Page File size?

[orion446]

I am working on a laptop for a friend and whoever worked on it before me installed XP Pro on a six gig drive and partitioned it with the C drive @4.17 gigs and the rest of the drive is the D drive. In the page file he has the initial size at 2mb and the max size at 287mb, Is this setting correct or should it be changed? The installed memory is 192mb.

 

[Nothinman]

Leave it system managed.

 

[pirred908]

Initial size - amount of RAM installed. In my case, 1024 Mb

Maximum size - let windows decide. Mines at 3072. Make it a large number. I suggest at least 2000+Mb

 

[Zugzwang152]

if you decide to change it, make the range at least 1-1.5x the amount of RAM you have. I have 1GB ram, and my range is from 1024-2048MB.

 

[Oyeve]

For low ram systems (less than 512) I setup min 500 max 1000. On systems with 512mb or more I just let windows XXX manage it for me.

 

[pirred908]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
For low ram systems (less than 512) I setup min 500 max 1000. On systems with 512mb or more I just let windows XXX manage it for me.

Why?

 

[silverpig]

1536 MB static with 1 GB ram here.

 

[InlineFive]

I let Windows manage it.

 

[Nothinman]

Why?

Because everything thinks they know more than the MS engineers about VM tuning for some reason.

 

[Fulcrum]

Originally posted by: silverpig
1536 MB static with 1 GB ram here.

Ditto

 

[Zelmo3]

If you search the forums, you'll find a wide consensus that the old rule of thumb to set it to 1.5x the physical memory is way outdated. The best rule of thumb really is what Nothinman says: let Windows handle it.

 

[Spencer278]

Either let windows manage the page file or set the page file much larger then you think you will ever need so that you don't have to wait for windows to resize it.

 

[videobruce]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Why?

Because everything thinks they know more than the MS engineers about VM tuning for some reason.

That is because they probably do...................

 

[Nothinman]

That is because they probably do...................

Hardly, most people don't even know the difference between the pagefile and virtual memory.

 

[Psych]

Unless you have a really small hard drive (which I'm afraid you do), then you should just let Windows handle it. Things can go pretty bad when there is absolutely no more space for Windows to place data into memory.

Really, though, a system with low RAM should need MORE VM because the 2 added together must equal a reasonable number.

 

[Nothinman]

I think the idea is that if you have a low memory machine you won't be trying to run as much so the memory pressure won't be as high and the necessity for a large pagefile will be low. Of course this isn't always right whether or not the user knows it, most of the time the system's commit charge is so high because of all of the spyware that's been installed behind the user's back.

And I'll say it again, VM and the pagefile are not the same thing, the amount of VM is constant no matter what size your pagefile is.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Psych
Unless you have a really small hard drive (which I'm afraid you do), then you should just let Windows handle it. Things can go pretty bad when there is absolutely no more space for Windows to place data into memory.

Really, though, a system with low RAM should need MORE VM because the 2 added together must equal a reasonable number.

I already know how much VM (virtual memory) you have. It's the same as what I have and anybody else who is using any 32bit x86 system.

4gigs.

Everybody in the whole entire planet who is using standard x86 ISA-based platform always has 4gigs of virtual memory, they don't have any choice in the matter...

 

[Steve]

Let's clear up some of those old wives' tales....Virtual Memory in Windows XP.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: sm8000
Let's clear up some of those old wives' tales....Virtual Memory in Windows XP.

Good luck. People have been saying that VM is about hardware abstraction for years, and it seems like most people don't get it yet.

In the minds of those who do not yet get it:
virtual is the same as saying "not real"
And everybody knows that main memory is real memory and thusly a swap file is not real memory

Therefore swap file is memory that is not real memory, which makes it pretend memory. However computer programmers don't like to say "pretend", they say "virtual", because it makes them sound all futuristic and intellegent.

Therefore, using all their considurable computer knowledge, (which happens to be much more then any Microsoft programmer, BTW. Because MS is teh suck.), logicly swap file is virtual memory.

And therefore people who say a swap file is NOT virtual memory are arguing symantics and are obviously completely stuck up elitist geeky a-holes.

That and a witch floats, therefore she is made out of wood because wood floats. What else floats? A duck, so therefore a women is a witch if she weighs less then a duck.

 

[KoolDrew]

On my PC I like to keep the page file + ram to be at least 2GB just to be safe and since I have 1Gb of ram my page file is a static 1GB. So ram + page file = 2GB

 

[Nothinman]

On my PC I like to keep the page file + ram to be at least 2GB just to be safe and since I have 1Gb of ram my page file is a static

Setting the base to 2G is a waste of like 1500M of space, but that's your call. But setting the max to 2G also is stupid, all it does is give you no breating room should something happens that causes you to use the 2G pagefile space that you have allocated.

The only reason to change it from System Managed these days is to move the pagefile to another physical drive.

 

[KoolDrew]

I have plenty of space so keeping macx and min is fine with me. And I dont set the max to 2GB I set it to 1GB. Since I have 1GB of ram 1Gb (ram) + 1GB (page file) = 2GB. And that leaves you with plent of breatrhing room. I highly doubt anyone would use 2GB. I don't anyway. And I also have my page file on a sperate partision as my OS.

 

[Nothinman]

1G RAM + 1G pagefile != 2G in the way you're thinking about it.

And I also have my page file on a sperate partision as my OS.

I hope you mean different physical drive because putting it on a different partition on the same physical drive will hurt performance, not help.

 

[KoolDrew]

how would it hurt performance because it would not.

It would not perform as well as if it were on a seperate physical drive but it would still perform better then having it on the same partision as Windows (ussually C)

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
how would it hurt performance because it would not.

It would not perform as well as if it were on a seperate physical drive but it would still perform better then having it on the same partision as Windows (ussually C)

I agree. I feel that having it in it's own little partition cuts down on fragementation and that helps reliability for the filing system. The page file usually bogarts a portion of the filing system that can never be recovered for other uses or moved. It may not be a issue in fresh installs, but once you start layering on the service packs as the OS ages, then it improves long term reliability.

Sort of like installing the core OS and program files on seperate partitions... I don't think that the performance hit would be any were near as significant as the possible benifits.