Why does 512MB RAM Computer show 457MB Physical Memory

I am new to this site and would appreciate any and all help. I'm looking for suggestions to a problem I am having when running Pennicle Studio. My computer freezes and have to ctrl-alt-del to kill the process. This software was working fine for about three weeks (maybe alittle slow, I guess). The software minimum requirement is 512MB but recommends 1GB. My computer is a Presario AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+. I have Windows XP Professional SP2. It has 512 MB of RAM. I tried reinstalling the software to no avail. Did a memory test and that seemed to be fine; however, when I look at Windows Task Manager, I noticed the Physical Memory (K) had a Total of 457200 and Available around 76000. So, I wondered if 512MB computer really have a Total memory of 512000 as I thought it should. By looking at an ealier forum post on this site, a member (Alicia J) confirms that Physical memory should be a total of 514740 with an available 193712 with system cache 214756. Again, this is just an earlier post that this person requested for something. Why does my computer say 457200 in the Windows Task manager (Performance Task) for Physical memory when I assume others say the true 512MB? I'm thinking of adding more memory (an additional 512MB), but want to be sure there isen't any possibility something else is wrong. Could memory chips loose partial banks and no one would really know about it except for freezing software and through viewing the Windows task manager? Again, test (PC Doctor 5 for Windows) says it's fine. Furthermore, the PF Usage goes from 403MB to a whopping 727MB then the program freezes. Can someone tell me if I add more RAM, will it "leak" the FP Usage to 727MB + 512MB? All other software like Office 2000 seems to work fine, but are not memory intensive.

 

Part of your RAM is being shared by your video system. In your case it looks like 66 megs. It's probably listed in your specs or else you can run Everest or Aida and check that out.

Given that, you are not going to run a progy successfully that requires 512 megs RAM since you are only supplying 446 megs. XP loves Ram so give it all you can afford, you'll not regret it and your programs will run much better.

I just checked mine to relieve your curiousity, I also have 512 Megs of RAM but Task Mgr. shows only 490984 K. So that figures out to 490984/1024= 480 Megs. I check Everest and it shows 32 Megs being devoted to the video system. That jives pretty well with what you are seeing.

 

It's just strange that for three weeks, it would work fine, maybe at it's minimum 512MB. I was able to edit movies and all, but suddenly, not any longer. I just wonder what could have caused it to immediately start "freezing" when loading the program. Also, it seems that the hard drive is in a continual run state - probably because of virtual memory trying to run - but for several minutes! I did run defragmentation (120GB HD). I know you're right about the video card taking RAM since it's build into the motherboard - I believe there is an expansion slow for an additional. With that said, 1) Will probably 1GB should work just fine? 2) What else may be causing the situation? I just want to find out from everyone if anything else could prevent the program from running even with additional RAM purchased.

 

It could be your AV program or else MS Update running in the background recently that has changed the situation. Also it may be some Malware that is at work.

Also check out what's in your Start Up group and trim it down as lean as you can so as to devote as much RAM to your graphics program.

Also, check how much HD free space that you have since that can limut the Paging file. Normally that would generate an error message though.

Later when you get the 1gig installed, you'll probably be fine.

 

Those are things I have or will check - Thanks SurferDud2. As a side note, some other numbers concerning the RAM is as follows:

Maximum Memory Capacity (Supported) 4096 MB
Total Physical Memory 446.48 MB
Free Physical Memory 120.93 MB
Total Virtual Memory: 2.00 GB
Free Virtual memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.03 GB
Total Number of memory chips: 2

This is according to PC-Doctor preloaded software.
The hard drive has 58 GB remaining from 120 GB.

The video Card is a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE with 256 MB of Card memory.

The current speed (SMBIOS) is 2.2 GHz through an AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+