How do I allocate physical memory in C#?

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Hello. I am trying to find a way to allocate physical not virtual memory in C#. I tried googling it and on Stack Overflow but found only virtual memory allocation which didn't work and didn't appear in Task Manager

What I have tried:

Stack overflow (only found virtual allocation)
Google, found nothing

Marshal.AllocHGlobal(bytes); // virtual memory allocation (not what i am looking for)

AllocateUserPhysicalPages(); // gave errors

Posted 17-Dec-21 15:44pm

j ongamer13

Updated 17-Dec-21 21:41pm

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Luc Pattyn · Answer 1 · 2021-12-17T16:07:00

Yes, AllocHGlobal allocates virtual memory by calling LocalAlloc (from winbase.h) with option LMEM_FIXED. It does not initialize the buffer whatsoever, which means no physical memory needs to be spent yet. As soon as you start using the memory, it will become physical memory.

Now I wonder why you would want unmanaged physical memory in the first place. Can you explain what your app is supposed to do with it? Maybe there are other and better ways to reach your goals...

Richard MacCutchan · Answer 2 · 2021-12-17T21:41:00

Solution 2

Quote:
AllocateUserPhysicalPages(); // gave errors

Unless you tell us what the errors are we cannot help. You may like to check AllocateUserPhysicalPages function (memoryapi.h) - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs[^] for further information.

Posted 17-Dec-21 21:41pm

Richard MacCutchan

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j ongamer13 18-Dec-21 7:26am

It gave a "AllocateUserPhysicalPages(); does not exist in the current context" error.

Richard MacCutchan 18-Dec-21 7:38am

Yes, because it is part of the Win32 library, so you can only call it through P/Invoke.