Maximizing Windows Install of MySQL

[sherwin gaddis]

I am not real new to MySQL. But I am trying to know more about the best practices to make the program work better.

I am dealing with a program called OpenEMR. This is a EMR program that runs lots of queries against the database. I am trying to tune the MySQL for maximum performance.

One of my questions is how can I get the core program to take up more RAM when it loads. Right now, the program when it loads takes up 128MB of RAM. I have this program on a server all alone. There is 4GB of RAM and with all services running on the server only 1.5GB of RAM is being used.

I was wondering if MySQL used more physical RAM would the program perform better. The calendar portion of the program is what is having the most problems with loading very slowly. The calendar table has close to 10K records in it.

I was hoping that I could find a way to make the program work in more RAM space. There is not a lot of disc I/O on the server either.

Here is my current config that I am using:

key_buffer = 512M

max_allowed_packet = 10M

table_cache = 128

sort_buffer_size = 512M

net_buffer_length = 128M

read_buffer_size = 128M

read_rnd_buffer_size = 128M

myisam_sort_buffer_size = 128M

log_error="mysql_error.log"

join_buffer_size=8M

sort_buffer_size=8M

sql buffer result=1

I have been changing some of the setting to see how it effect the application loading.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Sherwin