View Full Version : Page File!!!!!11
bullet2urbrain
08-28-2005, 08:34 PM
all righty so i HATE system restore.. i always turn it off.. but heres my other question i know some people have tricks with using the page file on different drives for running 3dmark..
i have 4 HDD on my computer.. one of which i dont have a use for right now so i was wondering if i should move the page file from my windows HDD onto the drive i have NO USE for right now.. i have the following
2 x 250gig PATA
1 x 100gig SATA <<<< NO USE
1 x 74gig SATA
would i see any benefit to using the 100gig as the "page file"?? its not doing anything..it makes sense to me that it would but im not sure how or why.
Major_A
08-28-2005, 08:45 PM
From what I've read if you put your PF on a different drive other than the OS drive you can run into problems.
Delirious
08-28-2005, 08:48 PM
I have my page file running on a seperate drive that has nothing but the page file on it now. I've also had it setup on a hard drive i used for storage.
So i dont think you will have problems, as for performance boost.....well thats kinda subjective.
KoolDrew
08-29-2005, 04:33 AM
This probably would be better in the OS forum, but whatever. The pagefile should be on the least-used HDD and the most-used partition on that HDD. You probably won't see a noticeable performance increase depending on how much you actually use the pagefile though.
7he]-[0rr0r
08-29-2005, 05:47 AM
yeah i do this for the hell of it haven't had any problems iwould say its more important to have it a set size so it doesn't resize itself and cause hitching in games.
KoolDrew
08-29-2005, 06:37 AM
iwould say its more important to have it a set size so it doesn't resize itself and cause hitching in games.
There is no reason to set a static pagefile size. The pagefile will only resize when absolutely necessary. So if the initial is set high enough it will never have to resize.
bullet2urbrain
08-29-2005, 08:41 AM
well i have mine set so it doesnt resize already... but i wasnt sure if using the SATA which has a higher throughput than ATA133 would work better. im not sure if im using the page file but if i am it makes sense that the 150mbps throughput of the drive.
MDboyz
08-29-2005, 09:06 AM
Setting the pagefile to static size will help to eliminate pagefile fragments tho.
Setting the pagefile on different hard drives will improve system performance... remember different drives, not different partitions. If the pagefile is on different partitions within the same hard drive, it will hurt the system performance instead.
you wont get anywhere near 150mb/s, no way!!!
even quad scsi 15k rpm raid 0 gets a max of about 240-290mb/s of a possible 320mb/s connection......
a single drive setup is waaaay more dependant on rpm, seek times, cache, latency, read/write access times etc......
SATA is used, not because of its speed upgrade over ata133, but rather its support for hot swapping or hot plugging or whatever it's proper name is.......
umm, but i might be wrong........
(scratch that, im probably wrong.....)
im not sure if im using the page file
yes you are, go ctrl-alt-del, look at the performance tab on taskmanager, and it will tell you how big your pagefile is.........
run memtest or s&m or anything and you can see how much you are using it.......
get large, huge and MONSTROUS amounts of ram and you should hardly use your pagefile :banana:
do this: unplug all but one memory module(minimize your amount of ram), then do the same benchmarks you normally do and watch your hard drive sweat as it tries to access the huge page file......
then try different hard drive configurations to see which is fastest, then put your memory back, sorted!!! :clap:
KoolDrew
08-29-2005, 02:03 PM
Setting the pagefile to static size will help to eliminate pagefile fragments tho.
So will setting the initial high enough, yet it has many more advantages. There is absolutely no reason to set a static size. Also not to mention unless the pagefile is extremely fragmented it will make no difference in performance.
yes you are, go ctrl-alt-del, look at the performance tab on taskmanager, and it will tell you how big your pagefile is.........
The PF usage graph in task mnager is not PF usage (oddly enough). The only way to measure Pf usage with tools built into Windows is through perfmon.
bullet2urbrain
08-29-2005, 02:10 PM
it would be different drives.. like i said.
hwoever my understanding of IDE is that the bandwidth is shared amongst the 2 drives so the "theorhetical" bandwidth of ATA133 is 133mbps shared across the 2 devices.
with SATA you get the theorhetical across only the 1 HDD due to no slave master config.
im going to try it and see whats crackalacking with it.. i hope nothing gets screwed up whilst i do it.
The PF usage graph in task mnager is not PF usage (oddly enough). The only way to measure Pf usage with tools built into Windows is through perfmon.
okay, fair enough, messed about a bit with perfmon, but i have absolutely nooooooo idea what im looking at, but i dont care anyway.....
what does the PF value in task manager mean then??? :stick: