Pagefile.. stuff.. Memory usage.. ??

[trog100]

pagefile nonsense..

this task manager pic seems to show a pagefile in use of 508 MB.. its assumed by nearly everyone that this page file is what windows is useing as its hardive memory as well as what its useing of its real memory..

however this isnt true.. my pagefile or swop file is set to a minimum of 200mb and a maximum of 500mb at the moment.. and the pagefile.sys file on my hardrive is still only 200mb in size.. even thow task manager show 508mb being used.. ?????

its seems that PF Usage shown in task manager has bugger all to do with the pagefile.sys file on the hardrive..

i even switched my swop file off.. no fake hardrive memory at all.. no pagefile.sys at all on my hardive cos i deleted em..

task manager still shows one in use.. i know there isnt one.. he he

i run fear and task manager shows a big PF usage of 1.6 gig.. i know there isnt one ???

i try and run quake 4 as well as fear.. now i know Q4 and fear together need well over 2 gigs of memory.. fake or otherwise.. all i have is 2 gigs of the real stuff.. virtual is set to none..

fear starts to load no problem up to the loading and menue screens.. i tell it to load a saved game.. it gets half way thru then tells me i have run out of "virtual" memory and shuts down leaving Q4 still sitting there..

"virtual" memory..?? i dont have any of that its turned off.. i know i dont have enough real memory to run both games together but whats this vitual memory stuff..

it seems windows dosnt know the difference between real memory and the pagefile.sys stuff it normally if left to its own devices has only a hardive size limitted supply of..

i am pretty certain that when windows says it has say a 1.3 gig PF in use.. it means bugger all.. he he he

what it seems to be doing is acting as if its got a swop file when it hasnt.. when u dont have a swop file and say fear needs 1.3 gig of system memory.. windows seem to claim there is 1.3 gig pagefile in use as well when there isnt.. some folks seem to think even when u switch virtual memory off windows still makes what it needs on your hardrive.. it dosnt.. it just invents an imaginary one in real memory it seems..

have i discovered a fundermental secret of the windows universe.. he he he he

it tells lies about having a swop file when it dosnt have or need one..???

trog

 

[CjStaal]

ummm that inludes your normal ram also

 

[KennyT772]

if u have 2 gb of ram use a 2gb hdd. xp needs it regardless of programs. also this is used in games for cashing of soon to be needed textures to circumvent any hard disk fragmentation. just set up a 2 gig virtual mem partition and call it good.

 

[CjStaal]

Listen, I have 2gb of ram... no paging file... but the process manager includes those in its statistics... so it counts your ram also along with (or without) your paging file....

 

[trog100]

it seems to invent (imagine) a pagefile period u cant stop it.. after a few hours of running with no pagefile yesterday i had a so called pagefile in use of about 200 megs..

my task manager cache read over 1.7 gig.. it still claimed i had over 1.6 gig free unused.. less than the cache it claimed to be useing and all this with me just browsing... he he he

and also with no pagefile.. well at least with no real pagfile.sys hardrive type pagfile..

try this one for size.. i have pagfile set to a min of 200mb a max of 500mb and the actaul file size is still at 200mb on the drive at the moment..

we have total of 2095600 K..

an available of 1536072 K..

a system cache of 1604528 K..

a claimed pagefile usage of 505mb.. its doing well there when the hardive file size is still at its minimum of 200 MB..

pretty much the same as i got last with no pagefile at all.. windows inventing memory usage it dosnt seem to be useing..

and before somebody tell me it adds the real memory to the pagfile memory.. it cant do that when it dosnt have a pagfile..

it has a small one tonight with the last pic but at its max size of .5 gig added to the real memory of 2 gig that only comes to 2.5 gig.. all those those task manager figures aint gonna fit in a total memory of 2.5 gig.. he he he

its also totally untouched on the harrdive still at .2 gig.. its never moved from its minimum size

trog

ps.. i also have a rightmark memory usage logger going while all this is going on.. it tells me i have the 1536072 K figure free all the time.. the windows cache and pagfile usage figures are quite clearly nonsense..in truth i am useing about 500 meg of real memory the rest is rubbish..

 

[KennyT772]

um helloooo the commit charge is all temporary storage including windows temp and pagefile. i currently have 332/1925. i have 1 gig of ram and a lil less then a gig of pagefile. just run a gig of pagefile/virtual ram on ur non primary hdd EOS.

