Viritual Memory in WinXP

Just wondering, would not 1 gig of physical memory be enough real memory to disable the viritual memory in WinXP? I've always used a small amount of viritual memory and keeping the min and max sizes the same in order to keep hard drives less fragmented, but wouldn't it be better to get rid of all viritual memory if one could use 1 gig of physical memory?

Cheers,
Mike

I have a gig of ram, and XP requires that you use at least 2 megs for a swapfile (regardless of physical ram), so that's what I do.

You can also tell it to use ram first before paging, as well as load the system files into ram, which seem to help performance.

A gig of ram kicks a$$ by the way

One massive improvement to Windows XP's performance is the page file which is also often known as a swap file or virtual memory (VM). The page file is a cache of data on the hard disk.
The page file cache is used to support the system memory (RAM). When your system memory is exceptionally low, it reverts to using the page file.
Its worth remembering that data accessed on a hard disk (no matter how fast) is very slow when compared to accessing system memory and as such your PC performance reduces when using the page file over RAM.
The more system memory your have, the less the page file is used, so installing more system memory (RAM) will also improve page file performance.
It is worth pointing out however that no matter how much memory you have in your system there will still be times when the system must use the swap file and as such you can obtain performace gains by optimizing it

You can improve your page file performance by making a partition on your hard drive for it or better yet, a separate partition on a drive other than the one that has WinXP installed on it as this additionally reduces fragmentation of the page file, which also reduces performance

As a guideline, make the swap file partition about two times the size of the amount of RAM you have.

If you already have XP set up, you can use the Disk Mangement tool to create a new partition. You can only do this if you already have multiple partitions on your hard drive (you must have administrator's rights to do this).

Open the Administrative Tools control panel.

Open Computer Management.

Expand Computer Management, then expand Storage.

Open Disk Management

Right Size the Page File

Now that your partition is set, you have to designate the size of the page file in XP.

Open the System control panel.

Click on the Advanced tab, then click the Setting button under Performance.

Under Performance Options, click on the Advanced tab.

Under Virtual Memory, click on Change.

In the Drive box, click on C: drive.

For Initial Size and Maximum Size, enter 0.

Click on Set to set the page file.

In the Drive box, click on the partition you create as the page file.

For Initial Size and Maximum Size, enter the size of your page file partition. Make the swap file partition about two times the size of the amount of RAM you have.

Click on Set to set the page file.

Click on OK.

grunjee said:

I have a gig of ram, and XP requires that you use at least 2 megs for a swapfile (regardless of physical ram), so that's what I do.

You can also tell it to use ram first before paging, as well as load the system files into ram, which seem to help performance.

A gig of ram kicks a$$ by the way

Click to expand...

Hey thanks,

But of course this makes me ask a couple of other questions.
I have custom size, now for my viritual memory, with it set to 600 meg, both min and max. Under it for paging there is 2 option choices. This says 1) System managed size and 2) No paging file.

I guess the first 1 is left blank because I have it set to custom, but what about No paging file? How does this specifically work? And how does this tell XP to use Ram before paging? And how do i tell XP to load the ram first?

Thanks,
Mike

grunjee said:

You can also tell it to use ram first before paging, as well as load the system files into ram, which seem to help performance.

Click to expand...

How?

GotNoRice said:

How?

Click to expand...

Go into regedit.

Navigate to: HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Session Manager\Memory Management.

You'll need to change two keys: The first is "DisablePagingExecutive". Change it to "1" -- this is what says to use Ram first before the pagefile.

The second is "LargeSystemCache". Also set this to "1" -- this says to cache Windows system files into ram.

Hope that helps

Mike360000 said:

Hey thanks,

But of course this makes me ask a couple of other questions.
I have custom size, now for my viritual memory, with it set to 600 meg, both min and max. Under it for paging there is 2 option choices. This says 1) System managed size and 2) No paging file.

I guess the first 1 is left blank because I have it set to custom, but what about No paging file? How does this specifically work? And how does this tell XP to use Ram before paging? And how do i tell XP to load the ram first?

Thanks,
Mike

Click to expand...

You're doing the right thing by managing the size of your swapfile. If you "System Manage" it, Windows will decide its size, and in my experience it's usually way off, like it will set it to be 2 gigs. Who the heck wants a 2 gig pagefile? Not me.

"No paging file" -- does exactly what it says, although somewhere you've got to have 2 megs. So say you have 4 partitions -- a C, D, E, and F drive. You can stick the pagefile on your E drive and then set the rest to "No paging file".

Supposedly you get the best performance when your pagefile is NOT on your Windows drive.

