• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

System Pagefile Size Question

D

Deacon_Jones1988

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 8, 2012
Messages
159
I was wondering if I could downsize my system page file size. (My system specs are listed in signature.) I am running Win 8.1 Pro 64bit I have 16gb of Ram 2x4, Should I keep it at the Windows auto, which is setting it to 16gb or can i downsize a bit, maybe to like 2gb?

Thanks in advance. I greatly appreciate any light you can shed on this for me.

Stay [H]
 
Mine is set to 512MB. Some people just turn it off all the way. You have 16Gb of ram so it's not really necessary.
 
There hasn't been any benefit to disabling the page file for a long time - over a decade. If you are that hard up for a few extra gigs of free space, you have much larger issues at play.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
I turn mine off completely! Its 2014, who pages these days?
Click to expand...

It's better to have it on:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx
Mark Russinovich said:
Some feel having no paging file results in better performance, but in general, having a paging file means Windows can write pages on the modified list (which represent pages that aren’t being accessed actively but have not been saved to disk) out to the paging file, thus making that memory available for more useful purposes (processes or file cache). So while there may be some workloads that perform better with no paging file, in general having one will mean more usable memory being available to the system (never mind that Windows won’t be able to write kernel crash dumps without a paging file sized large enough to hold them).
Click to expand...

http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/
 
It is standard practice for myself to upon first windows install set min and max size so it does not resize itself during operation. I figure this is of more value than its size.
 
Yeah, if you lower the page file size past a certain point (around 700MB for me in Win7), it will tell you what the minimum is for writing kernel crash dumps. I just set mine to that limit.
 
nasunor said:
It is standard practice for myself to upon first windows install set min and max size so it does not resize itself during operation. I figure this is of more value than its size.
Click to expand...

It may be useful to do that on an HDD, but it's irrelevant on an SSD. You really want your pagefile to be on an SSD if at all possible, because they excel at exactly that kind of behavior. And don't worry about wearing out an SSD, because they can handle that just fine these days.
 
I recently turned mine off as well just to save space on my ssd. I don't see any difference one way or the other (so far), but then again im fortunately not having any crashes either nor am i running any ancient programs that might require it....I suppose if i find any issues ill turn it back on but i haven't found any yet...I just didn't see the point in wasting space on my ssd.:)
 
I set it to 512MB-4096MB. That way it's there if it's needed. I've rarely seen the pagefile exceed 524MB using this configuration.
 
My Windows 7 is set to run without a pagefile! Why? I have 16gigs of ram, Ive never even come close to running out of memory. Yes thank you Copernicus, I am quite aware that crash dumps need a pagefile, I dont ever use crash dumps so it doesnt matter! Is your OS particularly bad at memory management? Your pagefile with 6gigs or ram or more should see little use.
 
I've always just left it alone even when I got my SSD and they recommended that you turn it off or lower it. It really isn't too big of a problem to me, but it's getting stupid the way Windows does it once you hit 8GB+ of RAM. There's no need to have an equal sized page file anymore.

The only condition to leave it on (alas smaller) with regards to an SSD were that apparently some, older, and even newer crappy developers apparently, still program around it. I don't see a need to ever put it higher than 4GB if you're paranoid.
 
timta2 said:
Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc...
Click to expand...

*snerk* Riiiiight. Linux uses the pagefile even less than on windows. My linux server box hasn't touched swap in a decade or more. Recently turned it off completely when I upgraded the OS drive to an SSD.

I turned it off completely on the laptop w/ 8Gig as it's only got an SSD. Also turned it off on the desktop w/ 16Gig even though it does have a spinner or two in there.
 
I set mine to 1024 minimum, 1536 maximum. Just for catching crash information.
 
benzino_86 said:
I set mine to 1024 minimum, 1536 maximum. Just for catching crash information.
Click to expand...

I have 32 GB of RAM, and that's the fixed size of my pagefile, which wastes a lot of disk space. I would love to take it down to say 1024/2048.

I run Win 7 on all my systems. AFAIK, on older OS's, if you ran out of pagefile space, the sytem just froze up with no warning. Is that still true?
 
You can occasionally, rarely, almost never, but sometimes run into an issue in Windows if you don't have a page file. I set mine to 512 - 2048 just in case.

Seriously, who can't spare a couple of gigs with tens of available terabytes of storage?

But yeah, the Windows default size is ridiculous. There is no way I need to waste 32 gigs on my system SSD.
 
I turn mine off as well. Problem with a page file, is that even with way more memory than I need, I can get occasional stuttering with a page file on, things just perform better with it off.


