Product Description (Non-Technical)

 OptiMem RAM Charger is a unique new system enhancement, unlike anything else available on the market. These notes offer a brief description of what OptiMem RAM Charger does and how it works.

Traditionally, when a Macintosh application starts up it must reserve exactly the amount of memory it will use. Users must configure each application, using the Finder's File/Get Info window, to reserve enough memory to accommodate the largest amount of work (documents/spelling etc.) ever done using that application. Otherwise, users risk running out of memory in the application despite the fact that there may be unused memory outside the application's reserved space.

Under this system, without OptiMem RAM Charger, it is very desirable to reserve plenty of memory for an application. Should an application use all of its reserved memory you are in a bind. At best you must quit, increase the reserved size, and start back up to get your work done (at worst your application will have crashed when it ran out of memory). This interrupts your train of thought, and wastes valuable time. Even worse, unless you shrink the reserved size back down after the quitting the application, you have now increased the amount of memory the application will reserve each time you start it from then on!

Using these old fashioned memory techniques, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you reserve enough memory for applications to avoid running short, you waste a lot of memory. If you reserve the least amount of memory for applications to avoid the waste, you risk running short. We have found that the average configuration handles this balancing act by having applications reserve more than double the memory they need to start. On the dramatic side, many Photoshop(TM) users reserve more than 10 times (32 Megabytes) of unused reserve space! What if they are only opening medium images on a given day?

OptiMem RAM Charger is the ONLY product that gives applications memory as needed. As a result, OptiMized applications can start using only the amount of memory they need, and grow and shrink while running. This accommodates any amount of work done on a given day, without having to waste space with large application reserves.

Because OptiMem RAM Charger distributes memory dynamically, you can keep more applications and documents open without getting "out of memory" messages. All unused memory is available to all applications and is used only when it is actually needed. For the first time--ever--you can use the liberated space for opening documents in any application, not just applications open with excess reserves.

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About Connectix RAM Doubler(TM)

 Using Connectix RAM Doubler doubles your memory with virtual memory techniques. However, the expanded memory is still allocated in the same old way using the "Preferred" application size. This still allows applications to tie up big chunks of that doubled space. Furthermore, any application can still run out of memory (in its fixed partition) even though there's lots of free memory elsewhere.

Obviously the two products really complement each other: OptiMem RAM Charger provides the reduction of initial application partitions and then dynamic resizing, while they remain open, so you get more into the memory you have. RAM Doubler compresses your in-memory data and maps in additional virtual address space, so you have more to allocate in the first place. Some users find the combination of OptiMem RAM Charger and Connectix RAM Doubler to be a religious experience.

After you have OptiMized the use of your memory, if you still require an expanded memory space, you may wish to consider RAM Doubler. RAM Doubler performance is a vast improvement over System 7 Virtual Memory (which will only use the disk for its secondary storage). For those who need virtual memory, RAM Doubler is a very good alternative to the standard implementation.

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