How can I tell how many resources a VM will use before hand?

avgvirtual · Post by **avgvirtual** » 15. Jul 2009, 17:48

How can I tell how much memory a VM will use before I download it. I have a fairly low RAM (256MB) Windows XP machine with Virtualbox installed. I use it for making DOS VM's and it works fine for that. How can I spot VM's that might get by in, say, 128MB?

Post by **Sasquatch** » 15. Jul 2009, 20:06

If you run a system with just 256 MB of RAM, you really are pushing your system to it's knees if you are running VMs. A clean install of XP SP3 uses way over 200 MB already. It's more closely to 300-400 MB RAM in use and you haven't installed anything yet. If you want to run a VM with 128 MB of RAM, get more memory, or even better, a new PC. One that comes with 256 is at least 6 years old. Running DOS with 8-12 MB of RAM can be done just fine, but any OS that asks more is out of the question. You decide yourself how much resources it will use.

MKhaos7 · Post by **MKhaos7** » 15. Jul 2009, 20:52

Rule of thumb usually VirtualBox adds a 10-15% overhead on memory usage. That is: A VM with 16Mb allocated to it will get more or less 18Mb from the host.
The VM can't go much above the limit you have specified, that is: a VM with 32Mb can't take 128Mb of ram of your host.

avgvirtual · Post by **avgvirtual** » 15. Jul 2009, 22:34

Thanks, I do have a faster 2Gig RAM machine for normal use.

My question is more: when you create a VM, you decide how much memory to give it. Virtualbox lets you create a DOS machine with as little as 4 meg (I wanted to do 640K, but there you go). How can I tell how much RAM the creator decided to give it. Is there a way to probe the file or attach comments to it. I don't want to download a several gig VM and find out I can't run it.

There should be a few linux variants (Damn Small Linux?) that I can run on it too.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 15. Jul 2009, 22:45

Ah, you want to know how much RAM a VM should get when you download a pre-installed VM. That's still something you decide yourself. Most VMs are available as hard drive only, which you then attach to a newly created VM. There are some pre-configured VMs available, but you can read the config using a plain text editor.

MKhaos7 · Post by **MKhaos7** » 15. Jul 2009, 22:48

So, rephrasing your question:

"There are some VMs on the net that I'd like to download. But my computer has little RAM and I want to know if these VMs will run on it.
There is a way to know, before downloading the VM, how much memory will it use?"

Is something like this that you want to know?
If thats the case than no, there is no way to know it, if the site you want to download didn't give you any info.

But, once you dowload it, you can re-assign the memory in any way that pleases you.
IF the VM will run well is another matter

avgvirtual · Post by **avgvirtual** » 16. Jul 2009, 01:33

Thanks, I'll try play around with it...

virtualbox.org

How can I tell how many resources a VM will use before hand?

How can I tell how many resources a VM will use before hand?

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