Disabling the pagefile. Is it safe?

[PepperBreath]

I have 512MB RAM right now and I've notice that my system runs much faster without a page file. I did a performance log on a 200MB page file for 2-3 days and the most memory used was only 30MB. The average was more like 22MB.

Could I run without a pagefile with little or no ill effects? If so, anyone here know how to turn off the annoying warning that pops up with Photoshop 7?

*edit*

I guess I should note that I've had my pagefile set to something as low as 16MB for a month or so with absolutely no problems. I've never had it off for that long though.

 

[QTPie]

I've been using winxp without paging file. Everything's ok, I dont see any problem at all (I have 768MB RAM)
I think you can set the amount of RAM to use in PS7 without using pagefile.

 

[Nothinman]

It's a really dumb thing to do, eventually you will have problems and you gain nothing anyway.

And please use the search function, this has been done to death many, many times before.

 

[PepperBreath]

<< It's a really dumb thing to do, eventually you will have problems and you gain nothing anyway. >>



Thank you for your in-depth explination as to why I shouldn't do it. That was a valuable post and I shall cherish it forever.

 

[kursplat]

<< It's a really dumb thing to do, eventually you will have problems and you gain nothing anyway.[/Q

you mean i can have windows with NO problems ?!?!....cool


hey pepperbreath. i.ve got 768mb memory too, like QT. no problems here without it.
no page..... good...... uhgg grunt grunt

 

[Nothinman]

Thank you for your in-depth explination as to why I shouldn't do it. That was a valuable post and I shall cherish it forever

Guess you totally missed the part about the search engine and how this has been covered many times before...

 

[kursplat]

<< Guess you totally missed the part about the search engine and how this has been covered many times before... >>


the world is a static place. no changes. no new information. no updates to experiance.

anyone else running fine without a pagefile? how much memory? for how long ?

 

[PepperBreath]

<< Guess you totally missed the part about the search engine and how this has been covered many times before... >>



Nearly all of them are asking how big the pagefile should be and none of them answer the photoshop question. Yet another insiteful post though. This helps me immensely.

Thanks to the others for your input. I appreciate the actual help instead of snappy replies.

chuck:

How long have you been running without a pagefile?

 

[kursplat]

'bout 4 months. am duel booting XP\win98.using XP for more and more stuff as i get used to it. haven't run sy sandra since i added the last stick of memory, but it seems to like all it can get.
good luck

 

[Nothinman]

the world is a static place. no changes. no new information. no updates to experiance.

The world isn't static, but Win2K's VM is and it requires a pagefile to run properly. There's a reason that if you disable XP's pagefile it creates a variable size one behind your back.

And just because 1 person has a certain experience, that doesn't make it fact. Hell if that were true there'd be a dozen or so known alien races experimenting on us right now.

Windows requires a pagefile for the backing store for certain things like memory mapped files (i.e. all executables and shared libraries), shared memory and other things.

 

[QTPie]

<<anyone else running fine without a pagefile? how much memory? for how long ? >>

I've been running without pagefile for more than a year with 512MB on my WIN2K and 768MB on my winXP box.
I haven't encoutered any problem. You need to tweak your windows os a little bit. Set it to load all programs in physical memory, use pagefile only when it runs out of physical mem (which I dont remember how to do it but you can search on the net). I remember reading somewhere that, by default, win OS will only use 128MB (or something like that) of physical memory.

About Photoshop, for optimum performance, you need to spend some times to fine tune it, i.e. set how much memory you give it, hard disk cache, etc. Play around and do some benchmarks to find out which is the best for you. It depends on the system.

 

[Nothinman]

use pagefile only when it runs out of physical mem

You think by default it just uses it for fun? And if you disable the pagefile how can it use it?

I remember reading somewhere that, by default, win OS will only use 128MB

Maybe a POS Win9X-based version, NT since 3.51 has been able to use up to 4G and if you pay extra (go MS!) for super-duper versions you can use up to 64G (so long as you have a processor that does PAE)

Why don't you just get faster hard drives? Instead of wasting all this time f'ing with things you don't really understand (seriously tell me you understand how NT's VM subsystem works and I'll shutup).

 

[NogginBoink]

The WinNT memory manager is a very mature set of code written by some very smart folks.

I would never run without a pagefile. Besides, f you delete your pagefiles, Windows will create a temporary one anyway.

The pagefile is there for a reason. I don't know the details any more than any of you do, but the pagefile is an integral part of the system's memory management. Disabling the system's ability to use a pagefile could potentially cripple the OS.

Just my opinions.