One more thing. Depending on what you do, I would have your ram and your pagefile not exceed 800 megs combined. Especially if you have less than 512 megs of ram.

800 MB total for RAM + pagefile may be a bit tight for certain people. I usually set the pagefile size as
min = RAM_size
max = 2 x RAM_size

My max RAM + page space can go up to close 1 GB.

Also I set a small size (256 MB) on drive C, and another one in a special partition on a different hard drive set aside only for the pagefile (min = RAM_size, max = 2 x RAM_size).

XP set the pagefile size as min = 1.5 RAM, max = 3 RAM

Regarding to disk fragmentation concern: if the pagefile is created freshly after defragmentation run (even it is in the C drive), the pagefile created will be contiguous and future defragmentation will not touch it (since it is a system reserve).

Also in Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) under the performance section, it tells you information about the current page space, the max page space used since booting, RAM used, RAM available, ... You will know how much page space you usually need for your normal daily usage.

Grunjee:

Thanks for the tips on the two registry settings. I thought XP should do that "smartly" w/o tweaking. Do you really see tweaking that two settings would help? And if so, under what situations that it would help?

hitechjb1 said:

Grunjee:

Thanks for the tips on the two registry settings. I thought XP should do that "smartly" w/o tweaking. Do you really see tweaking that two settings would help? And if so, under what situations that it would help?

Click to expand...

The "DisablePagingExecutive" one helps significantly. I've used it when I've had only 512 megs in my box, and there is a big reduction in hard drive crunching when you enable this setting.

As for the other one, caching the system files, I'm honestly not sure. It definitely hasn't hurt anything. A couple tweak guides I've seen have recommended it.

Hey thanks you all for the advice about this viritual memory.

I used to have 768 megs when I ran Win98 on a 1gig P3.
It was really fast with VM disabled. That's why I am intending on going this route with XP. Plus I figure, in getting the Corsair 3500 ram, and adding it to the stick of it I already have, I figure I'll be set when Intel releases their next Dual DDR chipset, that 800 fsb model, and when the notion strikes to upgrade to it. Memorywise that is, hopefully I'll be set.

Anyhow I wanted to make sure changing the VM or Memory Swap file would work ok on XP before I tried it. I've already had some bad experiences tweaking XP, especially concerning the System and Program Cache.

So I guess I'll end up with 1 gig of Corsair XMS 512 mb on 2 sticks. And according to you guys I should do the registry tweaks to force the system to use ram, and I guess I should set my Memory Swap file to something like 10 meg. I don't think I like the idea of having this on a second partition, really because I am on a RAID that is not partitioned and I don't wish to partition it. As a side note I ran my 512 mb of ram with only 400 megs of Swap Memory untill I installed MS Combat Sim 3. Then I got the message I didn't have enough Viritual Memory, and that's when I upped it to 600 meg. (I only got that message in CFS3 when I had about 3 other non-related progs open at the same time, besides what I needed for the game. So I am hoping that 1 gig of real ram should be enough.)

Any other ideas and input on my thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Mike

grunjee said:

The "DisablePagingExecutive" one helps significantly. I've used it when I've had only 512 megs in my box, and there is a big reduction in hard drive crunching when you enable this setting.

As for the other one, caching the system files, I'm honestly not sure. It definitely hasn't hurt anything. A couple tweak guides I've seen have recommended it.

Click to expand...

Ok thanks for the tips!

BUT!!! Please the Caching System Files; Do Not use it if the system has a Geforce 4 Ti series vcard! Can completely destroy your OS! It costed me 200 bux to find this out! Funny how I just mentioned it above.

Ati users are free to use it though, as is other nvidia users, except the GF4 Ti series owners.

Cheers,
Mike
PS I saw you use Ati.

Mike360000 said:

BUT!!! Please the Caching System Files; Do Not use it if the system has a Geforce 4 Ti series vcard! Can completely destroy your OS! It costed me 200 bux to find this out! Funny how I just mentioned it above.

Ati users are free to use it though, as is other nvidia users, except the GF4 Ti series owners.

Cheers,
Mike
PS I saw you use Ati.

Click to expand...

What the ___ ???? I've never heard of that one before... why would nVidia cards be to blame for that???

I run RAID-0 and partition the whole RAID-0 (two HD) into partitions. I like to have at least a partition for XP and system programs, a partition for programs, 1-2 partitions for data which can be shared on the networks, all of them on the RAID-0. Small swapfile in the RAID-0 C drive, another bigger swapfile on a separate WD 8MB cache HD.

