Paging file size W2K

[Bill in SD, CA]

In "advanced" in "properties" in "my computer" I see in "virtual memory" that the "total paging file size for all drives:" is set to 768MB with the option to change.

Should I change this and if so to what?

I have a 2 partition 120GB HDD. W2K BTW.

Bill

[duramax]

your page file should be set to 2 times your RAM amount. eg: i have 768 MB ram. my page file is set to 1400MB. here is the link I found this info at...
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/w...371764,00.html

Enjoy!
DuraMax

[Scott Tiger]

That's an old rule of thumb duramax and doesn't really apply any more.

Consider:

If I had 256 mb of ram I would have a 512mb swap file

If I bought a stick of 512 and took my memory up to 768 my new swap file using your equation would be 1536.

Now it seems to me that when you had 256 mb of ram you would need a much larger swap file. Now that you have 768 mb of ram you would need a smaller swap file (all else being equal).

The best thing to do is Bill is monitor your own machine usuage over period of time and then make your decision accordingly. Windows does need a swap file even if you do have a ton of ram so there's no way to effectively avoid it that I know of for a desktop pc. Others may be able to provide better insight on the matter. I've read quite a few good articles on how to help (or not help, however the case may be) Windows 9x handle memory but not Win2k or XP.

[EvilRick]

I agree w/ the 2X rule of thumb, but that was brought about w/ systems when they only had 32MB and 64MB or RAM.

I feel now, if the system has 256MB or more of RAM, there is no need to go larger than 512MB for a swapfile. You can't just totally disable, some programs rely on it to be there, even if it isn't used.

I've got 512MB in this machine now with just a 512MB swapfile, hasn't given me any trouble. I might drop it down to 256MB swapfile just to see if I notice a change, I doubt if I do.

By default M$ makes your swapfile 1.5X minimum and 2.5X for maximum. Set it to 1.5X if you're paranoid for min and max and you should be fine.

[Bill in SD, CA]

Well, I used to have 768 and then the other day I noticed that it was only showing 256. Ran memtest trying see what was wrong. Showed nothing.

Found out later that my 13 year old son did a "midnight raid" on my box and swapped out his memory for mine. Smart A$$!

Does increasing it over the what is shown have any positive effects?

Bill

[EvilRick]

Besides just taking up more space on your HDD, I'd say no. There won't be any performance gain either if that's what you mean.

You could probably just use a 256MB swapfile and still not notice a difference than if you were running a 512MB or 768MB one. Again, besides it taking up more space.

Try it w/ 256MB and see what happens. Worst thing that's going to happen is Windows will complain.

[Scott Tiger]

I've found that you can set up your desired swap file size and Windows XP Pro will do whatever it wants anyway.

I had my swap file set at 256 (768 mb of ram) for the longest time thinking that was all that was needed. But using the systeminfo command I found that Windows was using A LOT more than 256 mb for the swap file and didn't bother to tell me about it - it just increased the file size without telling anyone and went on it's merry way. Right now I have mine set to "system" managed and haven't noticed any differences between that when it was set to 256.

[John Prophet]

At least with w9x..having it set to a specific size was better than letting windows manage it...because windows will grow and shrink the size of it (usually grow, lol)....and it is just better to have one set size. If I had 256 ram I would probably set it to 512. And that is a gracious plenty I would think. If I had 768 I might set it to 100, lol. Set it low and see what happens...open your biggest program and/or run a couple things at once and see if it tells you it needs more memory. I doubt it will. I havent tried it that low..maybe thats too low but I doubt you'd ever need more than 256ish.

Also you might want to try to defrag the page file itself...which evidently doesnt defrag when you run regular ol defrag. What you have to do is first disable virtual mem altogether..THEN defrag...then turn vitrual back on. Evidently the page file is sort of "roped off" while virt mem is on and defrag doesnt mess with it.

Thats why you see all the freeware "page file defraggers" etc.

When I was first learning to play with the page file sizes etc..on my WinMe machine a few years back....I ran system monitor to check out the situation.........my moms Pavillion with ME and 64m ram would show lots of page file usage right after bootup (bad..so we bumped her to 192). On my Me machine..after I went to 384M ram...no matter how many progs I started, it never used any page file....so personally I think you can set it almost as low as you want, lol..unless maybe specific progs need it.

But all you have to do is use whatever mem perf monitor log comes with w2k and see how much page file is being used....if you monitor it and run your biggest progs and it only shows 25mb page file being used...why then would you need 768 dedicated to paging??

Heck, maybe it would run fine WITHOUT virtual mem! lol.

JP

[Scott Tiger]

Windows 9x handles memory very differently from Windows 2k and XP JP.

And again, it really depends on what you're doing with the computer. Lately I've been converting DVD's to SVCD's and that's a very resource intensive process. You can really chew through some memory and some disk space really quick doing that. Even with 768 mb of ram I'm still using 564 of mb in my swapfile and this box isn't even under a load right now.