Page File Usage High? How to Decrease?

[mar122999]

Kinda curious, how can you decrease your pagefile in Win XP? It always seems as if any system that has a high page file usage always run slower than if it had a lower page file usage. I thought that "ending" any unecessary processes could solve the high page file problem (350Mb), but there doesn't seem to be anything that is hogging memory within. Any ideas?

Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
Asus Mobo
256Mb DDR RAM
80Gb HD

[Gilthanaz]

I'm not positive about XP, but in win 2000 you can go to the system properties, advanced tab, performance, and click the change button to change your virtual memory settings. I think most things like this are the same or similar between xp and 2000, but somone with XP correct me if not.

[Hungrycookpot]

theres one more step in xp, go to control panel, system, advanced tab, in the box labeled performance click the settings button, then again the advanced tab, and in the bottom box there is a text box (i think its a text box) that allows you to specify the amount of space you want. oh ya and you have to be logged on as the admin if you already arent

*edit* no sorry its not a text box, as gilthanaz said its a button that says change

[Bizkitkid2001]

350mb is really lower for only 256mb of system ram. I have my pagefile set at 500mb and I have 512mb of system ram. Every now and then when I am playing bf:vietnam will multiple background prograsm running, i run out of both system ram and page file and windows increases my pagefile from 500-768.

If I were you I would increase the page file as that will probably help in performance.

[mar122999]

I really don't want to change the page file size (I already have it set 1.5x more than memory), I was looking for the most efficient way to lower the page file usage to make this system run faster.

[Bizkitkid2001]

The only way to really lower page file usage, not size, is to buy some more system ram.

[mar122999]

No, the 350mb is how much it is using inside of the "performance" tab in task manager. I notice that some systems start off with 75mb usuage, then gradually increase of course to 100mb, 150mb, 200mb, ...etc. The higher it goes, the more slower the system gets. Is there a way (without adding RAM) to free up some of the page file usage?

[wju425]

You need more mems friend. More mems you got the less you need to page. Also the more mems you got the better the performance. It can't get any simpler than that. I have 512 on my win98se and I can run it without paging enabled. The thing is though some applications expects to see the paging file (I crashed because of that) so I got mine set to 1/4 of my ram.

\o/ Billy

[paul9]

there was a thread recently about registry tweaks for memory Memory tweaks
read through that and decide if it is what you need.

[Hungrycookpot]

also you could just try closing down some unneeded background programs and unused processes, that always speeds up the ol computater