"Virtual Memory" What would be best settings?

[MrJ]

What would be the best settings for my system under "Virtual Memory." I have read that letting "Windows" handle is the best from some people and that setting up a "Swap" file is best from others. Can someone tell me what would be the best settings for my system when I use it mostly for 3d gaming."

 

[bhess]

generally it is best to set it a 2.5 times your ram. If you have 128 or higher I would set it less. If you have two harddrives put it on your second one unless it is slow. Also set it for a fixed amount min and max. i.e. 200mb min 200mb max.

 

[NOS440]

Put it on a empty Partition preferably the second one (D:\) If its not empty than move the files temperarily set the Virtual memory than move them back. I would set it to 300 meg Min/Max you will never need more than that.

 

[max105]

hey noss440...i have a 30gig that i partition into a 10gig and 20gig on the other. Should i set my swap file on my 20gb? do i have to set a new empty partition, or should I just use the 20gb partition?

also, i have a 2nd hard drive, but its nearly full. should i set the swapfile onto my 2nd hdd?

 

[Deanodarlo]

Do the above (fixed sized swap file on a separate partition), but also make sure the partition is on the outside of the hard drive for faster performance.

I have a 300mb partition (fat 32) using the outer edge of the hard drive for a 200mb swap file and 100mb temporary internet cache.

To do this you'll need some good partioning software (fdisk is crap) - do a search as many free programs exist which will do this task.

If you're really fussy, you can change the block size of the file system to improve performance on your hard drive at the expense of some storage space. Everything you need should be at tweakfiles.com - including a guide to fat32 and partitioning software.

Hope this helps.

Deano.

 

[NOS440]

Thats what I would do. Its nice to just put it on there before there is any data on the drive so it doesn't mess with the defrag. Alot of people go to extremes over this it really doesn't make that big of a difference at all if you have at least 128 megs of memory the computer doesn't really use the swap file that much anyway's. In fact with 256 megs unless you use large Graphics files the PC would work fine with it completely disabled. I wouldn't do it but it really isn't that big of a deal.

 

[MrJ]

Great info, thanks guys!

 

[johneetrash]

this is what i did... i let windows manage my virtual memory...then i went to system monitor and monitored how much swap file i was using for about 3 days ... i then took the highest amount i needed and set my swap file to that... that (in my opinion at leats) is the BEST way to determine how much swap file you need, becuase since everyone uses different apps/games, you cant use a set amount

 

[Supradude]

i assume this is win9x, in which case, let windows handle it but add the "conservativeswapfileusage=1" under the "386enh" section of "system.ini", this will force windows to use your physical ram first before it reaches swap files... and by letting windows handle it, win will not create a swap file unless you use more than your physical ram... i am running 256 MB ram with this setup and i have yet to see a swap file. same goes on my cel 2 system with 128mb ram...

 

Is that conservativeswap setting in 2000 as well?

 

[Dan]

I have two points to add to the discussion.

1. The notion of setting a swap file to 2.5 times the amount of RAM in the system is no longer valid. That's a holdover from the days when systems had 8MB to 32MB of RAM. johneetrash's approach is more valid.

2. All of this really only applies to systems running Win9X. Windows NT and 2000 are far more efficient at managing memory and should be allowed to do so.