 

[DnetMHZ]

I have an OpenBSD box with no swap partition (installation oops) 512 megs of RAM and it runs fine.. of course it's only using about 40-50 megs usually

 

[Nothinman]

Apples and Oranges. Most of the free unix clones are made to run on very small hardware and as such run fine without swap, NT was not.

 

[FuManStan]

I was under the impression that some games or applications will look to use the pagefile no matter how much memory you have

 

[PepperBreath]

<< I was under the impression that some games or applications will look to use the pagefile no matter how much memory you have >>



So far Photoshop 6 and Photoshop 7 are the only ones that seem to have a problem. PS6 won't run at all and PS7 will give a warning. I set the scratch disk on a second partition and the warning disappered completely though. I've run games, browsed the web, etc, without incident.

Granted, I don't have thousands of games or apps to test so I'm sure a few of them might have problems. Nothing I have with the exception of Photoshop has any issues.



<< Instead of wasting all this time f'ing with things you don't really understand >>



The irony of that statement is that everyone who says it's such a bad idea has yet to explain exactly why. People have run without a pagefile and have had no problems. If the so called enlighted people would explain why it's such a bad thing then perhaps it'd be easier to head your warnings. Thus far it seems that people's experience suggests that you can run without a pagefile.

I asked the question because I'd like a well thought out answer, not snappy responses. As I said before, I've set a 200MB pagefile and only 21MB of that pagefile was used on average. A lot of the log files clocked 1% file usage. If it's so vital, it doesn't seem like it's used all that much.

 

[PG]

This has been done to death before, as has been the stupid myths about how much RAM windows can really use.

Some software, Pro/Engineer for example, states very clearly in the system requirements that a minimum 128 MB swapfile is needed.

Go ahead and disable it if you want, but you'll have one heck of a time trouble shooting some software that won't run properly if you do have a problem later.


The irony of that statement is that everyone who says it's such a bad idea has yet to explain exactly why. People have run without a pagefile and have had no problems. If the so called enlighted people would explain why it's such a bad thing then perhaps it'd be easier to head your warnings. Thus far it seems that people's experience suggests that you can run without a pagefile.



You answered your own question. If you can really run without it, why don't some of your apps work with it disabled?

 

[PepperBreath]

<< If you can really run without it, why don't some of your apps work with it disabled? >>



Eh? I can run all of my apps without it.

 

[incallisto]

I don't use a pagefile. Then again, I have 2GB of memory in that box.

 

[PG]

<<

<< If you can really run without it, why don't some of your apps work with it disabled? >>



Eh? I can run all of my apps without it. >>


Really?
What about this:

So far Photoshop 6 and Photoshop 7 are the only ones that seem to have a problem. PS6 won't run at all and PS7 will give a warning.


But then you say this:

I set the scratch disk on a second partition and the warning disappered completely though. I've run games, browsed the web, etc, without incident.


So what is a scratch disk? I don't follow your terminology. Do you mean you set up a pagefile on another partition?
If so, then you really aren't working without one after all.

 

[Nothinman]

The irony of that statement is that everyone who says it's such a bad idea has yet to explain exactly why

I said, NT uses the pagefile for more than just swap space. It uses it as a backing store for things like memory mapped files and shared memory, disabling the pagefile would make them unusable. Some apps will work, probably a large number of them, but eventually you will have problem, there's no debating to be done because it's now MS designed NT to work.

If you want to run that way that's, fine but you gain nothing and risk problems. And don't expect help here until you can reproduce any problems you have with pagefiles created.

 

[Mark R]

As has been said before: Disabling the pagefile won't improve performance, and will probably degrade performance due to the memory management techniques used by Win2k/XP (e.g. Win2k will swap rarely used, but critical parts of itself out, to free up RAM for disk cache - larger caches will translate into better performance). A pagefile also removes the limit of physical RAM when running large applications. The pagefile is also critical to communication between applications - if it is disabled then some applications may not run.



<< So what is a scratch disk? I don't follow your terminology >>



A scratch disk is a drive used by Photoshop for temporary storage - put simply, it is similar to a private pagefile reserved for PS.

 

[PepperBreath]

<< there's no debating to be done because it's now MS designed NT to work. >>



Then why even give the option to disable it if it's so vital? Why even bother if there is nothing to be gained?



<< So what is a scratch disk? >>



It's a temporary work space file created by photoshop. It's similar to the pagefile/swap file but it has nothing to do with the OS pagefile and it's deleted immediately after Photoshop closes.

 

[Nothinman]

Then why even give the option to disable it if it's so vital? Why even bother if there is nothing to be gained?

Because it's per disk, you don't have to have a pagefile on every disk so they give you a 'no pagefile' option. It's just poorly worded.

And like I said, even if you disable it Win2K and XP will create a small (20M to start) variable sized pagefile without telling you.