Turn of Virtual memory?

[echo75]

if you google it , lots of litrature suggest turning of Page file (virtual memory) if you have enough RAM for example like i have 4GB with Win XP and have almost 1 GB reserve.

They claim that because the CPU can acess the RAM faster than it can acess the virtual memory in the hrd disk your system will be faster.

What do you guys think?

 

[VulkanBros]

if you google it , lots of litrature suggest turning of Page file (virtual memory) if you have enough RAM for example like i have 4GB with Win XP and have almost 1 GB reserve.

They claim that because the CPU can acess the RAM faster than it can acess the virtual memory in the hrd disk your system will be faster.

What do you guys think?

I´ve done some benches and there is no difference
My theory is, that the system do not use pageing when there is enough memory available..?

(there is an old thread inhere somewhere, about this subject.)

 

[Morgoth]

yep doest realy increase performance... just gets error's from some programms that need pagefile

 

[echo75]

ok, is it wise to allocate a page file to every partition?

I have 3 partitions. diveded from my 250GB drive
C for Windows
D for mostly games
E for pics and videos

what pagefile allocation formula will you suggest?

 

[lemonadesoda]

Ah, you misunderstand pagefile and virtual memory. It's horrible. Definitions all over the internet are inconsistent. They are not the same thing. Or rather "virtual memory" has two meanings.

With XP, 2003 or Vista 32-bit, memory is limited to 2GB for ONE application. This is the so-called "USER address space". WAIT FOR IT... the kernel has the other half of memory. The maximum of USER plus KERNEL is 4GB.

There is a switch called /3GB. What this does is REDUCE the kernel space, so that MORE USER MODE address space is available. GAIN: Single application. LOSS: kernel. In practice, this is GREAT for desktop use, but a complete disaster for a server, which requires kernel space for each connection, each thread, each application etc.

Virtual memory = the memory, that is part of the pagefile, that is over and above the physical RAM that you installed, available for Windows to use.

Therefore physical+virtual memory has a maximum size of 4GB from the perspective of ONE application plus kernel. Imagine you strip your PC of all utilities and services, and run photoshop. You have 2GB for photoshop, and 2GB "for the system".

WAIT FOR IT.

But pagefile can be much bigger? Why? Because there can be MULTIPLE virtual memories. One for each application you are running. Each virtual memory space can be paged off to HDD. It should really be called paged virtual memory.

But why isnt it? Because at any moment in time, which of these applications is running in "virtual memory" or "paged virtual memory"? It is always changing. So we just call them ALL virtual memory.

Complicated isnt it? Hope that makes sense. There's a lot of info on MS site i you want to delve deeper.

***

Set up your pagefile on your PRIMARY HDD. (Why, because you dont want it to go into sleep mode and lag while the HDD spins up). Make sure your pagefile is defragged. I lock my pagefile to a fixed size (2GB), so that it cannot grow and fragment.

Dont split your pagefile across multiple drives. If ANY of those drives drops into power save mode it will lag you.

You dont have to thave the pagefile on your primary system drive. In theory, it would be better to have it on another drive so that the PC can work the system directory and the pagefile simultaneously. But in practice, the gains are not worth the costs of having to HDDs spinning 24/7. Better just one (lower heat). And let the others sleep after 10mins to save power and heat.

 

[echo75]

thanks for the explanation lemon, i think i have a better ubderstanding of it now(i think)

Now i have just one hard drive with 3 partitions, from your explanation , i shoud put in on my C partition where my OS is right? how large should i make it? i read thaat it should be at least 1.5 times the physical memory so 6GB right? .

You can see my system specs.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Want to do something funky?

You really want the pagefile to be at the FASTEST part of the disk, AND near to your system directory. For ultimate performance, have a pagefile partition that is just after your C: partition. And keep C: small. ONLY for system and apps.

C: keep it small, e.g. 30GB
D: pagefile and temp directory, e.g. 30GB. 4GB for pagefile and rest for temp, cache, etc.
G: games, 100GB+
M: media files, rest

http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm

Dont put anything on C you dont need to. ie. games are a no-no. Put your temp files, like iexplorer cache, on the pagefile to avoid fragmentation of C: and to keep as much HDD arm movement on the D: partition.

PS. A new Samsung F1 or WD SE will really improve performance and give you a lot more space.

Regarding the size of your pagefile... 4GB is probably enough. If you do a lot of multitasking, and switch from one application to another, e.g. from photoshop, to iexplorer, to Office, etc. then make it 4GB or bigger. If you tend to only use one application at a time, then 1GB is enough. But since it wont be used anyway, might as well leave it at 4GB.

Note that by making pagefile BIGGER than your USER mode address space (2GB or 3GB with /3GB), then you can file off an open but inactive application completely to the HDD and leave all system RAM free for another activity.

 

[echo75]

your the man lemon, i see the logic