The-Darkening
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- Nov 30, 2006
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Errrrrrrrmmm.... The pagefile IS in the HDD. If I use it to store data as if it were ram... Doesn't it get reread from the hdd too when needed? :roll:
IMHO, a pagefile for normal people with normal computers is something recommendable. It is better to leave it on, just in case.
Me, I'll never use a pagefile on my computer. I don't want the HDD to do extra work, it is already the slowest component in a computer nowadays. If I need a pagefile, I need ram instead. The pagefile is just a cheap ram replacement. And it is NOT necessary for windows to run properly.
Any body know in what direction a drive is formated, i.e. outside of the disk towards in inside or is it from the inside out (like a CD).
Why if you can create a smallish partition on the outside of the disk and put the swap file there transfer speed will be faster.
This is an old Server trick used to eek out at much performance as possible.
Why if you can create a smallish partition on the outside of the disk and put the swap file there transfer speed will be faster.
This is an old Server trick used to eek out at much performance as possible.
OldGoat
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- Sep 4, 2006
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This will always be a debated topic. If you feel compelled to separate your pagefile from windows them definitely place it on the non OS drive. 1 gig will be more than sufficient for the average user. If you are a heavy multi tasker then increase it to 2 gig.
zenmaster
Splendid
- Feb 21, 2006
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Try something other than ICO files in Photoshop then....................
Photoshop can easily eat more than 4gb of memory when working with high res images. Especially working with many of them.
So, I perhaps we are to presume you are running WinXP-64 and 8gb of RAM?
Photoshop can easily eat more than 4gb of memory when working with high res images. Especially working with many of them.
So, I perhaps we are to presume you are running WinXP-64 and 8gb of RAM?
Errrrrrrrmmm.... The pagefile IS in the HDD. If I use it to store data as if it were ram... Doesn't it get reread from the hdd too when needed? :roll:
IMHO, a pagefile for normal people with normal computers is something recommendable. It is better to leave it on, just in case.
Me, I'll never use a pagefile on my computer. I don't want the HDD to do extra work, it is already the slowest component in a computer nowadays. If I need a pagefile, I need ram instead. The pagefile is just a cheap ram replacement. And it is NOT necessary for windows to run properly.
Read the article mentioned earlier if you want to know more about it, but without a pagefile you will waste a LOT of ram (might be up to 30% or so depending on what software you use), which can be better used for other things such as filesystem caching.
Errrrrrrrmmm.... The pagefile IS in the HDD. If I use it to store data as if it were ram... Doesn't it get reread from the hdd too when needed? :roll:
IMHO, a pagefile for normal people with normal computers is something recommendable. It is better to leave it on, just in case.
Me, I'll never use a pagefile on my computer. I don't want the HDD to do extra work, it is already the slowest component in a computer nowadays. If I need a pagefile, I need ram instead. The pagefile is just a cheap ram replacement. And it is NOT necessary for windows to run properly.
Read the article mentioned earlier if you want to know more about it, but without a pagefile you will waste a LOT of ram (might be up to 30% or so depending on what software you use), which can be better used for other things such as filesystem caching.
No its worse than that. The pagefile is used as the backing store for inter-process shared memory. Since shared memory is managed as a memory mapped file by the kernal it MUST be mapped onto a disk file (not that any real disk IO is nesessarily generated). If you turn off the page file it can really mess some programs up. In any case if you turn off the pagefile windows will just create a tempory one anyway (since it always has some shared memory sections) if this fails it will probably just BSOD or programs will behave erratically. Since the tempory file must be created and resized during boot and run time respectively this is SLOWER than having a pagefile. Don't mess with it just leave the pagefile alone, its fine as it is.
In any case the kernal tracks memory pages to see if they are modified since last read (from pagefile or exe/data file) and will only page out if it needs the ram and it's contents are changed from last read (after all if its un-modified then you can just re-read it if its needed again). In short both XP and Vista treat memory as a write back cache for the page file, exe files, dlls, and the file cache, so why turn the pagefile off? It will still page in and the pagefile will only ever help not hinder. The only time it will ever page when it doesn't need to is if BOTH the disk and CPU are idle so that it can pre-write back modified data to disk so that it doesn't have to bother pageing out when it's really is busy and short of ram. But since its idle anyway why do you care? Over time any unused tasks and initialization data will be paged out in the background and then can be simply overwritten if the ram is needed later on. In the same way any free pages are filled with zeros in the background so they can be given to programs requesting new memory allocations without being zeroed (for security) at run time.
