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Page File question...

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Pepi93

Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2002
Just curious...

I have my page file set to 1024-1024 min/max on my main OS drive and yet when I'm in game it shows a much larger page file usage? All virtual memory allocation is turned off for my other drives. I've been playing around with having virtual memory on my HDD instead of SSD, going from system managed to the set amount you see above.

Any idea why I am seeing 8gb(-)(+) of virtual memory usage when I'm gaming even though I have it set to 1024 max?

Thanks.
 
Always wondered that myself, used to use Cacheman (WinXP/7/8.1) to monitor mem/pagefile/programs and to tweak the system and no matter what the fixed size i gave it the damned thing fluctuated. Anything from 1gb-8gb-16gb, changed with each Windows restart. Started to simply set it my RAM size...

Funny thing is that this article says that Win10 uses far less then XP/7/8.1 and to use recommended +200mb but my recommended is ~3gb...

https://www.winhelp.us/set-paging-file-to-a-fixed-size-in-windows.html

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Always wondered that myself, used to use Cacheman (WinXP/7/8.1) to monitor mem/pagefile/programs and to tweak the system and no matter what the fixed size i gave it the damned thing fluctuated. Anything from 1gb-8gb-16gb, changed with each Windows restart.

Yeah, it's a mystery...I use MSI to monitor a few things since I've been playing witcher 3 and that game is anything but optimized in general or maybe just for Windows 7...

I tried to go back to just having a 1gb page file on my OS drive and immediately the game would microstutter...so I had to set a page file (16gb) for my HDD and that fixed it.

I'm going to try Windows 10 this summer (when I have time to mess around). Hopefully whatever issues it has now will be remedied by then...
 
The way the newer Windows OS utilizes memory resources is indeed mysterious. It seems to be very dynamic and how to interpret what is being reported as far as memory/page file usage is vastly different than it was with XP.
 
Isn't the general consensus these days with Win7 or 10 to no longer set a static page file and let the OS manage it?
 
Isn't the general consensus these days with Win7 or 10 to no longer set a static page file and let the OS manage it?

Static pagefile was one tip to make SSD last longer when they 1st started being sold, less writes from not having system constantly resizing it or moving it to a HDD. Also lots of tweaking pages say keep it the size of your RAM, or at the very least 1gb static. I keep 16gb static (my ram size) simply because i have a lot of free space so why not ?
 
It was a space savings thing for ssds to set a static small pagefile. By default the PF size was what, same as your ram? So in order to get a few more GB, you set it smaller and static.
 
I picked up a cheap 150gb 10k rpm hdd for my PF. I set it to twice my mem size and have had zero problems with win 7
 
PF was adjusted in last updates ( maybe half year ago or something ). Before that if it was set to auto then PF was 2x RAM size. Right now OS is discovering SSD and automatically disabling defrag and large PF. If it wouldn't then users with 120GB SSD for OS and 64GB RAM couldn't use PC at all :p ( actually I'm curious now how OS will allocate all that memory in this case ).

In theory you can disable PF when you have a lot of RAM. In theory OS should use PF only when it runs out of RAM. In real some applications are using PF even if there is still a lot of free RAM. I have no idea why. Anyway it's best to leave ~1-2GB PF limited manually.

I had disabled PF on my gaming PC for a long time and I had no issues at all but as I mentioned there are some applications which will shout about too low memory. I think it was on some Adobe soft in older versions but don't remember exactly.
 
A lot of older games (Vista, XP and older) still use pagefile, so disabling it is ill advised if you still play them.
 
I picked up a cheap 150gb 10k rpm hdd for my PF. I set it to twice my mem size and have had zero problems with win 7
If you have an SSD and moved it to that raptor, you would be making it slower, really. ;)

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so disabling it is ill advised if you still play them.
This... regardless of old/games whatever. For some, they can get away with forcing none (and I say none with a grain of salt...). But since there are very few if any performance gains, I just leave it. For space savings on my SSD, I set it 2GB manually, that is it.
 
If you have an SSD and moved it to that raptor, you would be making it slower, really. ;)

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This... regardless of old/games whatever. For some, they can get away with forcing none (and I say none with a grain of salt...). But since there are very few if any performance gains, I just leave it. For space savings on my SSD, I set it 2GB manually, that is it.
Shouldn't one not have a page file on an SSD?

Heh trashcans eh? I remember those.. :D
 
Increased wear?

From what I have read across the net. The SF should be placed on a different drive and preferably not a SSD. You would counter by saying that the SSD is the perfect candidate for a PF. Studies have show (in the past Like +5 years ago) that having a PF on a SSD does indeed increase wear and tear on the internal memory chips and lowers the life span.
Some internal controllers did have problems and caused the above to happen. What controllers - I can't remember. I have slept since then :rofl:

I remember reading where one chap did a Mathematical life span of a 64GB SSD from everyday use. He stated "From the advance wear leveling algorithm and Manufactures including extra memory to compensate. A 64GB SSD would last 10 years before the memory reached it's R/W lifespan."

Since then IIRC we have went from SLC - MLC - TLC. This is all with a "grain of salt" as the internal controller can mess up/die at any time. I had a PCIe OCZ Revo3Drive 240GB. I ended up having to RMA it 3 times because of bad controllers. They refunded me the full price that I had payed for it. This was just before they got bought out by Toshiba.

^ I miss that drive. There was no loading windows screen. I would be fully booted into windows before the windows start up sound would catch up :) IIRC OCZ had A LOT of RMA's from that series of drives.
 
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Agreed, nowadays you have so much overhead on SSD's that they will last for many years regardless of you having pagefile on it or not. Since most people have 8gb/16gb almost everything is swapped in RAM anyway so its hardly touched even if its there :thup:
 
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