How to Fix Low Virtual Memory Error in Windows

Generally when you install/run very big applications like 3DMax, Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Dreamweaver the windows based PC’s start giving you a error message saying – Your system is low on virtual memory. To ensure that Windows runs properly, increase the size of your virtual memory paging file.

Reasons for Low Virtual Memory :

Lets say you are running a application like Adobe Photoshop and while you are rendering a big sized image the pc starts using high amount of RAM and when there isn’t any adequate Random Access Memory on your PC which can handle processing of this data. This is when the PC starts using the Virtual Memory.

What is Virtual Memory :

Temporary storage used by a computer to run programs that need more memory than it has. For example, programs could have access to 4 gigabytes of virtual memory on a computer’s hard drive, even if the computer has only 32 megabytes of RAM. The program data that does not currently fit in the computer’s memory is saved into paging files.

Finding Source of Low Virtual Memory Problem :

In order to quickly solve this problem you need to first find the source of it by checking out the Task Manager and analyzing all the programs to find which one of those is using the highest memory and closing them. This way you can close the programs which you are not actively using and those which use high amount of your memory.

Click on Windows Task Manager > View > Select Columns

Next Click on Select Columns option from the View Menu and Check on Virtual Memory Size Option

Next move on to the Task Manager’s main process tab and find all the programs which are using high amount of Virtual Memory and End their Process.

You can also try to uninstall and reinstall these high memory using programs because sometimes older versions of some software end up using high amount of RAM/Virtual RAM. I would recommend you to setup your Virtual Memory to 1.5 times of your physical memory for better performance.