Anyone disabling pagefile?

photoshop

photoshop

photoshop

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With 2Gb RAM in most PC's these days - is pagefile still needed?
I'm using WinXP SP3 and wondering if i should turn off paging on my system.

Should i?
 
yes it's still needed. windows and many applications still need virtual memory to function properly.

just let windows do it's thing. microsoft know more about memory management than you do. :)
 
Just to hijack slightly, is there ever actually an advantage to running without a pagefile, or is it one of those computing urban myths that everyone thinks because nothing is being written to memory on the hard disk that it must by default be quicker?

Geniunely curious :).
 
Memphis said:
Just to hijack slightly, is there ever actually an advantage to running without a pagefile, or is it one of those computing urban myths that everyone thinks because nothing is being written to memory on the hard disk that it must by default be quicker?

Geniunely curious :).
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it just mean less HDD thrashing as it would would be written to RAM?

With 6/8Gb becoming more and more common in systems why would a pagefile be needed? Surely with that much RAM there is ample to go about...?
Couldn't everything be written to memory rather than parts being written to HDD?
 
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photoshop said:
Wouldn't it just mean less HDD thrashing as it would would be written to RAM?

With 6/8Gb becoming more and more common in systems why would a pagefile be needed? Surely with that much RAM there is ample to go about...?
Couldn't everything be written to memory rather than parts being written to HDD?
Click to expand...

Because as said already, some applications require it to be present.
 
Every time this is brought up we come to the same conclusion: Just leave it. If you must do something, move it to a separate drive, otherwise it's not worth the hassle, and gets negligible performance benefit for a lot of faffing. Disabling completely is asking for trouble since a lot of progs rely on it's presence.
 
No. Leave it be. Microsoft know best in this case.

If you've got enough RAM Windows shouldn't page to disk unless it has a reason (eg print spooler). I tend to move it to a separate physical drive, but other than that let Windows manage it.
 
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12GB RAM means you need a 12GB page file. No ifs and no buts.

Regardless of some applications "requiring" it (the only program I can think of that perhaps fits this description would be Adobe Photoshop)... the whole operating systems requires a correctly sized paged file in order to function properly.
 
The default pagefile is usually 1.5x the amount of RAM. Not sure if this changes on massive amount of RAM tho eg 12GB.
 
MagicBoy said:
The default pagefile is usually 1.5x the amount of RAM. Not sure if this changes on massive amount of RAM tho eg 12GB.
Click to expand...

The 1.5x sizing scheme does not apply to later versions of Windows.

The pagefile should be left system managed.
 
By later versions of Windows I assume you mean Vista? I've never installed Vista on my current machine. Windows 7 will be going on when it arrives.

I went to a MS event launching W7 for corporates earlier in the week. Bloke from MS kept referring to Vista as "the previous version of Windows" and never by name. :D
 
1.5x multiplier is used for systems with 1GB or less memory.

1.0x multiplier is used for everything else.

Examples:

2GB RAM = 2GB page file

4GB RAM = 4GB page file

12GB RAM = 12GB page file

512MB RAM = 768MB page file

Any system running with a multiplier less than 1.0x is suffering a performance hit because the memory manager is put under more pressure which causes more memory fragmentation which in turn causes more CPU usage, and eventually you will get "Out of memory" errors appearing.
 
So would there be an advantage on the 12Gb system of having 6Gb as system RAM, and 6Gb as the pagefile on a RAMDisk type thing? (Given that ram is so cheap, and very little uses 6gb, let alone 12Gb)?

Often wondered the same thing with Superfetch/(the other one who's name escapes me)
 
The more memory you have , then the less likely youll need a page file at all. There are a few bad aps that demand a page file to even work, so its probably best to have a page file if only a small one.

EDIT: Abit about from pagefle from microsoft support. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654
 
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photoshop said:
Isn't that just lazy coding?
And that begs the question......is there any point in having 6/8Gb of RAM?
Click to expand...

not really as more people has less ram and need the pagefile
and you also need to write programs that all can use and not just guys with 6+ etc ram
same reason why microsoft still do 32bit OS when really they should just make 64 bit only
 
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