Page File Question

[joshharrington]

I have an MSI K8N Neo Plat. motherboard with a 3200+ 64-bit processor (skct 754). I'm running 2x1 Gig Sticks of Corsair XMS DDR3200 (400) and was wondering if it would be a wise move to disable page file to increase performance in computer games, specifically EQII. It was recommended in a guid on TenTonHammer.com, but I wasn't sure about the validity of the recommendation. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

 

[corkyg]

Try it and see. You can easily turn the page file on/off. With 2 gigs of RAM, it may not be an issue at all. In fact, you might find it makes no difference. If the game has been totally handled within your RAM, the page file has not been used anyway.

 

[joshharrington]

Thanks I'll give it a shot.

 

[debonair23]

Check out the following section from http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really large machine?

Strictly speaking Virtual Memory is always in operation and cannot be ?turned off.? What is meant by such wording is ?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 to hundreds of megabytes. These addresses have to be assigned to somewhere by the system. If there is a page file available, the system can assign them to it ? if there is not, they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.

 

[shortylickens]

I see you were smart enough to not ask this in the OS forums.
Those guys would rip your nutsack off if they heard such a question.

The general consensus with them is that you should have a Swap file, even if its really small.

I have one gig of RAM and a 256Meg swap file. It seems to work well for me.
You have to remember that many programs (especially photo and video editors) get pissy if you dont have something for a swap file, even if you bought gobs of physical memory. Some games can be tempermental too.
If you are in a particular game and someone suggests that disabling it will improve performance then go ahead and try it out. It may work.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I see you were smart enough to not ask this in the OS forums.
Those guys would rip your nutsack off if they heard such a question.

The general consensus with them is that you should have a Swap file, even if its really small.

I have one gig of RAM and a 256Meg swap file. It seems to work well for me.
You have to remember that many programs (especially photo and video editors) get pissy if you dont have something for a swap file, even if you bought gobs of physical memory. Some games can be tempermental too.
If you are in a particular game and someone suggests that disabling it will improve performance then go ahead and try it out. It may work.

I'm here from the OS forum to rip your nutsack off.

Let windows handle the pagefile unless you are smart enough not to have to ask this.

Love,

Smilin

 

[joshharrington]

I'll find a happy medium, what percentage of the acutal memory is recommended for optimal page file. Also would it be better to place the page file on my secondary hard drive or leave it on the primary one with the O/S. (My thoughts are that on the O/S it would be faster, but just want to get a better opinion.) Thanks guys.

 

[dclive]

Pls see Smilin's reply for the best answer.