Assigning RAM to virtual machine

Frank1 · 01 Aug 2012

My desktop computer’s OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit with 4gig of RAM installed. I recently installed VMware Player and then installed Windows XP Professional 32 bit. When I installed XP I assigned 1 gig of RAM. If I’m not mistaken, when I shutdown my virtual machine it will release the RAM that I assigned to it so that when I’m back on my host machine it still has the 4 gig of RAM. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be a good idea to assign 2 gig of RAM instead of the 1 gig to my virtual machine?

logicearth · 01 Aug 2012

Frank1 said:

wouldn’t it be a good idea to assign 2 gig of RAM instead of the 1 gig to my virtual machine?[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

Not really no. Should only assign what you need. Now if you had a lot more RAM then maybe but the host machine is still going to need RAM of its own.

Frank1 · 01 Aug 2012

OK, Thanks. I'll leave it as is.

Lee · 01 Aug 2012

If you are going to continue using a VM more ram should be on your mind. I have 16 gigs and when sitting up a VM it is nice to have that extra especially when sitting up another 64 bit OS. I have Kubuntu and Vista 64 setup in a VM with each assigned 4 gigs of ram; thus they run very smoothly. And, with this setup and three monitors I am able to run three OS at the same time (not to often though).

Kebero · 05 Aug 2012

If VMWare Player will swap RAM the way VMWare Workstation does, it's safe to over-allocate, since it is going to reserve a certain amount for the host OS and will swap VM RAM if needed.