What is swap file? How is it different from page file?

[Pyramix]

I am getting confused between three terms - swap file, page file and virtual memory. To my understanding, virtual memory is part of the hard-drive being utilized as memory because the actual physical memory is not enough. Is that right?

How can I allocate the sizes of each of these to optimize performance? My win98 hard-drive had no swap file (384 MB SDRAM), but all of a sudden some swap file showed up on the hard-drive when I checked it yesterday. What does it do? And how can I get rid of it?

I would appreciate it if somebody could point me to an informative article or something. Thanks.

Pyramix

 

[ThisIsMatt]

http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/5748/opmem13.htm

 

[Hard_Boiled]

Win98, it's called a swapfile. Win2K, it's called a pagefile. They both are virtual memory, pagefile works a little differently than the swapfile, but basically they serve the same purpose.

 

[ThisIsMatt]

Hard_Boiled - check the site I posted...according to him, in 98 it is a page file and swap file is a misnomer...

 

[Pyramix]

Very nice site, Matt. Thanks.

Pyramix

 

[Hard_Boiled]

I guess your right, I was doing a little searching myself after I made that post. I was under the impression that Win98 always called it a swapfile, and I think a lot of other people thoguth that too.

I do know that they work differently in Win98 and Win2K, or at least I think they do.

edit: even though in that article they DO refer to the swapfile many times in Win98.

 

[JackMDS]

Let see if I understand it?

Let say that we have a bucket that is 5 Gal. Size, some time the bucket gets full, and we don?t want to loose water. So, we set a side another bucket of 10Gal as a backup.

When the 5 Gal. Bucket get full we can use an additional 1 Gal. Bucket fill it in from the 5 Gal. and pour it to 10 Gal. backup, or we can use a 2 Gal. Bucket to fill in and pour into the 10 Gal backup.


The main 5 Gal. Bucket is the Main RAM in the computer.

The 10 Gal Backup, is the SWAP memory on the hard drive.

The 1 Gal. or 2 Gal. Transfer bucket is the Paging memory.

 

[crab]

<< Let see if I understand it?

Let say that we have a bucket that is 5 Gal. Size, some time the bucket gets full, and we don?t want to loose water. So, we set a side another bucket of 10Gal as a backup.

When the 5 Gal. Bucket get full we can use an additional 1 Gal. Bucket fill it in from the 5 Gal. and pour it to 10 Gal. backup, or we can use a 2 Gal. Bucket to fill in and pour into the 10 Gal backup.


The main 5 Gal. Bucket is the Main RAM in the computer.

The 10 Gal Backup, is the SWAP memory on the hard drive.

The 1 Gal. or 2 Gal. Transfer bucket is the Paging memory. >>



Hmmm

 

[pyr]

modern technology... how DO they fit all that water in my case? i hope none of it splashes out and short circuits anything.

 

[Super6]

Check out Rojak Pot's site for all the in's and out's on swap files along with recommendations on how to set them up for peak performance versus letting Windows manage it.

Super6

 

[Bojax]

who is rojak pot? and what is the web sight?

 

[Bozo Galora]

oddly enough its rojakpot.com