Gaming performance & pagefile windows 7 x64

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vincerhodes

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Aug 24, 2009
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I've recently started having performance issues in both Crysis and Farcry 2 when loading new areas/bits of the games to the point where they become unplayable, it seems to get worse and worse in Crysis as new areas load and sometimes it just doesn't seem to settle down at all, it feels like it's trying to load new textures from the HDD as they appear onscreen. Farcry is not as bad but does seem to exhibit the same kind of behaviour, sometimes going very choppy for 30 secs when I come in range of an enemy outpost.

I'm running windows 7 RC1 7100 x64 with the following specs in brief

Processor: Phenom II X550 black edition
RAM: 4Gb DDR3
Graphics: HD 4870
HDD: 500Gb Seagate less than 50% full on both partitions

Harddrive partitions - C: windows 7 partition & programs ; D: data (movies, music, pics etc)

I know my graphics card can run both games on max settings with 8xAA on my HDTV 720p resolution of 1280 x 720, the experience is smooth and fast once all loading/page swapping activities have ceased.

So having hunted high and low for a fix I've started fiddling with my pagefile and have found the following:

Default setting - Pagefile system managed on C and off on D

This is the original setting and gives me the performance issues above - Crysis only playable (just) with everything on high rather than very high

Setting 1 - Pagefile = 200Mb starting and 1000Mb max on C, off on D

Better performance in both games but still some loading/stuttering; no windows errors yet (I haven't tried opening loads of apps) - again Crysis settings left on high rather than very high for playability

Setting 2 - Pagefile = off altogether

Superb performance in both games with everything set to max, Crysis runs smooth on Very High for all settings with the pagefile off. However Windows 7 frequently reports that it's running low on virtual memory.

So I seem to have two choices currently, pagefile off for brilliant performance in games but potential system instability/insufficient virtual memory OR pagefile normal, system stability but bad gaming experience. This is not a purely gaming rig, as is probably the case for most people, I use my PC for multimedia, work and gaming.

I don't understand why the pagefile should make such a massive difference when I've got 4Gb of ram on my system, it's almost like I need to be able to tell Windows not to use the PF unless absolutely necessary but I'm guessing that should be the default behaviour in Windows. I'm tearing my hair out over this as I have a good rig that should be fully capable of running games and other applications smoothly, does anyone have an alternate solution or has anyone else had this problem and solved it. Please don't recommend buying new hardware as I don't think that it is required, my HDD is less than 50% full and fully defragmented, and I know that the rest of the system can handle the games as they run beautifully with the PF turned off... I just don't get it!

Cheers,

J

 
hello, which would fit the best for SYSTEM (30GB), PAGEFILE (7GB max, 4GB RAM), WORKDISK (50GB), STOREDISK (300GB)

i have:
- 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200rpm 32M
- 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200rpm 32M
- 74GB WD Caviar RAPTOR 10000rpm 16MB


( both with win7 installation 64bit windows rank 5,9)

according to HD Tune RAPTOR has almost half acces time (about 8s) but almost 1/3 slower read write (about 74MB/s).
Samsung F3 spinpoint acces time abour 14s and read/write about 110MB/s.
 
I'm running Windows 7 ultimate 64bit, q6600 (4 cores), ati 4870, 8 GB of DDR3 memory, and a I TB WD Black (7200 rpm). I am a gamer, that's all this computer is used for. After disabling the page file, my computer runs games much more smoothly....Your computer looks in the RAM, then the paging file, and your RAM is wayyyy faster than ROM (your hd) and basically bottlenecks to a degree. I have done this for a while, bc of a suggestion i read on another forum, and I highly recommend it. I do use this computer for other stuff (a little sony vegas, and other general stuff), and have never, ever had my ram drop below like 2.5 gig available. When i do i just restart. And that has only happened once...it usually stays at about 5gb free when gaming. I play HL2 games, such as Counter strike source, i Have played Crysis...COD MW2, and this method drasticly makes gaming smoother.

Just because you guys think disabling a page file doesnt help on windows 7 because you read it somewhere...maybe you should test it first. I get better benchmarks all around this way. This HD is only a month old, not because it went out, i just wanted more space, and a faster RPM HD.

But as i said, i do have 8gb of ddr3 ram..not 4gb, so i dont know how much of a difference that would make. But generally speaking, if you are a gamer, i would highly recommend disabling the paging file if you have 4gb+ of RAM.
 
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