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This section describes the registry tweak for GigaStudio that I discovered a couple of years ago. The basic function of the tweak is to make more memory available for GigaStudio when running on Windows 2000 or Windows XP computers with more than 1GB physical ram installed.

Note that this page was written with GigaStudio 2.5 in mind. The same thing applies to GigaStudio 3, but nowadays there is an option to apply the tweak with the included Memory Configuration Utility which also contains new presets.

Background

I bought VSL in 2003 and soon found myself in a situation where I would have needed too many computers in order to load enough instruments for a certain project I was starting up at the time. The fact that Win98 users are (yes they still are) able to load more instruments per installed MB puzzled me. I did some short studies while loading samples into GigaStudio running on XP and found out that I constantly hit a roof in one of the memory pools that XP allocates upon startup. The sizes of these pools are determined by XP when the system is booted and they are optimized for typical office use and overall stability in that environment. A GigaStudio machine is certainly no standard office environment where you have many small programs up and running at once, rather the opposite. There is a way to override this automatic allocation however and that is the essence of the tweak.

How to apply the tweak

First of all: Be careful when changing values in the registry. Keep those backups fresh!

Alternative 1: Download and use the GigaStudio Memory Load Optimizer tool. You find the tool on the Memory Optimizer page on this site.

Alternative 2: Follow the guide below.

To apply the tweak two values, PagedPoolQuota and PagedPoolSize, have to be changed in the Windows registry. They are found under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SYSTEM->CurrentControlSet->Control->Session Manager->Memory Management. Both values have a default value of 0. Unfortunately the experience has shown that there is no exact science in finding the correct values for every machine so you may have to experiment a bit until you find the "perfect" values for your particular setup. In addition to the PagedPool values there are also two similar NonPagedPool values. Some users reports that they were forced to change these two as well.

Below is a small table over a number of successful combination on different machines. Unfortunately I don't have access to information regarding the hardware specifics of each system but they can be used as a guide. All registry key values in the table below is in hexadecimal format.

*RAM*	*Load limit after tweak*	*PagedPoolQuota*	*PagedPoolSize*	*NonPagedPoolQuota*	*NonPagedPoolSize*
1.5GB	796MB	40	4000000	0	0
2GB	1050MB	80	8000000	0	0
2GB	1090MB	8	800000	8	800000
2GB	1070MB	40	4000000	0	0
2GB	1057MB	80	4000000	0	0
1.5GB	816MB	40	40	0	0

Expected results

The maximum obtainable load in GigaStudio (where GigaStudio reports 99%) seems to be about 53% of the physical RAM installed in the machine. This simple rule holds up to machines with 2GB RAM installed. Some numbers that can be used as a guide line are included in the table below.

RAM	Limit
1 GB	530MB
1.5 GB	790-830MB
2 GB	1050-1100MB

Differences between Windows 2000 - Windows XP

From the reports I've gotten since I presented the tweak idea it seems that Windows 2000 is sometimes impossible to cure using this tweak. Some of the users experiencing this have solved their problems by upgrading to Windows XP on the same hardware. This isn't a guarantee that it will always work, but enough people have reported success with this in order to be included on this page as a helpful tip.

Other memory related tips

Certain cd drivers like the ones included with Nero InCD can cause memory allocation problems when used on a GigaStudio machine. This is indicated by a very low load limit in GigaStudio. If you have problems getting the load limit to increase even though the registry tweak is applied it's worth checking if you have this type of driver on your system. Removing the driver seems to solve the problem.

Solution to a possible WinXP SP2 setup problem

If you get an error message about "not enough quota" while setting up SP2 for Windows XP on a machine that have the registry tweaks applied you need to reset the registry values to 0 (automatic) and restart the machine before you run the SP2 setup again. This problem is probably depending on the values entered so different computers may or may not be affected by this problem. After installing SP2 you need to apply the registry tweak again.