What does virtual memory combine to act like memory?

Virtual memory is a memory management capability that allows a computer to compensate for physical memory shortages by temporarily transferring data from Random Access Memory (RAM) to a space designated on the hard drive. This process creates the illusion of a larger amount of RAM than is physically available, enabling the system to run more applications simultaneously and manage larger datasets.

The combination of hard drive space and RAM in virtual memory effectively extends the available memory, allowing for better multitasking and improved performance in applications that require more memory than the physical RAM can provide. When RAM fills up, the operating system swaps out less-used data from RAM to the hard drive, freeing up space in RAM for currently active processes.

In contrast, relying solely on hard drive space or RAM would not achieve the functionality that virtual memory provides. Hard drive space alone lacks the speed necessary for immediate memory access, while relying only on RAM limits the capacity of the system in terms of how many applications can be run or how large data can be processed. Registers and cache memory are different types of faster storage that work on a scale close to the CPU, but they do not function in the same way as virtual memory in terms of extending overall system capacity.