 

[trog100]

he he he.. one more with Q4 running..

during all this time my pagefile.sys remained at its minimum size of 200mb.. its quite clearly not being used.. what windows claims as pagefile usage is simply my real memory usage.. and the commit charge is quite clearly the same as the so called pagefile usage and again is the amount of real memory being used.. it has nothing to do with hardive memory as most folks seem to think it has..

i dont have problems kenny i am playing.. u seem to be missing the point somewhat.. he he he

when i left windows to its own pagfile management it created three bloody great 2 gig swopfiles.. one on each of my hardrives.. he he

trog

 

[CjStaal]

OMG I TOLD YOU THAT LIKE 3 TIMES

 

[trog100]

i am proving it dude.. mainly cos u might know how it works but pretty much every f-cking thing i have read by every expert about about how windows manages its memory has been wrong.. he he he

bearing that in mind u dont recon i am take your f-cking word for it do ya.. he he he

my conclusions are.. feel free to tell me if i am wrong.. he he he

1.. windows does not need a hardrive pagefile if it has enough real memory..

2.. pagefile usage can be and mostly is real memory usage not just hardrive memory usage as is commonly thought..

3.. windows dosnt know the difference between real and hardrive memory only in the sense it uses the real stuff first..

4.. windows only resorts to hardrive memory when it has used up all the real memory which is why it works perfectly okay without any..

5.. windows behaves this way cos it was designed to run on machines that never had enough real memory..

6.. left to its own devices windows creates xxx times the amount of real memory sized swopfiles all over the place cos its too stupid to know it will never ever use them.. he he

6.. these huge swopfiles (three 2 gig ones in my case) cause the machine to take ages to shut down.. 50 seconds of hardrive activety after the stutdown screen before actual shutdown.. telling windows not to clear its swopfiles after shutdown didnt make any difference but getting rid of them does.. like 40 seconds worth of difference.. another puzzle solved.. he he

trog

 

[CjStaal]

*Claps* Congrats Captain Obvious! LOL J/P

 

[KennyT772]

well i just made a single 2gig partition for my swapfile.. i only have a gig of ram but i rarly use the swapfile anyway. with 512 i would always max out my ram usage but with a gig i rarly do. maby a small 512mb swap is best for you?

 

[trog100]

what i really want to know is why every google search result on "windows pagefile" pretty much tells u its a special file called pagefile.sys on your drive that windows use for variouse reasons as well as useing your physical memory..

but even if u do not have such a file windows still claims to be useing it..???

hows about "captain omniscient" explaining this oddity to "captain oblivious".. he he he

if it dosnt have one how the f-ck can it be useing one..???

assuming a thousand and one google results to be correct and a pagefile is something on your hardrive called pagefile.sys.. course if all those google results are in fact wrong.. that begs another question.. why are they wrong..??

trog

ps.. from googling the most common answer (guess) to my question.. i aint the only one thats ask it it seems.. is windows even thow u tell it not to use one.. creates and uses one.. as good a guess as any to explain the inexplicable.. but it aint true cos i have looked very hard for such a thing and there aint one.. plus it dosnt make sense..

 

[CjStaal]

*sighs* dude, windows counts your ram as a paging file, also, if your going to use one, make it on a FAT32 partition, 3.1GB in size, and makeyour max/min 3gigs, because when you have a small one and it constantly changes sizes, it gets fragmentd, this way I toldyou, does not letit get fragmented...

 

[trog100]

yes it does and the common belief that the task managers "pagefile in use" means that amount of data is being used and swopped out to the hardrive isnt true..

the other common belief that doing clever things with your swopfile size and positioning is gonna improve performance on a modern system fitted with enough real system memory is also wrong..

it meant something years ago when systems didnt have enough real memory and windows actually used its swopfile quite often.. now it means diddly sqat.. and haveing a big fixed one just wastes hardrive space..

the modern answer is a simple one.. make sure u have enough real physical ram in the first place then windows will never have to use its hardrive swopfile at all..

pretty much everything thats written about swopfile useage is out of date and based on the days when folks ran windows with as little as 32 megs of system ram.. then it all mattered now its all a load of "misinformation"..

windows virtual memory is based on the idea that whatever is loaded into real physical memory can.. if needed.. be swopped out to the hardrive it something else wants the physical space it occupies in real memory.. its also designed around 32 megs of ram or less and expects that 32 megs to get filled up on a regular basis..

windows by default will create a minimum size swop file on the hardrive of 1.5 x the physical memory size.. this can be expanded if needed..

with an old 32 meg system windows would create a minimum size swop file of 32 x 1.5 or 48 megs.. with a more modern 512 system windows would create a minimum size swop file of 768 megs..

windows follows a pattern here of.. the more real memory u have the bigger the swopfile has to be.. again this is based on the old fashioned idea that the real memory is gonna get used up and the swopfile has to be at least big enough to hold the entire contents of the real physical memory..

with my machine which has 2 gigs of real memory.. somewhat more than windows was designed to expect.. windows creates a huge 2 gig swopfile.. it should actually be a 3 gig one based on the x 1.5 formula.. but being as windows 32 bit can only address at max 4 gigs of memory it stops at a 2 gig one.. a 2 gig swopfile and the 2 gigs of real memory hits its 4 gig address limit..

