What's the best paging file size for windows XP Pro ?

[Vanrick]

my page file size is 2050-2050, whats the best for a 20gig HDD and winxp pro?

[Soulburner]

Wow you need to trim that page file down!

Mine is set for 100-800 and its optimal for me.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

[Vanrick]

Originally posted by Soulburner
Wow you need to trim that page file down!

Mine is set for 100-800 and its optimal for me.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

well ok lol, I'll prolly go with 100 - 800 hehe !!!! but my default before on the minimum was 766 - 1500 something, should I keep it to default?

Also with 100 - 800 does your comp seem to slow down after playing a big game like bf1942?

[Soulburner]

No actually its the fastest setting ive ever used, it comes out of games very snappy and my memory is managed very well.

I have mine set at 100-100 on the partition with the OS, and 100-800 on the C drive. That way as soon as it goes over 100mb the page file is managed all from a seperate physical disk which is faster than making the head of the disk seek for files on the same drive as what you're using for other things.

Coupled with XP registry tweaks for speed and memory management it works very well. Check out that guide to see what works best for you.

[faruquehabib]

how do you change the page file setting??

[Vanrick]

Originally posted by Soulburner
No actually its the fastest setting ive ever used, it comes out of games very snappy and my memory is managed very well.

I have mine set at 100-100 on the partition with the OS, and 100-800 on the C drive. That way as soon as it goes over 100mb the page file is managed all from a seperate physical disk which is faster than making the head of the disk seek for files on the same drive as what you're using for other things.

Coupled with XP registry tweaks for speed and memory management it works very well. Check out that guide to see what works best for you.

I have hyperX PC3200 memory aswell 2 x 256, what registry, memory tweaks have you done...sorry to be a bugger but I hate it when it takes so long just to load certain programs and especially when comming out of big games like bf1942 my comp seems to have lost all it memory.

[Soulburner]

Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced > Change

Go to Tweaktown.com and do a search for XP Tweaks. Go through the Guides Part 1 and 2, you will find them there.

[corrupt]

Don't use a page file at all never have, if you have atleast 512mb of ram there's no real reason to use it since ram is always faster than you HD. I've done many tests and I have never seen a advantage from using a paging file.

[Vanrick]

Originally posted by corrupt
Don't use a page file at all never have, if you have atleast 512mb of ram there's no real reason to use it since ram is always faster than you HD. I've done many tests and I have never seen a advantage from using a paging file.

So should I disable page file?, since I only have 512 ram and a 20gig HDD.

[corrupt]

Try it and see what you think I only have 512mb's of ram and works great here.

[Vanrick]

Originally posted by corrupt
Try it and see what you think I only have 512mb's of ram and works great here.

After playing a game like bf1942 does your computer seem to slow down? Does the paging file system have an effect on programs starting slow?

[mluckey]

If you run without a swap file, you could run into problems and crashes if you have with excessive memory usage.

A better idea is to run a fixed sized swap file (to prevent fragmentation), and set it to a reasonable size. If you have 512 mb of RAM or more, then a couple hundred MB is fine. For a system with 256 mb, then 500 or so mb may be necessary. I monitored my setup for a couple of days, using the system performance monitor, and saw that I only dipped into the swap file occaisionally, and even then, never more than a hundred MB. I then set the swap file to 300 Mb - 300 Mb, and never looled back.

For those with over 1 Gb RAM, then disabling the swap file may be best.

[Soulburner]

Originally posted by mluckey
If you run without a swap file, you could run into problems and crashes if you have with excessive memory usage.

A better idea is to run a fixed sized swap file (to prevent fragmentation), and set it to a reasonable size. If you have 512 mb of RAM or more, then a couple hundred MB is fine. For a system with 256 mb, then 500 or so mb may be necessary. I monitored my setup for a couple of days, using the system performance monitor, and saw that I only dipped into the swap file occaisionally, and even then, never more than a hundred MB. I then set the swap file to 300 Mb - 300 Mb, and never looled back.

For those with over 1 Gb RAM, then disabling the swap file may be best.

Actually no, setting the same min/max is a common misconception, read the article I posted.

[saaya]

thx soulburner!

[madwelshboy]

Hi all,

I have generally found that for systems with 512mb or less of RAM, a page file is usefull (as games like UT2003 on high res etc can take up loads of mem), for these systems I use a fixed pagefile of 1.5x my systems mem (eg for 256mb RAM = 400mb page file). But for systems that have over 512mb mem ie 1gig like mine, I totally disable pagefile, it does speed things up dramatically for me anyway.
Hope this helps.

[st0nedpenguin]

I personally run with a 1.5Gb page file, I tend to run a lot of rendering and Photoshop, so it makes sense to have one, and I may as well have it a decent size, I have about 7Gb free on this Windows XP partition anyways.

I wouldn't recommend disabling the page file altogether myself, it's Windows error message hell if you run out of physical RAM, and it has a tendency to cause all kinds of little problems in the future, in my experience.

And for the argument about fixed vs variable size pagefiles, it's not that much of an issue having a variable sixed one with an NT based OS, but I would prefer a non fragmented pagefile myself, so I use a fixed size one.

[Rob]

What's the idea size for Win2k?

[mluckey]

Originally posted by Soulburner
Actually no, setting the same min/max is a common misconception, read the article I posted.

Link? Search came up with thousands of hits.

Also, unless you miscalculate your needs and hit the upper limit of a fixed swap file, you won't have any issues. If you want total safety, then leave the cap off. The performance hit is most likely swallowed by XP doing other crap anyways, so it won't matter.

[Soulburner]

Well I use Diskeeper, and it keeps the Page File defragmented.

This setting is definetely better than a fixed size in my experiences.

[CSOFT]

If you got a ton of ram just make a "ramdisk" using "ramdisk" and put your page file on it

[JoeBar]

Originally posted by Soulburner
Actually no, setting the same min/max is a common misconception, read the article I posted.

I would also like to learn more about this.
Can u pls post a link?

[KAIN]

Originally posted by Soulburner
Wow you need to trim that page file down!

Mine is set for 100-800 and its optimal for me.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

I would guess that is the article

[Soulburner]

Yup that's the one.

Try out those recommendations and see how you like them.

[JoeBar]

Thanks for the link m8!
I will try your recommendations.

[CSOFT]

100-800 worked better then 768, 100 did not work as good, 0 worked pretty good but windows changes it to 2mb and i get a message everytime I boot up saying i got not pf. (on 2k)