[fluxrad]

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Specifically, I want to increase the amount of physical memory my machine actually uses.

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You'd be hard pressed to tell your box to use more memory. You might try setting your system up for "background tasks" but trying to tweak how Windows uses memory is just asking for trouble.

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I guess my questions are: should I reduce, move, or eliminate my pagefile since none of it needs to be used?

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NO! Do not remove your pagefile. This is not simply used as "slow memory" as some people think.

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Does anyone have any other suggestions to increase windows physical memory usage and reduce CPU dependance?

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RAM and CPU are pretty much mutually exclusive. One is storage and one is power. However, if your box is at 100%, you might also need to look at other possible problems. Make sure you don't have any spy-ware on your box. Use Windows task manager to check out apps that are using a lot of resources. What does your load look like when nothing is running?

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Most people on these boards seem to recommend at least 1GB of memory for people getting new machines, but despite my best efforts I cannot use that much. All input would be appreciated.

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A gig of RAM is just nice to have. As other posters have said, 512MB is more than enough. But more importantly, I don't understand why you believe that using all of your RAM is critical. I have 1GB of RAM in my box and barely ever use it all (except for playing something system intensive like Half-Life 2 or Doom 3).

Don't worry about it, and be happy your box isn't swapping like the dickens. If you really feel that strongly about it, drop it down to 512MB and send me the gig you have left over [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]