What is the difference between R.A.M and "Virtual Memory"

Question

What is the difference between R.A.M and "Virtual Memory"

Answer 1

RAM refers to the memory sticks that go in your computer. Call them 'physical memory'.

Virtual Memory is what you get when you add your physical memory to a disk-based memory swap file (`paging file`). The combination of the two represents the amount of memory your computer has to work with.

For practical purposes, your software interacts with virtual memory and doesn't care where it comes from. Your operating system tries to ensure that things you're accessing are kept in physical memory, where response times are fastest. Getting into the details of how an OS interacts with physical RAM is a little outside the scope of the question, but at least you know what direction to start reading.  

Answer 2

R.A.M stands for randon access memory and is added to your system (should it allow, R.A.M slots being available). Virtual memory uses the memory that comes wit the p.c. Check your system to see how much you have. You can change this when you become familiar with your p.c.

Answer 3

virtual mem comes from the hd, ram comes from the ram sticks (hardware)

ram is faster, virtual is the slowest memory and only used if there arent enough mem... (i believe the fastest kind of mem is cache)

Answer 4

There the same, your using virtual memory (ram space) viewing this page now, the more tabs you have the more virtual memory its using

Answer 5

R.A.M is your Random Access Memory. This stores everything from Programs to images on to your HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

Virtual Memory is your Memory Sticks which hold information ready to be processed via your processor. Once it's been completed it's removed and so on.

Once your PC has lost it's power supply, your Virtual Memory loses all it's information, as it's now been saved on your HDD.

Answer 6

RAM is the physical memory and when your computer is trying to use more RAM then you physically have it substitutes memory from the Hard drive to bridge the gap.