20 | Mixed and Contiguous Memory - Get it going

[PeterSt]

There is a setting for this in Settings and the default is Mixed. The other possible values are Mixed and Mixed Contiguous. Also see here : Memory Type.

Mixed always works, but the other two may not. Two variants of this exist : Only Straight Contiguous won't work or both Mixed Contiguous and Straight Contiguous won't work. At this time it is not 100% clear which variant if caused by what, but you want to get both going anyway. What *is* recognized is what the general causes may be. For that, see the paragraphs below.

Do notice that Straight Contiguous is not available for XP anyway.

How does it show when it doesn't work ?

After selecting either of the Contiguous types, at a first Playback attempt a message will follow that a reboot is needed first and playback will not start. So you reboot, but at playback attempt the message follows again. And again ...


You have a Windows Starter or Home edition

When you are using a Home or Starter edition of the Windows Operating System some things are missing in there, and now you have to apply some tricks.

Note : the part between the lines below will be replaced by a more simpler download procedure later.
1. Download the Windows Server 2003Resource Kit tools and install it as per the instructions:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657

2. From the folder in which the above resource kit was installed, you need to access the file called "ntrights.exe". In the particular case here (where the kit was installed on a desktop running Home Premium), it was located in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Resource Kits\Tools folder. Copy this file to another folder and you can then un-install the resource kit if you no longer need it for anything else.
3. You will need the "ntrights.exe" file in order to run a command on it using the command prompt in Windows 7 Starter/Home, so in the case here the "ntrights.exe" was copied onto a USB thumb drive and taken over to the netbook involved (but obviously if you have downloaded the file on the computer you need to "fix" then you just need to know where it is located so you can run the command).

4. Make sure you run the command prompt as Administrator. Run the command prompt and navigate to the folder where "ntrights.exe" is installed with cd (change directory) commands.

5. Input the following command, substituting "Jonathan" for whatever the Administrator username is that requires the lock page rights:

ntrights -u jonathan +r SeLockMemoryPrivilege

(note, if the username has spaces then the username needs to be enclosed in quotes).

6. Upon completion of the above command there should be a message saying that the privilege was successfully implemented.

7. Reboot.

8. Select a Contiguous Memory Type in XXHighEnd and Play something.


You use another OS version like Professional or Ultimate

This should normally work, but it does not in your case. Something is wrong somewhere. Let's start with a normal procedure which should tell you more about what's going on :

1. Open Control Panel->System->Administrative Tools->Local Security Policy;
2. In the left panel, open "Local Policies" and click on "User Rights Assignment";
3. In the right panel, double-click "Lock pages in memory".

Is your username (the one you use to login) listed there ?
And if not, but a user name is there, can you recognize it somehow ? See more about this more below.

If all looks right - do you actually login with a password ? if not, maybe it helps if you create one ?
(this is vague, but do notice that the more special privileges and security stuff is bound to using a password - but careful though, because once you added a password you can't get rid of it anymore)

4. Click on 'Add User or Group' and in the popup click Advanced and then click Find Now: this will show all 'users' (most are 'system users'): double-click on the one you are using to log-on.
5. close all dialogs with OK & make sure you appear in the list in step 3.
6. reboot (so Windows can activate our new policy).
7. Attempt playback. No message anymore ? then the problem is solved now.

At step 3-4 it can have gone wrong though. See the picture below for what can be going on in your system. Don't ask how it can occur like this, but here your user id shows in something like Chinese while at other places it shows normal. This doesn't match. Although vague again, this is the text of the user (with a user id "Jules") where this happened and how he solve it :

Ah that works now! thanks very much. MY PC is not organised in Chinese at all, and I was not able to find those characters when looking in the list of users to add. The funny thing is the 'Jules' is not in the list either, but there was one for 'Administrator' and 'Everyone', which I added, and it all works now.

Here is the complete topic about it, may it help you : Mixed / Contiguous Memory