Optimizing Page File

[Jokerswild]

On our front page you'll see a review by Quakindude ( aka: Tom Black )
on optimizing your windows page file. Excellent write-up by the way Tom.

The Page File, or Virtual Memory as it’s called in Windows, is a feature that allows pieces of programs and data to be stored on a section of a hard drive, much like system memory, or RAM. In doing so, it helps free up real RAM resources, which are much faster but far more limited in size.

Optimizing your Page File

[Quakindude]

Thanks Joker.

And thanks to Mantabase, who helped tremendously with this article.

[Redleg]

Thanks for that article Quakindude. I've now moved my page file over to my other partitioned drive. Hope everything works as told.

[Tyreal]

Nice little guide Tom. The Page file is an interesting concept for most people.

[sbohdan]

thanks quakindude, it just cleared up some things for me too. I guess you always learn

[garetjax]

Great guide Quake! It's one of those things most people don't know about, or how to really take advantage of it. Nicely done. =)

[Panda Man]

I don't do any really intense gaming anymore, I have the PF disabled. Great writeup though!

Also, the pop-up box about the pagefile being too low, I've always thought it was kinda funny. By the time you finish reading that the PF is already increased and no proggie is going to be denied access to the PF :D

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by Panda Man

I don't do any really intense gaming anymore, I have the PF disabled. Great writeup though!

If you are using XP, it actually takes a hack to truly disable it. Truth is, you might get better performance by enabling it and letting XP handle it. NT systems actually require a PF to operate properly - no matter how much RAM you have. It sounds kinda silly, but if you get into it, its pretty smart. I suspect other OS's will follow suit. Its the same concept as how a hybrid harddrive works.

Also, the pop-up box about the pagefile being too low, I've always thought it was kinda funny. By the time you finish reading that the PF is already increased and no proggie is going to be denied access to the PF :D

That's certainly true if you have not locked down the PF settings. In fact, I figure the change is finished before the popup even gets displayed. I'm not sure its true if you have locked the PF though - It depends on the OS and if you have "toyed" with some deeper settings.

It is kinda funny though.

Manta

[Quakindude]

Ya know Manta, you can tell people that, but you can't convince them of it. No matter how many facts you throw at some folks, they have the "inside" scoop and really think they don't need a page file. Not saying this is you Panda.

It's just been my experience with folks who think they don't need a page file. If you really look into how Windows allocates memory, just because you have 2Gb of system ram doesn't mean your PF isn't being used. At any given time, with F@H x 2 running and a few FF windows open, I'm using 500Mb of my 4092 page file.

Each program is given the same amount of ram. As an example, say that the OS kernel sets aside a 1Gb chunk of physical ram for itself and then a 512Mb chunk is allocated to each program. EACH program running is using it's own 512Mb chunk. It may not be using all of it at any given time, but it will want all of it if it decides to kick it up a notch, say your virus scanner. If you've set your page file too small, or hacked your registry to not use one at all, then your CPU starts being told by your OS to process this chunk, then that chunk, then the OS's chunk, and then back to the first chunk, all the while having to clear out Ram for each processing chore to make room for the program that's up next. You will, more than likely, slow your computer down by making the page file too small or by hacking it so it's not even there as each program now has no where to put the temporary files that are low priority. Instead, all the data is treated as high priority traffic, choking your system.

That's a very generalized and dumbed down version of what the page file actually does. Windows use of the PF is actually much more complex than that and I'm not sure I understand everything it does and how integrated it actually is in the OS's duties. But I do know enough to keep it set to at least twice my 2Gb of installed Ram. By making it a static figure in the PF options, I'm less likely to have a fragmented PF area on my hard drive. But you will never see me recommending anyone disable it.

As far as servers go, they are even more susceptible to system slow downs from a mismanaged PF. Each workstation is running its own instances of programs. If there's 16Gb of server memory for 128 workstations, and each work station is concurrently using 3-5 programs each, you can quickly kill the servers performance by not having a properly set and managed page file.

[screwballl]

for the home user, more memory always fixes the page file issues... may not be affordable for some but it will fix it