video Card with 256MB Video Memory might also help. [Video cards average about $50 @ Staples, Circiut City, and Office Depot.]

Hope This Helps