Increasing The Page File

m0r94n · 21 Apr 2007 at 18:13

Im not sure where this belongs so youll have to forgive me! I installed Stalker the other day to find that I dont have the required 2gb Page File (or something) that is needed to play it.

Ive read about to see how I would go about increasing it, but apparently I can only increase it by 3x the ram, so with 512 ram I would still be below the 2gb. My friend mentioned an unlocking program that can force the increase above 3x barrier. What negative effects (if any) would this have on the RAM?

Cheers, and sorry if a lot of that seems like waffle. Im not 100% sure what half of it means!

fail at the internets · 21 Apr 2007 at 18:28

Stalker on 512mb ram = bad idea.

Cupra · 21 Apr 2007 at 19:45

Hornchurch said:
Stalker on 512mb ram = bad idea.

seconded

get more ram

m0r94n · 21 Apr 2007 at 20:21

I know its not an ideal situation but if anyone could answer the original question it would be most appreciated.

Emlyn_Dewar · 21 Apr 2007 at 20:28

There isn't any point surely? It would be unplayable as the hard-disk would just be getting thrashed in a page file nightmare...

Cupra · 21 Apr 2007 at 20:32

if you want ore page file u have to get mroe ram or use a second hdd i think

if you have a 2nd hdd you need to make a second page file on that drive

Sweetloaf · 21 Apr 2007 at 20:35

Right click My Computer, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced Tab.

There you should see the Virtual memory settings, as far as I know there is only a recommended maximum not a strict enforcement, click custom size and set it to 2Gb see what happens.

Page file access often gives the biggest performance hit of all settings as your hard drive is accesed and is a hell of a lot slower than your RAM, if possible set it to a different hard drive from you OS and also your game installation.

Obviously this depends on how many hard drives you have.

I would also recommend a defrag of the drive both before and after you alter the size, probably not essential, it's just something I tend to do.

You won't break anything by altering the size so just try a few different sizes until something works

m0r94n · 21 Apr 2007 at 20:48

Cheers for the advice guys, ill take everything in mind when im trying to sort it out. Ive been planning to get a new pc and even put out a spec check yesterday but I dont think im gonna have enough money now so ive got to make do with what ive got.

Thanks all.

artaxerxes · 21 Apr 2007 at 21:26

If you have your PAGEFILE* on a seperate HDD than the one with the OS and the game you might see some benefits. Also google about for optimisation guides, and defrag your drives. Every % improvement counts when you are on limited hardware.

*I know of no hardware limitation that could conceivably limit your PAGEFILE except not actually having enough HDD space. If you are low on space you can quickly recover 10% by right clicking on the Recycle Bin and choosing Delete Immediately - rather than saving 10% for recovery.

Cupra · 21 Apr 2007 at 23:08

m0r94n said:
Cheers for the advice guys, ill take everything in mind when im trying to sort it out. Ive been planning to get a new pc and even put out a spec check yesterday but I dont think im gonna have enough money now so ive got to make do with what ive got.

Thanks all.

well cant you just buy some ram that would be a massive improvement even if you just get 1gb

m0r94n · 21 Apr 2007 at 23:09

paul_64l said:
if you have a 2nd hdd you need to make a second page file on that drive

Ive got an external, would this work? And how would I go about setting up a pagefile on this drive?

___

Nm, ive found it

Energize · 21 Apr 2007 at 23:12

Pointless using the pagefile it will be unplayable.

It only costs £27 for a gig of ram.

artaxerxes · 22 Apr 2007 at 00:38

Unless the external drive was eSATA, or even Firewire, if it is USB - then no. For the pagefile it only has to be half as fast as the primary drive to give a boost. However I would not recommend putting it on an external drive.