Maximizing the Use of Available Memory in Windows

ID: Q72236

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) versions 3.0, 3.1

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Windows graphical environment creates and stores objects on behalf of each application in the system. Two places store many of these objects, the user heap and the graphics device interface (GDI) heap, each one limited to 64K. This article discusses the objects, their size, and how to maximize the use of the heaps.

MORE INFORMATION

A good way to see what is stored in the heaps is to use the Heap Walker tool (HEAPWALK.EXE) provided with the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK). Heap Walker is documented in Chapter 11 of the SDK Tools manual for Windows 3.0 and in Chapter 9 of the SDK Programming Tools manual for Windows 3.1. The memory management practices of Windows are documented in Chapters 15 and 16 of the SDK Guide to Programming for Windows 3.0. Further information on Windows memory management is available in Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows" (Microsoft Press) and in Peter Norton and Paul Yao's "Windows 3.0 Power Programming Techniques" (Bantam Computer Books).

The following table lists the objects stored in the user heap and the typical sizes for these items:


   Object          Size in Bytes
   ------          -------------
   Menu            20 + 20 per menu item
   Window Class    40 to 50
   Window          60 to 70

Note that every running program requires space in the user heap. Every application must use this shared resource wisely. One technique to reduce heap requirements is through the judicious use of resources. For example, static strings should be placed into a string table instead of being stored as string variables. If a group of applications shares a common set of resources, place the resources into a dynamic-link library (DLL). Multiple applications can share one copy of code, data, and resources through a DLL.

Another way to reduce heap requirements is through the use of class extra bytes and window extra bytes. Although these bytes are stored on the user heap, each is associated with a particular window or window class. These bytes are convenient places to store a handle to a data structure that has been allocated from global memory.

Menus are, by far, the biggest consumer of user heap space. Applications that have multiple menu bars or create menus with the TrackPopupMenu() API should load these resources only as needed and destroy them after use, instead of waiting for program termination. In Windows 3.1, user stores menus in a separate 64K heap.

When an application creates a GDI object, Windows allocates space from the GDI heap. While most applications create GDI objects, an application should not create too many objects at one time. Also, each object must be destroyed when it is no longer required by the application. The following table lists the objects stored in the GDI heap and their typical sizes:


   Object              Size in Bytes
   ------              -------------
   Brush               32
   Bitmap              28 to 32
   Device Context (DC) 300
   Font                40 to 44
   Pen                 28
   Region              28
   Palette             28

Items are created in the GDI heap whenever an application creates a GDI object. Most applications create GDI objects, but an application should not create too many objects at one time. Also, an object must be destroyed when it is no longer required by the application.

The maximum number of windows that can be open simultaneously is constrained by the amount of space remaining in the user heap. As noted above, the user and GDI heaps are each limited to 64K.

Because heap space is shared among all running applications, an application must check the value returned from each function call to verify that memory allocations are successful. The debugging version of Windows produces a FatalExit message when an application uses an invalid handle. This information is difficult to obtain from any other source.

Additional query words: 3.00 3.10

Keywords : kb16bitonly
Version : WINDOWS:3.0,3.1
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type :