If paging is enabled, OS/2 will temporarily
move data from physical RAM to a special swap file on a hard disk.
The OS/2 swap file is always
called SWAPPER.DAT
. Unless changed through
CONFIG.SYS
, this file resides in the
\OS2\SYSTEM
directory.
In detail, the following happens:
SWAPPER.DAT
. This part of memory is then
available and given to the requesting application.
As a result,
applications may use more memory than what is physically
installed in the computer.
This is why plenty of RAM is the most important prerequisite for an acceptably fast OS/2 installation. Even though you may install OS/2 with only 8 MB of RAM (OS/2 Warp 3 allegedly even with 4), you will then only hear the hard disk rattle because OS/2 has to permanently swap in and out.
Even if you have a relatively large amount of RAM installed
(say, 128 MB or more), OS/2 may suddenly start swapping.
Since growing the swap file is an expensive operation, you
should choose your SWAPPATH
settings carefully.
If you are using the XCenter, you can also use the
"Sentinel" widget
to monitor OS/2's memory management.