pagefile, to be or not to be. long reading (users with >1GB RAM)

Before you read check the folowing steps:
1. Do you know what a pagefile or swapfile is? If answer is no read the this thread.
2. Do you have a pagefile activated? If answer is no then you can leave this thread and live happy! If answer is yes then read this thread!
For short version jump to the symbol later down.

It is time to share some of the best memory tweeking tips I can give you all. It have its beginning in the bad codes of windows, a well used and strange programed os. A mix of 1997 and 2005 and all that is between. And from a man that said 640Kb RAM is more than we will EVER need. Well what is the tips then? Lets get to the point!

The Pagefile (or the Swapfile). Have you played a game for hours that need plenty of ram? Doom3, Halflife2 or even a game that don't need plenty of ram. And suddenly you get tired of playing and hit Alt-F4 The game is closed and you see your windows, well almost. The wallpaper is slowly being updated all open windows don't show anything but crap and you harddrive sound like it choked on a bag of nails, and it takes about 2m before you harddrive finaly calm down and your wallpaper and windows are showing normaly and you have maximum performance. If you are a more experienced computer user you know that this is because the system have put you least used files in the pagefile and it takes some time before it have loaded all back to the ram.

But is this realy necessary? Well, no it isn't, and yes some times it is. Windows is a strange system. It think like this:
hmm I have some memory that is fast and some slow i want all program that I'm using at the moment to be in the fast memory, so I move the latest used program to the slow to make room for new programs.
This is good thinking, if you have less ram than your programs need. But in todays system when you have one or two gigs of ram this is bad thinking from the system. The realy big thing is if you have 4GB ram or lets say 10GB and you open a game or program that need about 200mb ram the system will still move your unused programs to the pagefile on your harddrive just in case you need more fast memory later on, well do you? The big thing is that the system don't look how much memory you have, it only know that the best results are if you have the most used programs in the ram and the others in the pagefile so it puts 50% of your programs in the pagefile. But if you can fit all your programs in you ram you don't need to put it in the pagefile. But the system don't know that. It whant a certain types of programs in the ram and some other programs in the pagefile incase you open a new program thet need lots of fast ram. Well it's not going to hapend in this case. So it is totaly useless and only takes extra delay times in you system and you have to sit and wait for the system to load all stuff back from the harddrive. If you have many background programs you will notice this bad memory handling more than if you have a new installed windows.


Can you fill all your ram with the programs that you use on a normal day? Time to find out!
Open your task manager and leave it open when you play you games and use all your programs that you normaly do.
Look at the graph under the cpu usage. This is your Page file history showing the real amount of memory you actualy are using for programs. If this is growing bigger than your total ram when you do you do your normal computer use then you can forget this thread because it cant help you to get better performance in your computer because you use more than your ram can handle and you need to use the harddrive. But if you is nowhere near to get that graph over your total ram amount, then you can remove the pagefile and you will notice that your system will never use the harddrive as ram anymore.
This will result in smoother switching between open programs. You can alt-tab in the middle of a game and check out the hardforum for new [H] tips and answer your friends desperate call for help in your irc program and then switch back to your game in just a second.
It will all work fine until that day when you max out your memory and your program need more memory and it don't get any. What hapen then you might ask? If you have about 512mb of ram you can easy try it for yourself and find out. But to give you the short version, your programs WILL die. If your memory is full the first program to ask for more memory will get killed. And you unsaved data will disapear!
If you have no pagefile windows will complain when you use lots of ram, it will say "your virual memory is full.. blablabla" but when it do check your task manager is the graph near to get maxed out or have it maxed already? If it have maxed then you need pagefile. If it have not then just ignore it.

So what is the point of this thread? Well, remove your page file and you will never put it back. I will buy an extra gig before I put it back.
So is this old news?? have you allso run your windows without pagefile for over 2 years now? Or have you bought more and more ram every time you hear the harddrive swaping your programs? Send feedback please!

I just had to start using pagefile again when bf2 came out.

I am in the process of building a new pc so i don't have to.

NT based systems handle this function differently than Win9X. The page file is more than just a swapfile (thus the name difference between the two cores), it also handles system/file caching.

Read me.

Originally Posted by Bigjohns97

I just had to start using pagefile again when bf2 came out.

I am in the process of building a new pc so i don't have to.

Time for the 2GB standard gaming rig.

Apparently the threads that have Sticky in front of them aren't obvious enough for the most dense of people here.

Originally Posted by S1nF1xx

Apparently the threads that have Sticky in front of them aren't obvious enough for the most dense of people here.

To be fair, I stayed away from the sans PF discussion in the sticky

Originally Posted by Phoenix86

NT based systems handle this function differently than Win9X. The page file is more than just a swapfile (thus the name difference between the two cores), it also handles system/file caching.

I'm not talking about win9x here, that is a totaly diffrent memory manegement. I'm just trying to make people rethink about the use of pagefile. For a normal 1.5-4GB user the page file is just useless unless you do some realy crazy memory demanding program.
The pagefile usage is in my opinion bad coded and should only be used when it is neccesary, not "just in case I need more ram".