so what happens if i bung another 2 gigs of physical memeory in my machine giving it 4 gigs..
is windows goinna try and create a monster sized swopfile based on its x 1.5 formula or is it gonna think jeesh this dude has enough of the real stuff.. as much as i can handle whats the point in creating some more fake hardrive memory.. ???

is there any one out there with 4 gigs of real memory that can answer this last question.. ??

anyways its clear windows has lost the plot with todays excess of cheap memory and all this "your swopfile has to be 2.5 x your real memory" stuff is utter nonsense..

i have given windows a little swop file.. mimimum size 200 meg maximum size 500 meg just in case.. but with 2 gigs of real memory windows wont be useing it..

out of curiosty i did force it to expand its min of 200 meg to the max of 500 meg.. it took a loading of Quake 4 set at utra textures and a loading of fear set at maximum texures to do this thow.. the pair of em together did use 2.5 gig of virtual memory and force windows to resort to its 500 meg swopfile to hold em both..

trog

 

[CjStaal]

I know it doesn't do shit if you have enough ram, but the person above a couple posts were talking about there 3gig pagin file... I gave advice...
And I never heard that "Common belief" about the windows paging file in use... it's pretty much common sense

 

[trog100]

not quite sure what u mean about common sense dude but when i get told a windows pagefile is a thing on my hardrive.. then windows tells me 1.8 gig of it is in use when i know it isnt.. i get puzzled.. ???.. common sense my ass.. he he he

this thread was intended to kinda discuss this puzzle.. he he

not great a deal of dissussion has gone on but i recon some answers have come out one way or another..

trog

 

[CjStaal]

The 1.5X theory is manual.... Thats if someone wants to make a specific size, that would be the best bet, as for task manager, the "page file usage" is total ram usage +pagefile usage(if the pagefile=0mb, it will count it as adding 0) So basically "Pagefile usage" would be better called "Physical/Virtual Memory Usage"

EDIT:

The windows pagefile is a thing on your harddrive, but the task manager refers to total memory usage (Physical & Virtual) As "paging file usage"

 

[MDK22]

trog just so you know if you setup windows to store all the needed information in your ram. I believe it is a registry key id have to look again. Paging file is something you do want however because you might think that you have enough ram even at 3.xxx cause it doesn't like 4gigs. The reason why you need this is because even though you have 3.xxx gigs it will still need more every once in a while when u least expect it and probably when you are doing something you need done and/or something you are very interested in but is a pain to find and when it does this there is a 90% chance it will lock up your system. Also Paging file does include ram in the task manager y they ever changed the title of that mini bar graph to PF ill never know.

Not to mention i have done so much stuff at once that i completely used more then 5 gigs of PF. So don't act like its something that doesn't happen. Also it doesn't base it off how much ram you have it bases it off your hard drive space available.

 

[trog100]

mine creates a minimum 2 gig sized one on a 20 gig partion.. the more real memory u have the bigger the pagefile.sys gets created..

it creates the same size pagefile on a 20 gig partion on a small drive as it does on a 250 gig unpartitioned one.. so its size isnt related to hardive size or space.. i think its just related to how much real memory u have.. the more real memory u have the bigger the hardrive memory file size is.. kinda back to front..

the recyle bin is related to drive size.. the pagefile.sys file isnt..

windows "virtual" memory is a combination of its physical memory and its hardrive memory.. and bikr is correct pagefile usage is a combination of physical and hardrive memory..

the only comment i would add is unless u have run out of physical memory its just refering to physical memory usage.. there is no hardrive memory usage.. which is why when u dont have one it dosnt make any difference to the amount task manager reports as in use..

hardive memory only gets used to hold stuff that has had to be swopped out to allow room for something else in the physical memory.. it gets swopped back if needed later.. if this kinda thing is happening your machine will grind to a pretty much unusable halt..

so providing the pagfile usage is less then the physical memory size its referng to physical memory usage only..

the fake hardrive memory might allow folks to overload the real memory and still keep going but the result is a machine that is so bloody slow as to be unusable..

once that swopfile part of windows "virtual" memory starts to get used your super machine will turn into something like an ancient 386 one.. he he he

if my swopfile started to get used on anything other than a rare occasion i would take it as a sign i needed more real memory..

u can quite easlity prove whether your swopfile is being used or not.. manually set one to a minimum size of 5mb the max can be as big as u like.. look on your C drive when u first boot up.. u will see a 5 meg sized pagefile.sys file.. if it gets used it will grow bigger.. if it stays at 5 meg after several hours use it hasnt been used..

trog

ps.. out of curiosity mdk.. how many things do u have to be running at once to get your pagefile usage up to 5 gigs.. under normal usage mine never seems to go above 500mb.. unless i load fear or quake 4 then it goes up to about 1300mb.. my swopfile still isnt needed..

with only 1 gig of real memory both games did grind to an unplayable halt.. which is why i bought 2 gigs cos my swop file was being used.. the result was quite noticable.. he he

 

[MDK22]

Trog looks like they changed the basing it off the hard drive cause i know it used to be.

