Ramdisc + readyboost + SSD

[keyser]

What games need a pagefile then? Someone said Half-Life 2, does that mean all Source based games need one? If so, then those are current games and you do need a pagefile.

I doubt not having a pagefile would speed things up very much anyway. Maybe if you had it on a ramdisk..

Above all you need plenty of RAM (4GB+).

I won't be buying a SSD until you can put the pagefile on it, because for me that would be the whole point in getting one - for less noise - move all mechanical drives to a server.

 

[silversurfer]

I doubt not having a pagefile would speed things up very much anyway. Maybe if you had it on a ramdisk

lol

 

[hawker1986]

What games need a pagefile then? Someone said Half-Life 2, does that mean all Source based games need one? If so, then those are current games and you do need a pagefile.

I doubt not having a pagefile would speed things up very much anyway. Maybe if you had it on a ramdisk..

Above all you need plenty of RAM (4GB+).

I won't be buying a SSD until you can put the pagefile on it, because for me that would be the whole point in getting one - for less noise - move all mechanical drives to a server.

Well ive got no pagefile and HL2 etc all run fine, so im not sure what that rubbish was.

 

[Fire Wizard]

if you manage to use 4gb of ram then Yes you need it but norm you can get away with not having an page file, if you keep on hitting 4gb offen you NEED more system ram in the first place or your system speed will Tank when it has to start using page file

if you use an page file and are getting to 3-3.5gb of ram windows will auto start pageing out stuff as it guess that you going to run out of ram soon

If you're getting to the point of using all of your physical memory, you need to purchase more RAM. However, I have over 1GB of RAM which isn't being used. The reason why I am getting the "low on virtual memory" errors is because I have my paging file set-up incorrectly i.e. disabled. The only reason why I would need to purchase more RAM would be because I am going by your advice and disabling the paging file. If I set the page file in relation to my workload i.e. the correct way of setting up a page file, I wouldn't need to purchase additional RAM which I simply don't need anyway.

I do appologise about my pagefile comment, I should have made it clearer just for the pedantic people on this forum, rather than keeping it simple for the OP who hadnt worked all this out himself. For the normal PC user, who doesnt do anything hardcore like run multiple VMs etc then in a PC with 4Gb+ RAM it can be safely turned off, because they will never use that much RAM for it to be a problem. Is that a better statement for you?

Advising other people to disable the page file is bad advice, especially without fully acknowledging a few things first, like for example, they could well be running a number of processes simultaneously which brings the commit charge value over the commit charge limit which would then lead to application failures with the page file too small or disabled entirely. And no, you don't need to be running multiple Virtual Machines for this too happen. Having a page file means memory is put to better use. Finally, Windows won't be able to write kernel crash dumps with the paging file too small or disabled.

As Mark mentioned in the article, the only reasonable way to size the paging file is to know the peak commit charge for your workload.

 

[hawker1986]

Advising other people to disable the page file is bad advice, especially without fully acknowledging a few things first, like for example, they could well be running a number of processes simultaneously which brings the commit charge value over the commit charge limit which would then lead to application failures with the page file too small or disabled entirely. And no, you don't need to be running multiple Virtual Machines for this too happen. Also, as Mark has said, while there may well be workloads that perform better with out a paging file, in general, having a page file means memory is put to better use. Finally, Windows won't be able to write kernel crash dumps with the paging file too small or disabled.

As Mark mentioned in the article, the only reasonable way to size the paging file is to know the peak commit charge for your workload.

Thats fair enough Fire Wizard, I did just say to give it a go and if he had any problems he could turn it back on again...this did turn into a bit of a war though.

Hawker