Originally Posted by Mark Russinovich
Some feel having no paging file results in better performance, but in general, having a paging file means Windows can write pages on the modified list (which represent pages that aren’t being accessed actively but have not been saved to disk) out to the paging file, thus making that memory available for more useful purposes (processes or file cache). So while there may be some workloads that perform better with no paging file, in general having one will mean more usable memory being available to the system (never mind that Windows won’t be able to write kernel crash dumps without a paging file sized large enough to hold them).
Click to expand...

Problem is though, no algorithm is perfect at predicting what's needed and what isn't and sometimes Windows will page out stuff that you'll need and you get lag. If you want 100% smooth operations, turn it off (only if you have more memory than you need of course) and use an SSD, it's butter. Usually if you get a BSOD, you can just turn the page file back on, and the conditions that caused the BSOD will happen again then you can grab the dump. Haven't had a BSOD (that wasn't caused by overclocking) since the XP days personally though.
 
Thanks all for all the Replies, I downsized it to like 5Gb static 5-5 min/max, I had no intention of disabling it.

I don't have space issues, not really, I have extra TB drives, its just my SSD (boot) is 240gb.

Thanx for the info.

Stay [H]
 
It's not a good idea to turn it off. Regardless of how much memory you have, if an application requires memory then the system needs to put stale data into the page file so memory can be freed for the application requesting it.

On SSD's I've been setting mine to Min 400MB and max (ram size). This way it's almost always at 400MB but has room to grow of necessary.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
I turn mine off completely! Its 2014, who pages these days?
Click to expand...

+1

I turned it off in XP.. hasn't been on since. It's completely useless.

B00nie said:
It's very dumb to turn page file off completely, it usually leads to unnecessary problems and gives you zero gains.
Click to expand...

It gives you hard drive space. It's a tool designed for low memory systems. Just not an issue anymore with how cheap ram is.
 
I set mine to 800mb, enough for the crash dump, my 256gb ssd is usually half full at most so 800mb is nothing to prevent any issues that may or may not arise from having it.
 
Dion said:
+1

I turned it off in XP.. hasn't been on since. It's completely useless.



It gives you hard drive space. It's a tool designed for low memory systems. Just not an issue anymore with how cheap ram is.
Click to expand...

LOL you have some serious problems if you're short for a few hundred megabytes of hard drive space.

Swap is used even when there's plenty of memory to go around. Your 32-bit application can access only up to 4Gb of ram even if you have 512 gigs available. After that it needs to start swapping or run out of memory. I've run into performance problems in surprising scenarios when trying to disable swap despite having loads of ram available.

It's just not worth it. You're planting a time bomb in your system by disabling swap.
 
32-bit programs on Windows are limited to 2GBs or 4GBs depending on if they're compiled with large address aware flag, they do not use more memory than that with a page file.
 
devil22 said:
32-bit programs on Windows are limited to 2GBs or 4GBs depending on if they're compiled with large address aware flag, they do not use more memory than that with a page file.
Click to expand...


Its not single programs you need to worry about, it's the entire system that uses the memory. Back in the days it wasn't uncommon for the page file to cause people memory upgrades. It's very noticeable (at least on a hard drive) when your system is using the page file. However, since 2GB of RAM has become the standard on even laptops nearly 10 years ago, I haven't heard of the page file becoming much of an issue.

Windows also has much better memory management than it used to. The chances you'll use the page file are next to zero, but until Windows disables it for every install I'd still have something down over 0.
 
Liger88 said:
Its not single programs you need to worry about, it's the entire system that uses the memory. Back in the days it wasn't uncommon for the page file to cause people memory upgrades. It's very noticeable (at least on a hard drive) when your system is using the page file. However, since 2GB of RAM has become the standard on even laptops nearly 10 years ago, I haven't heard of the page file becoming much of an issue.

Windows also has much better memory management than it used to. The chances you'll use the page file are next to zero, but until Windows disables it for every install I'd still have something down over 0.
Click to expand...

I probably should've quoted b00nie, but he seemed to be saying that a 32-bit program can use the page file if it uses all 4GBs available to it and you have more memory. Which is obviously not true.
 
devil22 said:
I probably should've quoted b00nie, but he seemed to be saying that a 32-bit program can use the page file if it uses all 4GBs available to it and you have more memory. Which is obviously not true.
Click to expand...

True or not, each time I've tried disabling the swap completely (on 8Gb system) I've run into problems sooner or later which are directly caused by the lack of swap. This is why I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
 
B00nie said:
True or not, each time I've tried disabling the swap completely (on 8Gb system) I've run into problems sooner or later which are directly caused by the lack of swap. This is why I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...