To get it to go over 5 gigs paging file i was kinda stress testing my alienware laptop (which i never should have bought) and trying to overload a wall socket with 15 of my freinds doing the same to their laptops. Um no im not talkin 3DMark i was doing some really hardcore stuff.

I was running 3 Movies, CS:S, Doom3, Defraging using DOS, had like 12 things open in tabs in Firefox, zipping VS.net, and burning a DVD. Plus the stuff running in the background antivirus, teatimer, zone alarm etc etc. Yeah i got my system to run at 100% for CPU usage it was sweet and the movies were playin every 3rd frame lol.

But i regularly have gone above my 1 gig of ram on my comp while playing CS:S without much trouble. I have definately used the paging file alot. You should still have like a 1 gig pageing file cause shit happens and when it does you dont want to lose unsaved stuff. Plus if you have 2 gigs of ram you got enough hard drive space so y complain.

 

[trog100]

the only downside i have come across with having a big swopfile mdk.. and this might not matter over much to some is the windows shutdown time..

the bigger the hardrive page file windows creates the longer the machine takes to shut down.. so the more real memory your machine has the longer the shutdown time if u let windows create a huge swopfile.. which if u have lots of real memory it does create a huge one..

with a 2 gig swopfile my machine takes about seven or eight seconds to get to the "windows is shutting down" screen.. then there is about fifty or sixty seconds of hardrive activity before it powers off.. about a minute and ten seconds in all to power off..

with a 200 meg minimim size swopfile the machine takes the same seven or eight seconds to get to the shutdown screen followed by a couple of quick hardrive blips while it saves the settings then it powers off.. taking only seventeen seconds in all..

we are talikng nerly a minute less to shutdown without all the hardive activity.. he he.. quite a difference if u need to reboot often..

i think over the years file sizes have gotten bigger.. systems and real memory have gotten faster.. hardrive are so much slower now than the rest of the system that the "virtual" memory concept is pretty much useless..

when it was designed memory was like gold.. hardrive space cheap so it made sense.. u had to have it.. now memory is cheap.. we expect instant speed.. the idea of useing a ludicrously slow hardrive to supplyment real memory is simply a nonsense..

all u need to do is compare the data transfer rate of real physical memory to the data transfer rate of a hardrive.. we are talking a dfference of "hundreds".. your hardrive is several hundred times slower than your physical memory..

this gets silly but we are talking one second for physical memory to move x amount of data compared to five minutes for the hardrive to move the same amount of data.. he he he

however way u look at it.. once windows has to start useing more "virtual" memory than what is on those little sticks.. your machine is gonna grind to a "unusable by modern standards" halt..

no problem with having some hardrive memory just in case.. just make sure your machine has enough of the real stuff to accomodate what u do and dosnt ever have to use the hardrive part of its "virtual" memory..

trog

 

[MDK22]

Nice and good point i for one dont care about how long it takes to shutdown. But it is goin to be interesting when ram gets to the point where it can start taking the place of a harddrive. Id say 10 years probably unless someone comes up with a different thing in that amount of time. I wonder if they could use cd rom blue ray or something now and are just too lazy to do it.

 

[trog100]

someone really does need to re-invent the hardrive.. its the thing we spend most of our time waiting for.. they have gotten bigger but not faster..

either that or shoot the designers of Vista and others like em.. he he he

trog

 

[MDK22]

lol i think windows should make 3 versions of vista. Home, Pro, Fix Me.

The day they do that is the day we will get the stability and security of linux with the compatability and the usability for idiots (windows attempts to do).

 

[irrealist]

I also run win xp with 3 gb pc3200 without pagefile, mainly because it is so much more responsive as before and I don't use my comp so intensively. No problems so far.

Quite often winXp will swap data to its pagefile even though there's more than enough memory left. To prevent any unnecessary harddrive access follow this:

(mind you, my pagefile is set at 0, and swapfile is the 'old' Win NT term for pagefile)

It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (100xfaster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

Go to Start then Run
Type "msconfig.exe" then ok
Click on the System.ini tab
Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
Click on new then in the blank box type"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
Click OK
Restart PC

================================================================

I hope that helps a bit. I especially registered to give you this answer.

PF file use= all virtual memory usage
the most important number is the Virtual Memory MAx number.
It should always be lower than the memory you have installed. If not you have to activate the pagefile again. But it is not necessary to have a 1 Gb ++ pagefile on your computer. 700 mb is more than enough, unless you use CAD.