BTW, Vista and XP treat memory EXACTLY the same way i.e. only try to keep 4MB free (unused/zeroed whatever you want to call it). Code and data is paged in and cached there even when its not currently mapped to any applications or the file cache. The only difference is Microsoft have rejigged the counters in task manger to be more descriptive and added a pre-prefetch (a.k.a. superfetch) to pre-cache potentially useful code and data before its even requested.
Regardless of how much RAM you have the page file still need to be on. On a nowadays 32bit system every process will get a 4GB virtual memory space, and having more than 4GB RAM on a 32bit system (you can use more than 4GB with PAE info here and of course vista also supports it, the doc is a little old) is less likely so in the end the memory remaining you have will always be smaller than 4GB. Memory is used to do the actual works and keep just used code and data (in case of vista there're also data likely to be used next) and the page file is used to stored all the data of running kernel and user data. This is just a simpler way of saying what TrinityTP said. Also there're maybe differences between Vista and XP in handling memory: Vista will always keep all the code of loaded dynamic link libraries of running processes in memory and XP will always try to freed unused one out as fast as possible. This is why if you have a minimized program and doing defrag or some memory intensive program when going to lunch or a break for example the minimized program will be much more responsive when you come back with vista (not some magics by superfetch that MS brag). This is from looking at how memory works with Process Explorer not so sure but when I have the time will dig deeper.
In case of one HD system you just keep the default settings that's the best if you know how to handle your C: drive (should have more than 4G free space). If you can't do that as someone's already mentioned create a partion from 2G to 4G in size at the start of the dics and keep the swap file there with system managed setting. If you need to use kernel memory dump then leaving 200MB for XP on the system drive, it's not enough for vista as I have tried it and failed, don't know the sweet spot for vista yet. For entire memory dump you need an equal amount of your RAM for swap file on your system drive.
With multiple HDs system. You can put it in the first partition of the fastest HD either it's your system drive or not. With the same rules from above for swap file size and kernel/memory dump.
In case of one HD system you just keep the default settings that's the best if you know how to handle your C: drive (should have more than 4G free space). If you can't do that as someone's already mentioned create a partion from 2G to 4G in size at the start of the dics and keep the swap file there with system managed setting. If you need to use kernel memory dump then leaving 200MB for XP on the system drive, it's not enough for vista as I have tried it and failed, don't know the sweet spot for vista yet. For entire memory dump you need an equal amount of your RAM for swap file on your system drive.
With multiple HDs system. You can put it in the first partition of the fastest HD either it's your system drive or not. With the same rules from above for swap file size and kernel/memory dump.
sailer
Splendid
- Apr 9, 2006
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Pretty strong statement there. No reasons given to back it up either. I've kept my drive partioned on every computer I've owned for the last 15 years and never suffered anything by doing it. I have saved a lot of work though, when the OS has to be reinstalled from time to time. Oh yes, you would loose the bet on how much data I have. Last I looked, it was over 150 gb worth on one computer and about 250 gb on another. Then again, I use my computers for more than just gaming. I currently have three computers and will be adding a fourth in a few months and they have a lot of business and research programs and data on them.
Oh well, to each his or her own and this is just my opinion
If you don't use a lot of memory intensive apps like Photoshop, simply make a 4gb partition as the first partition on the second HD and specify in Windows that is where you want the pagefile.
Why?
Because Windows always uses a pagefile. I have more than enough RAM for my PC, yet when XP starts and loads the basic processes and the firewall, I'm sitting at 200mb of pagefile usage.
Why the first partition of the second disk?
Because the first partition you make in Windows will be located at the outside edge of the second hard disk. And the outside edge of the disk has faster read and writes times than the smaller diameter inside of the disk.
This is not true. XP also will NOT remove a dll, process, or file mapping from memory either (unless it runs out of ram). The only difference is its balance set manager is more aggressive in trimming inactive processes' working sets (after all when XP was designed memory sizes were considerably smaller than today). However, the process memory will be moved to the standby list in ram and can be soft-faulted back to the process with no disk IO. Process explorer is simply showing you its current working set which is in no way indicative of the total amount of code or data a process has in memory, and is simply as measure of how much of this is mapped and immediately available without generating a soft-fault (CPU only).
The cache operates the same way in that its WS = the amount of file data mapped at this point in time for program file IO routines. As and when this gets too big the mappings are freed to the standby list by the balance set manager but they can simply be mapped again (at some small CPU cost) when needed.
Under Task manager in XP:
System cache = The cache manager's WS.
Available = Free Memory + Standby List (as it can be overwritten quickly)
Under Task manager in Vista:
System cache = The cache manager's WS + Standby List
Available = Free Memory
Microsoft changed the display to avoid the confusion everyone obviously has about this. Unfortunately (or fortunately from the point of view of their marketing dept.), now everyone thinks this is a somehow different way to manage the memory.
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