Win XP page file

[Agent 86]

Wondering if any of you change default page file size and would you need one with 512mb ram?

[Agent666]

yes you still need one now and then. (hardly ever uses it though)....... got 512Mb ram have a 384Mb swapfile on drive D .... C drive is windows nothing on there

[KingJackal]

Yes you need one.

I've got 512Mb of RAM, and a permanent and variable swap. Min 384MB, max 768MB ;).

If you've got the hard-drive space, just set it to min 512 max 512 ( permanent half gig, will perform better than a dynamically allocated page file space ) and forget.

[asanthadenz]

what do u recomend i should set my 256mb ram to
Win 98Se

MIN=???
MAX=???

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by asanthadenz
what do u recomend i should set my 256mb ram to
Win 98Se

MIN=???
MAX=???

Well - leave it on auto assign and run around and do stuff, using some random app ( Google should find you one ;) ) to log memory usage every so often. Figure out how much you actually USE.

Next think is as to how much hard-drive space you have. While a gig would be blissful overkill, you may not have a gig ( I often don't :D ).

...but definately MAX should always be more than the amount of RAM you've got. Any less, and you could have some big performance issues ;).

[Agent666]

for 256Mb I would use 384 for the swap file......... I wouldn't make the MAX more than your ram if you had 512Mb ..........

the only time I get close to filling the swap file is if I am encoding several videos at once......... that is with 512Mb RAM and a 384Mb swapfile

And always try to use the Min/Max as the same value that way as your disc gets full it doesnt fragment your swapfile when it gets resized

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Agent666
And always try to use the Min/Max as the same value that way as your disc gets full it doesnt fragment your swapfile when it gets resized

In WinXP ( and probably 2k and ME and maybe 98 ) that is not the case.

Eg: min 256, max 512.
As there is ALWAYS 256MB allocated, that 256MB is set permanently. It will be placed in one congruous set of sectors on the hard-drive, and will never fragment.
The remaining 256MB is the variable section. It will be allocated dynamically. This section may fragment if your hard-drive is full enough that there isn't a spare 256MB in one block.

Setting min and max the same just makes the whole thing permanent. It's no better than having the same min, but uping the max ;).

And I still say MAX should always be greater than or equal to the amount of RAM you have regardless. Much like the AGP aperture should always be greater than or equal to the amount of RAM on your GPU ;).

[Agent666]

Originally posted by KingJackal


The remaining 256MB is the variable section. It will be allocated dynamically. This section may fragment if your hard-drive is full enough that there isn't a spare 256MB in one block.



Exactly what I said it gets fragmented ;) .... whose HDrive isnt full;)

[KingJackal]

Only the variable section get's fragmented. NOT the permanent section, and NOT the hard-drive!

So min256 max256 can only be worse than min256 max368. My point being that as long as the min is big enough to handle your heavy swap usage, the max can be much bigger without any impact on performance - regardless of fragmentation issues ( cos they aren't issues ;) ).

[Agent666]

I have seen the light .............. couldnt open anything else.........;)
will be upping my swapfile to 512 immediately

[KingJackal]

Huh? Whad I say? Huh? :confused: :eek:

BTW, you have 32 word windows and 26 Excel windows open FOO !!!!
:p :D :rolleyes:

[KingJackal]

BTW, it's more impressive when you're using over 500MB with only 3 windows open.... :D :D :p

[Goose]

why dont you just email this guy (http://forums.overclockers.co.nz/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=203) and ask him :D

i never knew he was into Overclocking :eek:

[Agent666]

nice .... yeah that divx player is a real resource hog.......:rolleyes:

[Antallica]

So what u reckon KJ, I got 512megs. XP said 766mb recommended so I'm on that atm. I reckon a gig or 2 would be good hehe.

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Agent666
nice .... yeah that divx player is a real resource hog.......:rolleyes:

Lol - yeah. Though without the DivX player ( 2 apps open ) it gets over 300MB :eek:

Together 5.5 and JBuilder IDE's, what more can I say :rolleyes: ;)

Antallica, a couple of GIG? WOW! What apps do YOU use? :eek: :eek:

I seriously doubt you have the ability to come close to even using 1 gig, even during extreme multi-tasking peaks. Unless you have 2 or 3 1600x1200+ monitors, you just WON'T be using that many applications at once ( Agent666, you can be excluded :D ). :confused:

[Antallica]

well I run crud all really, but the occasional load of apps. PF only rarely goes over 280mb, 130mb now.

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Antallica
well I run crud all really, but the occasional load of apps. PF only rarely goes over 280mb, 130mb now.

And you're worried about 768MB? Hehe - how many TB's is your storage array, that you don't care about the odd stray GB..... :eek: :D

[Antallica]

Not really, I got 30gigs left so I wouldn't really miss it. Might as well waste my space on something eh

[Agent 86]

Thx for that explanation KJ. I had to read it a few times to truely suck it in :D

I have a 350mb photoshop file I've been working on and was wondering what I can do to speed up opening and closing the dam thing but after playing around with me page file I think the CPU usage is the bottleneck now.

[mird-OC]

this is me an hour ago maxing out my poor lil rig (with 2 apps). i really need more RAM :(

[Ragnor]

With 512MB of RAM and Win2k I have my PF set to a min and max of 600MB..

Permanent swap file size is definately the best.. never get any fragmentation, defrag once every blue moon (or never)... probably will be reformatting or installing a XP before I need to defrag..

Anyway I recall reading something sometime.. about how the PF should be larger then ya RAM size, so that in the rare event of a crash / blue screen.. a memory dump can proceed for troubleshooting etc..

Fairly irrelevant for most people given the lack of blue screens in NT based OS's, and the usefulness of a mem dump...

[Agent 86]

I’ve been reading up a bit more info on page files and the more I read the more I get confused. It seems everyone has a different opinion on the matter. Anyway I found this site (http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/memory-winxp/xpmem-4.shtml) which explains how to record your mem and page file size in performance monitor. I’ve been recording mine for a few hours and on average use about 15% page file usage.

I even tried disabling my page file for a while but didn’t notice any real difference when loading apps.