Pagefile settings for XP?

[Anthony903]

I've read almost every different solution possible for this. I'd like to get the most I can out of my gaming system. I have two SATA drives.

One is my boot drive that has Windows and all my games on it (160 GB)

And the second is a storage/backup drive that I have music, torrents, etc. (400 GB)

I have 2 GB DDR2 800 Corsair XMS2 installed...

How exactly should I set up pagefile for best performance in games? Thanks.

[Mithent]

Almost certainly, your best option is to put the page file on the 400GB hard drive, so the hard drive head doesn't have to constantly move between the Windows/game folders and the page file. The size of the page file isn't too critical; I'd give it at least a couple of gigabytes, maybe three. A fixed-size page file avoids the possibility that Windows decides to extend it and thereby fragments the page file.

Considering your 160GB + 400GB setup, your 160GB is probably a WD Raptor, since that's a popular combination (albeit not one I favour). Even though the Raptor has faster seek times, I think you're better having the page file on the other disk, myself.

[XOR != OR]

If you want better performance, I'd drop the money to get an extra 2gigs of memory. That'll have more impact that tinkering with the page file.

Regarding pagefile settings, you already have 2gigs of main memory, the most I'd do is a 2gig page file on the second drive, fixed. Windows 32bit can't address more than 4 gigs anyway, so it'd be a waste of space if you went higher ( although it's not a direct relationship, it's close enough ).

[pallesen]

You won't waste space by making a larger paging file. If there is demand for it, xp can use it. The 4 GB limitation doesn't apply here

[XOR != OR]

You won't waste space by making a larger paging file. If there is demand for it, xp can use it. The 4 GB limitation doesn't apply hereya, I was mistaken. I was under the impression that XP couldn't use more than 4 gigs regardless, so it would never swap more than 4 gigs.

Turns out it's 2gig per process, unlimited number of processes so unlimited size of swap. Still, anything more than a gig or so would be wasted for most people.

[DeaconFrost]

In theory, it would be best to put it on the 400 GB drive. However, in reality, it wouldn't make much of a difference. If gaming is your thing, I'd definitely invest in more memory, especially at today's prices.

[Anthony903]

Thanks for the responses guys...

What I've done is put 3072 fixed on the 400GB drive...


I also added a 2-50 MB min/max on my boot partition because I read somewhere that if you don't have any pagefile on the boot drive, windows will essentialy ignore your settings..

Is this valid?

Here's my source:

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm


Also I've seen some people reccommend I get more RAM.. On XP I could only go as high as 3gb.. Would that make a big difference in performance? Going from 2 to 3gb?

[Anthony903]

anyone?

[Nenu]

You only need more ram if you are running out, check task manager/performance tab.
If the peak value exceeds 2GB by much you probably need more ram.
More ram wont make a system faster, it helps it stop getting slower though.

For best performance, create a Windows partition on the 400GB drive and put Windows there.
The swap file will probably be better of there too as your other drive is likely to be much slower.

Check each drives performance with HDTune.

You dont need to create the other 50mb partition, windows obeys your command on this one.

[Anthony903]

Thanks Nenu

[MrkXCeL]

Thumbs up from me. :D
And I've never heard of the boot drive needing it's own swap.