Paging File For 1GB & 2GB Systems

I am wondering what should the paging file be set to for 1GB and 2GB systems for my brothers old Athlon XP 2400+ system it is set to 1533mb intial and 1533 max which is what Win XP Pro recommends. God knows why it's set to that I didn't touch it but if I leave it to windows to run it, it sets it higher I think?

I was googling and a few sites said if I have 2GB (which I do) I can disable it I read on here you can't really disable it. But if I manually set it to 2GB (e.g 2GB initial 2GB Max) would that be ok cause in theory paging file acts like RAM on a Hard disc so the PC can move things out of RAM into that if I am right.

So in theory 2GB RAM and 2GB PF would class as 4GB wouldn't it or am I going completly off the cliff edge here.

I have an entire raptor drive set as my paging file

Disabling the PF will not improve performance. Usual rule of thumb is set PF to 1.5 x Total Ram (i.e. 2GB Ram = 3072MB PF). With newer computers having so much storage space there is no harm in having a large PF. I find that my XP Home doesn't need anything close to 3072MB PF but that's what I have it set to.

If you are going to adjust the size of your PF follow these simple steps to ensure one contiguous block for your PF.

1. Uninstall/delete anything you don't need/use anymore. This will eventually help keep the space allocated for the PF as close to the centre of the disc as possible. Or you can use a separate HDD altogether for your PF. But I won't get into that here.

2. Set PF to Zero or "No PF"

3. Reboot into Safe Mode and Defrag

4. Set PF to 1.5 x Total Ram (Min & Max)

5. Reboot to normal

I have my PF set to 512MB and it never gets near using all of it.

Put it in the most heavily accessed partition on a drive other than your boot/OS drive and let windows manage the size.

Then you can forgetaboutit