Question

Increasing the RAM of a computer typically improves performance because
1. Virtual memory increase
2. Larger RAMs are faster
3. Fewer page faults occur
4. Fewer segmentation fault occurs

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 3 : Fewer page faults occur
Concept

• Virtual memory of a computer does not depend upon the main memory. However, it is not straight wrong but not the best answer.
• With more RAM we can afford larger virtual memory size without worrying about thrashing and thus could keep more number of processes in the memory which will increase utilization of CPU and hence its performance.
• If we increase the size of RAM-main memory, then more pages can be accommodated resulting in fewer page faults. Hence, answer C is the best answer.
• The size of RAM does not determine its speed but faster or slower depends upon the type of RAM e.g. SRAM is faster, DRAM is slower.

Segmentation fault means memory access violation where programs crash on this condition. Segmentation fault is not related to size of main memory and it can be occurring on any condition for example, if we are pushing more data than the size of an array or if we try to assign a value to a pointer for which memory is not allocated.