Quick Pagefile question. Plz help!

I've just been seeing everywhere that you shouldn't have your pagefile on the same HD that you have windows on.

The only problem with this, is I have windows on my raid0 setup. So, if I took it off my windows drive, then i'd have to move it to a much slower drive.

So what should I do? Also, all my games are also installed on my raid0 drive (windows hd).


Thanks for your help, and srry if it's a stupid question.

iLLestOne - It fine if you put the pagefile on a slower drive; the reason is on a separate drive (even if it is slower than you raid0 setup) the OS can access the pagefile at the same time it is accessing something else.

It doesn't matter where your game files are at. I have my pagefile on an old maxtor drive and my games installed on my primary drive.

Try moving your pagefile if you don't think that things are faster you can always move them back.

dudleycpa said:

Try moving your pagefile if you don't think that things are faster you can always move them back.

Click to expand...

True, and thanks for your reply. I was going to do this, but sometimes there are those performance increases that you cannot see, but just like to know are there. (i can't tell the diff between 2.3ghz and 2.6ghz, but I know 2.6ghz is better)

The main reason I ask this is because of doom3. I've seen it go up to 1.3gig's usage in game (com_showMemoryUsage 1)

But I'll give it a shot and see what happends I guess. Thanks again.

iLLestOne - Your welcome. We're all here to help each other out. Please let me know if you see any difference in Doom3.

i would put page files on each individual physical drive (not partitions) this way its faster.

Well I changed it to the other drive, and didn't notice anything at all....

I have 2 80gig in raid0, and 1 160 gig IDE.....

should I put like 750 in both rather then 1500 in just 1?

no - put it all in one
The main benefit of it being on a physical different drives is the heads of that drive can be dedicated to reading the page file - while your other drive reads the programs - wheer as if they are on the same drive - your hard drive will go back and forth between the programs and the pagefile - causing a slow down in performance.


To lose the page file - since doom 3 uses so much ram - get another gig of ram if possible and remove your page file

The following quote is taken from the MSKB article I've linked to below...

The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is, by default, stored on the boot partition, and then create one paging file on another, less frequently accessed partition. Additionally, it is optimal to create the second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or operating-system-specific files. By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management

Click to expand...

How to Configure Paging Files for Optimization and Recovery in Windows XP

In addition, Virtual Memory is always in operation and can't be “turned off” (or...“set the system to use no page file space at all”.)

Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring into use...the total may easily run into hundreds of MB's. These addresses have to be assigned somewhere by the system. If there's a page file available, the system can assign them to it...if there isn't, they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.

Therefore, you shouldn't turn off paging even with a vast amount of RAM. You can set the initial size down to about 50-100MB, and it will never get bigger, and will see no traffic (except the system initially 'parking' a few files in it). Not having the possibility of paging would result in locking out a lot of RAM. The reason is that many programs ask for allocations of virtual address space far bigger than they actually use. These have to be associated with some physical device. If there's a page file, they can go with that...resulting in a page file on which there isn't any traffic. If you don't have a page file, then they have to be assigned to RAM, and that part of RAM becomes effectively useless...it can't be used for anything else.

Whoa, thanks for the info. I wish I would have known about all this before my last reformat, but at least I know before my next one

Thanks again for clearing it up....