ram and paging files size

not sure if this is the right place to post this but it has to do with ram so i figured i'd post here. Ok i got 384mb of ram and i always hear people talking about page file and what size it should be can someone help me out on this. How big should my page file be for the amount of ram that i have thanks for all replys...im also on windows xp...

Windows makes up something at install time that it feels is appropriate for the amount of ram you have, and if it ends up needing more it just makes the pagefile bigger. Its not really something you need to worry about.

I believe it also helps performance if you set the page file to a static size instead of letting windows resize it.

It doesn't matter that much - depends on how much you need.
Have you ever seen "System is low on virtual memory" message?
If you have then you have to increase it.

I recommend setting the min and max sizes the same so windows doesn't resize it all the time on the fly.
I usually set the page file size to be double the physical memory size. But now I have 512 MB so I made the page file size 512 MB (the same). 1GB should be enough for anything...

I suggest set it to anything between your memory size and double the memory size.
f.e. 512 or 768 MB

Actually it does matter. If you don't set a static page file size, windows is always resizing the pagefile to meet demands. When you have some fragmentation on your HDD (and this ALWAYS happens eventually) and windows needs to enlarge the pagefile, the pagefile gets scattered all over your HDD thus degrading performance. So run a disk defrag and afterwards set a static pagefile. I'd say set 512MB. (both initial and maximum size) When you have over 512MB of (physical) RAM you can set 256MB. If you have more than one HDD it's even better to place the swapfile on another physical drive. This way Windows can simultaneously read data/programs from it's system partition while writing to the swapfile on the other disk. It's not much use putting the swapfile on another partition on the same physical disk though, the heads would just have to move back and forth all the time...

I've only seen Windows grow the pagefile, never shrink it. It should at minimum be your minimum size, and it doesn't get grown unless you actually run out of memory. Then it pops up a window saying you are low on virtual memory and that it is growing the pagefile for you. Once usage goes down though, it doesn't shrink it back.

Well, it really becomes a problem for systems that aren't defragged often and left on 24/7 if it dosen't shrink it. Once you run out of the minimum, it will end up fragmenting and increasing in size. If it needs more later, it may end up fragmenting more if data has been written or deleted since the last resize.

My personal pagefile rule.
Monitor your pagefile usage durring a pagefile intense operation and set it to 100MB more than that. If I were to be into video editing or something where Windows wants a page file, I would probably find that I'd need to set it to 512MB or something. However, if the most intense thing I did was to opene Solitare every morning, I can garuntee that I wouldn't use my 512MB pagefile (or I would sure HOPE not!), and could get away with 100MB or possibly none at all.

Since I don't run any huge programs on my computer, I get away really easily with 256MB page file on my 384MB RAM.
In fact, the only time I hit my limit is when I load up my 1.6GB file of primes.....

JigPu