Paging File Size

Ph4lanx

Ph4lanx

Ph4lanx

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OK, so this is my first 64-bit OS, and with that, my first time using more than 2GB of RAM.

Now, in the past, I've always gone with a fixed paging file size which was somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 times the size of my total RAM. It has served me well and I've never had a problem on a 32-bit OS with this.

The thing is, I am also aware that there comes a point where the RAM can handle everything it is served. I was wondering, now that I'm using 6GB of RAM, should I just disable the paging file or do I still need it?

My computer usage is just general use, plus games.

Wondered what your thoughts were, as all the articles online that I could find each gave me a different answer, so I thought I'd ask people who do more than just theorise their answers :)
 
If you have huge amounts of RAM you can go without a page file. However, the Page file isn't just an overflow, stuff gets written to it even if you have free RAM available, so you are quite likely to run into problems if certain software cannot write to a pagefile.

This has been asked loads of times on here, so I would suggest a search if you want some more in depth stuff about it!
 
Fair enough. You learn something new every day. Back when I was on Windows XP 32-bit, people used to tell me to manage it myself. How times change (clearly for the better!). :)
 
One argument for a manually managed page file is if it is a fixed size, it cant get fragmented, or at least much less likely. Space concerns is another factor too if you are severely limited. However, Windows is more than capable of being good with the size of the page file. Let it sort it out and you worry about something else! :D
 
Pagefile fragmentation is only an issue if your Pagefile is constantly being used but Windows Vista and 7 only page application data to disk if physical memory is exceeded, other paged data is chump change and fragmentation won't have any negative affect on application performance.

Plus Windows is quite good at keeping the Pagefile chunks at one area of the disk as well so performance would remain tight at all times.
 
6GB is nothing. I have 8GB and there's still *plenty* of paging going on. And I even have 4GB of ReadyBoost.

I've got a fixed size page file of 12GB. I fix the size so that if some day I accidently run some code that gobbles up all my memory (it has happened in the past) then Windows doesn't take it upon itself to start endlessly increasing the size of the page file to meet demand. Instead it will hit my limit and just return "out of memory" errors - which is better. There are minor fragmentation benefits to go along with this as well.

Virtual memory is always one of those things that people think they understand well but actually very very few people understand it. You need to be well versed in computer science, especially the concept of "pointers" to have any hope of truely understanding how it works.

But let me just say: it is not an overflow carpark (this was my analogy by the way, I used it originally probably about 5 years ago). Virtual memory is something that happens all the time and cannot be turned off.

If you think of how those big Japanese parking lots work. You park your car on a special pad and then it gets carted away and stored in a huge robotic multiplex. Then you come back later and the robot goes and retrieves your car from the slot where it left it in the multiplex. That's sort of what paging is doing. When you're driving around then that is a frame of memory in RAM. When it's in the multiplex in a location unknown to you; it's in the page file.
 
NathanE said:
If you think of how those big Japanese parking lots work. You park your car on a special pad and then it gets carted away and stored in a huge robotic multiplex. Then you come back later and the robot goes and retrieves your car from the slot where it left it in the multiplex.
Click to expand...

Woah. I probably wouldn't feel so bad about paying so much for carparking if they were all like that. Although I bet it's not half as exciting as what I'm thinking right now, I feel I shouldn't Google it I'll probably end up disappointed. :D
 
SiriusB said:
If you have huge amounts of RAM you can go without a page file.
Click to expand...

That largely depends on the users workload. If for example you have 4GB of RAM, if you add an additional 4GB to your system but keep your workload constant, the chances of running into "Your system is low on virtual memory" messages decreases since the system will have a larger commit limit. However, if you add more RAM to your system but also increase your workload as well, you are just as likely to run into problems. This obviously depends on how much you increase your workload but as a generalisation, adding more RAM to your system does not necessary mean you can disable the page file without any problems. :)
 
You quoted me slightly out of context there, as I did follow that up with the caveat that the pagefile is not an overflow. I do agree with everything you say though. :)
 
I use to mess about with the pagefile upto winxp, but now I just leave it for windows to sort out

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