*shrug* Page files just write memory to the disk, and read from the disk to memory in such a way that programs aren't supposed to realize it happened, anything that depends on that when there is memory available is a poorly written program that went out of its way to be lame. I always run without a page file, and the last time I had any issue was with like Photoshop 5, years ago, which just popped up a silly warning that there was no page file but otherwise ran fine. For people who don't know any better any way it's probably good advice, they probably have very little ram. For power users with 16GBs+ that don't ever approach the limit, turning it off is definitely better if you want a butter smooth experience.
 
Last edited:
64GB here, i have 3 page files spread over 3 SSDs :) like 1-2GB each. A few programs i run complain with out it.. though for the life of me i cannot remember what they are.. i want to say Adobe but i don't think that's right.
 
I have 12GB but I keep the paging file active on my SSD. Too many games have caused issues w/o having a paging file available or if there is one & it's on a slow drive, it can cause major slowdowns in some games.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I have 12GB but I keep the paging file active on my SSD. Too many games have caused issues w/o having a paging file available or if there is one & it's on a slow drive, it can cause major slowdowns in some games.
Click to expand...

Yup games gave me also problems without pagefile.
 
The point that is not being made, nor seems to be understood by most, is the fact that you do not work with memory in the manner that is expected by most of the posting comments.

Virtual memory is a must, and a standard of all modern and later systems. It is a combination of system hardware and software. It is something that even though, seemingly, is disabled is not. It protects; it extends memory; it help programs to work with each other as they can instead take virtual segment addresses that are occupied physically.

For years 20+ years I have seen this conversation pop up from time to time. And I must say, that only a very small few that posted ever knew the true function and story of virtual memory.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Shikami said:
The point that is not being made, nor seems to be understood by most, is the fact that you do not work with memory in the manner that is expected by most of the posting comments.

Virtual memory is a must, and a standard of all modern and later systems. It is a combination of system hardware and software. It is something that even though, seemingly, is disabled is not. It protects; it extends memory; it help programs to work with each other as they can instead take virtual segment addresses that are occupied physically.

For years 20+ years I have seen this conversation pop up from time to time. And I must say, that only a very small few that posted ever knew the true function and story of virtual memory.
Click to expand...

/cry i feel old now.

Microsoft Support said:
64-bit versions of Windows and Windows Server support more physical memory (RAM) than 32-bit versions support. However, the reason to configure the page file size has not changed. It has always been about supporting a system crash dump, if it is necessary, or extending the system commit limit, if it is necessary. For example, when a lot of physical memory is installed, a page file might not be required to back the system commit charge during peak usage. The available physical memory alone might be large enough to do this. However, a page file or a dedicated dump file might still be required to back a system crash dump.
Click to expand...

Reference: Microsoft Support

Basically they say it isn't required but some Applications require it because they use it for sharing or what have you. If you got enough memory available it may not be required those dumps and commits.

TL;DR Have a page file unless you KNOW you don't need it.
 
If your pagefile is not needed it wont get used anyway so disabling it speeds nothing in the end.
 
Snowknight26 said:
It's better to have it on:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx


http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/
Click to expand...

I couldn't disagree more. If WIndows had a swappiness parameter like Linux, I would agree. But no - Microsoft feels they always know better than the user, so why actually let the user configure useful things like this?

Look - the programs I have open are more important than the programs or files Windows thinks I might open. Always. Period.

I haven't used a swap file for several years and have not missed it. There is no way my system would perform better with one.
 
dandragonrage said:
I couldn't disagree more. If WIndows had a swappiness parameter like Linux, I would agree. But no - Microsoft feels they always know better than the user, so why actually let the user configure useful things like this?

Look - the programs I have open are more important than the programs or files Windows thinks I might open. Always. Period.

I haven't used a swap file for several years and have not missed it. There is no way my system would perform better with one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's my #1 complaint about swap on Windows. Doesn't matter that one has 16Gig of RAM and only ~2 used, windows will always swap out something when it doesn't need to. Hence why I just turned it off.
Linux uses it as a weapon of last resort by default, it just won't touch it until it runs out of memory.
 
FnordMan said:
Yeah, that's my #1 complaint about swap on Windows. Doesn't matter that one has 16Gig of RAM and only ~2 used, windows will always swap out something when it doesn't need to. Hence why I just turned it off.
Linux uses it as a weapon of last resort by default, it just won't touch it until it runs out of memory.
Click to expand...


Microsoft is largely to blame for its misuse of the page file since the early days. They thought it would be a cute way to offload parts of the memory (even when not needed) and be a weapon of last resort. It's why some applications still exist that complain about it. It wont be long before we're seeing systems in the hundreds of GB's of memory being common with stacked DDR4.
 
I dont care about kernal crash dumps on a stable system. But some software loves it.

I have mine set to 512MB on an ssd (for the odd game or program) with an option to expand to an hdd up to 2 GB

It doesnt surpass ~180MB
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top