If everything is on same partition, a bad sector will make data for the whole drive/entire RAID very very difficult to recover, if not impossible.

I am going to try the idea of running XP in pseudo swapfile-less mode. But I'll need more RAM since my max(RAM + pagespace) > RAM size.

grunjee said:

What the ___ ???? I've never heard of that one before... why would nVidia cards be to blame for that???

Click to expand...

Well it's a long story, but it's a design feature of the vcard concerning the way it uses memory. What's so bad is nvidia never publically said anything about any problems in changing the settings. I will add that the first sign of this problem is the vcard, being 128 meg onboard mem will only show up as 64 meg. You would be surprised at the number of people who has made this fatal tweak, only for me or another few to tell them they've played with their System Cache, changing it to Program Cache.
Changing it to Program Cache is the no no!

Real bad, really bad!
And expensive for some dummies, like me!
And that's why I'm asking ahead of time on this one. Just to be sure.

Cheers,
Mike

Well that is just sick and wrong of nVidia

I would be so torqued if that happened to me

grunjee said:

Well that is just sick and wrong of nVidia

I would be so torqued if that happened to me

Click to expand...

Wrong yes, but they won't pay the bill for their mistakes.
Actually I read about the tweak from CNET and tried it without thinking about anything conflicting. Guess they didn't either. Whole thing kind'of spooked me from tweaking my OS much after that. That's a one reason I haven't tried multiple partitions.

About the partitions and paging files. You said you had 2 paging files, 1 on each partition. I knew both my drives (raid plus my data backup) each had hidden system files section. So why does each partition need its' own paging files? If I don't access my drive D partition much; does this still slow down my system with its' default page file settings?

I can see and have known of the benefits of having seperate partitions, and configuring the OS onto a smaller independent partition, but I haven't really had that much space until recently. Nor did my drive D have much space left on it until recently. Well my previous RAID drives had the space, but for convience and data safety I kept everything on 1 RAIDed partition so I could do frequent backups of my entire RAID, and image or mirror them to my second, non-RAID HD, and this usually kept that HD pretty well full.

Just a couple weeks ago I had 1 of my RAID HDs going bad and I replaced both with the new Maxtor 8mb cache models. And since I then had a spare, I am now using it as drive D. And I now have a third HD, which used to be my mirror/image HD -- Drive D, which I now only mirror to and hook up to my system when I mirror it.

I guess this HD changeover really got me to thinking about my ram after I had to replace the HD that was going bad.

Cheers,
Mike

Hi..

Shortly I just wanted to learn sth..

I have 512mb of RAM..

What should my Pagefile size be on XP? and 98?

I have a 40gb 7200rpm HDD.. parted in two (15gb C:, 25gb D
Where should be the pagefiles?

I have few partitions on my RAID-0 (two HD) as described earlier and few paritions on a separate 8MB cache HD. I like to use many partitions like in the unix world (with file system mount points).

I haven't done any performance analysis and test on whether 1 pagefile per HD is really better. I thought XP may be smart to benefit from that if I provide it w/ a separate swapfile on each HD, so that the two HD's can be accessed in parallel should swapping beomes necessary while read/write into the other one.

Also borrowing from the unix world, my workstation has more than one swap spaces.

You try to run everything in memory using minimal or without swapfile, would it work at all if you have to run the machine for a long time. Long time for windows XP may mean just days at most without needing to reboot and the famous WINDOW UPDATE !!!

(My unix workstatation can run for months without rebooting).

If you have to run it long enough, there would come to a point that all the different applications, memory leaks, ... will use up all the memory space and have no space to swap.

In practice, how many days can you run windows like that with little or no swap space.

Whipl@sh said:

Hi..

Shortly I just wanted to learn sth..

I have 512mb of RAM..

What should my Pagefile size be on XP? and 98?

I have a 40gb 7200rpm HDD.. parted in two (15gb C:, 25gb D
Where should be the pagefiles?

Click to expand...

In XP, windows default swapfile as

min = 1.5 RAMsize
max = 3 RAMsize

I don't have performance test to support, but I would think to put the swapfile in D (in your case) as
min = RAMsize
max = 2 RAMsize

Better yet to a separate HD different from the XP installation drive.

This is what we want to figure out hopefully here.

Thank you


There's another point that comes so strange to me.. My friend told me that Virtual Memory is the part of the Hard Drive that is used as memory when physical memory is full. and then why we make virtual memory larger as our physical memory gets larger?
Should not we make virtual memory smaller when we upgrade our system ram?

Swap File , Page File, Virtual Memory.. these are same things.. arent'em?