Originally Posted by condac

I'm not talking about win9x here, that is a totaly diffrent memory manegement. I'm just trying to make people rethink about the use of pagefile. For a normal 1.5-4GB user the page file is just useless unless you do some realy crazy memory demanding program.
The pagefile usage is in my opinion bad coded and should only be used when it is neccesary, not "just in case I need more ram".

If you aren't talking W9x, why are you treating XP like it's W9x?
Your logic follows W9x tweaking, you even called it a swap file, which it isn't. Paging != swapping.
Paging vs. swapping.

If you have enough RAM the PF won't be used much at all, so disabling it provides no benefits.

Have you measured PF usage on a system with enough RAM?
Did you test your tweak?
What did it improve?

i have 1gb of ram on this laptop and i use to think having pagefile off would increase performance as well.. but i noticed that if i leave it on i actually get a slightly higher 3dmark03 score

You should never remove the pagefile. Do you honestly think you are disabling paging when doing so? No any exe and dll are also involved with paging. So all you are doing by disabling the pagefile is causing MORE paging of code, for a given workload and RAM size. it also means paging canno tbe correctly balanced between mapped files, code, file cache and prvate data. So this would be a bad thing in the long run.

Just stop reading tweaking guides where the author has no idea what he is talking about and gives stupid advice.

The pagefile usage is in my opinion bad coded and should only be used when it is neccesary

No offence, but it is obvious you don't even know how windows manages memory, so how can you say it is badly coded?

Paging vs. swapping.

While the page you linked to is fine that guide is a little misguiding in some areas. Just wanted to mention that so people don't take everything in that guide seriously.

Correct disabling paging in XP, 2000, or 2003 is a bad idea. At least in XP some components need the page file to function. Disabling provides no discernible performance upgrade.

Originally Posted by KoolDrew

While the page you linked to is fine that guide is a little misguiding in some areas. Just wanted to mention that so people don't take everything in that guide seriously.

Show me a VMM guide that is 100% correct. That one will at least give the OP a better understanding of paging vs. swapping.

Originally Posted by Phoenix86

Show me a VMM guide that is 100% correct. That one will at least give the OP a better understanding of paging vs. swapping.

Right now I know of no online guide that is 100% correct. If I find one I will post it.

Inside Windows 2000 by Microsoft Press.

Oh, and I strongly disagree with the OP. I personally belive turning the pagefile off for any reason is silly. But I belive my opinions on pagefile's have been stated many times before.


(The only reason I kinda understand is security, but if they pulled the hdd, your owned anyway)

Originally Posted by Ranma_Sao

Inside Windows 2000 by Microsoft Press.

Online?

edit: Most people couldn't find their way to a library these days if their life depended on it. Plus it's kinda hard to link to a book.

edit2: I'm assuming the point is to dispell the numerous myths about VMM, so it's for other people, not necessarly the OP.

Originally Posted by Phoenix86

Online?

Nope. But if the OP want's to learn about how it works, I've seen it for 10 bucks in used book stores.

See edit 2.

Inside Windows 2000 is a great book. I own it myself and I have mentioned it before. That is probably the best source and much better then anything online. So for anybody really interested in that kind of stuff that is THE book to get.

Originally Posted by ktwebb

At least in XP some components need the page file to function.

Well that's wrong, if it's not tell me what program you have that need a page file. I have never in my 2 years without a pagefile found a program thats not working.

Originally Posted by Phoenix86

If you have enough RAM the PF won't be used much at all, so disabling it provides no benefits.

Well have you even tried to deactivate it?? And as you say your self "the PF won't be used much at all", why should it be used when it is not needed if you have 2000GB RAM why should you use the harddrive, because that is what windows is doing?? The harddrive is only an extention of the ram and sould not be used as a ram. If you must have this extra space and not having it in the ram, why not put it in a diffrent addresed area in the ram instead?

And for all you that have tested to disable the page file. How many programs did you have open at the time? if you tested on an new isntalled windows you might not noticed anything, but if you have 40-60 open processes you will notice the diffrent.

Well I'm of to continue using my xp without page files. And if you have 2gig ram and you page file on you have wasted your money and can send your ram to someone that needs it.

The reason I mentioned swapfile in my post was for the more unknowing people that might not heard of the term page file, in my country when they have translated windows they didn't translate swapfile in the old 9x but when xp came they had translated page file to växlingsfil witch is a direct translation of swapfile.

Originally Posted by xdkimx

i have 1gb of ram on this laptop and i use to think having pagefile off would increase performance as well.. but i noticed that if i leave it on i actually get a slightly higher 3dmark03 score

I have never said you get higher fps. But loading times and quit to windows times are quicker. But only if you have had the program on for some time, 3dmark is not running long enough for windows to start paging you background programs.

But one reason you might higher 3dmark score with page file on is probably because you had some program in the background using cpu. But I'm not saying that as a fact.

I have 2gb of RAM and besides some games, I also run apps like photoshop that needs a page file to function without a hitch. Believe me, work on a VERY large image file and that 2gb goes REALLY quick. So saying that us with 2gb and a page file just wasted our money is pretty ignorant.