So even though 4 GB is installed, since Windows only reads 3.37 GB of RAM, I should set it to 1.5 x 3.37? or should it be 1.5 x of 4?
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Pagefile w/4 GB RAM - Windows XP Pro & 7
I've read over the web on different "opinions" and takes on what to do with respect to the pagefile and size if you are running 3+ GB of RAM, but have found so many mixed reviews, thought I would take a stand here.
When running Windows XP Pro (32-bit) -- and eventually Windows 7 32-bit, what is the rule when it comes to pagefile size and if running 4 GB of RAM (obviously only 3.2/3.5 with 32-bit)?
What about if the HD is a 10k drive and/or SSD? What about if it is just a standard 7,200 SATA?
I've heard that you should turn the pagefile OFF completely or that you should make it 1.5 x times the amount of RAM, or that you should relocate (if possible) to another disk...
The primary # of users here all have Core 2 at 2.0 or greater GHz with 4 GB of RAM and usually a regular SATA 7,200 RPM HD. The apps they run are the basic Windows/Office apps with a couple business specific.
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Answers
How much address space your system uses doesn't have any bearing on the size of the page file -- remember that every process has a 2GB virtual address space, and these are all addressed within the user space. The page file is simply where memory that must be swapped out to make room for some other processes' memory contents when the system encounters a page fault. The only reasons to limit a page file's size is to reduce the amount of disk space it uses -- a too-large page file won't have any adverse effects during normal system use ... what it CAN do is allow you to open so many processes that your performance degrades due to excessive page faults. A too-small page file will have a much worse impact -- the system can freeze due to a page fault that can't be handled (due to no page file space).
The old "1.5 x RAM" rule was a good rule with Windows 9x systems, which didn't manage the swap space well; but with XP and later OS's Windows does a fine job of managing the file, so I'd just set it to system-managed and let Windows manage the file. Putting it on a separate drive -- or better yet a dedicated partition -- can give a small performance improvement, but I've experimented a good bit with this (to include dedicated a Raptor 10K drive just for the page file), and it simply doesn't make much difference in real world applications. Caveat: I do, however, always have at least 4GB of RAM installed, so my page fault rate is generally pretty low.
Bottom line: If you want to set a fixed size, I'd make it 2 or 2.5x the installed RAM. But simply setting it to system managed will work just fine. To answer your last question ... whatever multiple you choose to use, you would multiply it by 3.37 in that system. While there are 4GB of RAM modules installed, only 3.37GB is actually useable, so that is what is really "installed" on that system.
To be true "Windows manages pagefile" is not really that good idea, as i heave witnessed pagefile becoming fragmeted.
Today disk space is cheap, if you have IDE, buy another drive, put it on separate IDE channel (not as slave), create 5 GB (for 32-bit system) partition there, and put 4096 MB pagefile. Now you have done maximum you can do on 32 bit system. System should never run out of virtual memory, and the pagefile should never become fragmented.
"... put 4096 MB pagefile ... Now you have done maximum you can do on 32 bit system ..." ==> NO!! The size of the pagefile has nothing to do with the addressing limit of the system. The pagefile holds memory pages that are swapped in/out of real memory within the 2GB virtual address space for individual processes. The cumulative size of the process address space at any given time can be FAR more than 4GB. It's true that in most scenarios you won't have so many things loaded that that page file :: real RAM ratio gets large -- doing so would cause excessive page faults and dramatically slow down the system. But that's not because of an artificial size limit on the page file ... it's simply due to using so much virtual address space that the page fault incidence gets too high.
garycase last time I tried to set pagefile on win2k3 installation I remember very clearly I got this warning:
"Enter a maximum page file size that is greater than or equal to the initial
page file size, and less than 4096 MB"
I found references to that through google too, but to test it I tried setting it on another XP Home and Pro installation. Strangely the system works happily even with with bigger sizes. So on Windows 2003 Server you are limited by architecture and probably by type of installation. XPs seem to accept any size. I don't know about Vista's and Windows 7.
Anyway on 32 bit system expect to meet the 4GB limitation anywhere. If you have very powerful graphics card with 512 MB or more memory you won't be able to use whole 4GB even with PAE switch, as the amount of VRAM used by gf. card must be mapped to your addressable RAM, thus cutting from the normal RAM.
I would consider 3 GB RAM sweet spot for 32-bit Windows system with enough room for hardware like gf. cards to map in.
Well see also this http://www.experts-exchang
Clearly you can't utilize more than ~ 3-3.5GB on a 32-bit system (the highest I've seen was 3.7GB). But, as I noted above, that has nothing to do with the size of the page file. Remember that Windows uses a virtual memory allocation scheme -- so every process has a 2GB user space regardless of how much physical RAM is available ... and the contents of any allocated-but-not-currentl
And limit of pagefile clearly depends on your system (Server/XP/Vista/7)/chipse
However any value bigger than 3000 MB will be probably more than enough. On 3 GB equipped server with 4096 MB pagefile and total virtual memory limit of around 6,5 GB which does some remote sessions (3-4 at max) and runs accounting software, I rarely see higher commit charge peak than 1 GB (around 13%) after 1 week run, then I automatically reset the machine so it doesn't become unstable.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
Citing
"If the system ever runs completely out of commit charge (that is, if the total reaches the limit), a popup window will be displayed stating that "The system is out of virtual memory," and it may become extremely sluggish or even nonresponsive. Closing programs (if the user is still able to do so at this point) decreases the total commit charge and may thereby free up the system."
You can track your Commit Limit with Sysinternals Process Monitor and I believe with newer Task Manager in Vista. I would suggest tune up your pagefile size after monitoring your system some time doing your usual stuff (working, playing games etc) so that peak usage never reaches 50%. Then you have sane room for unexpected events should the peak ever rise.
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by: WiReDNeTPosted on 2009-10-16 at 09:05:35ID: 25590762
Here's a good article on it:
http://www.extremetech.com
General rule of thumb is 1.5x amount of memory.
Hard drive speed doesn't really matter although you should defrag the drive to make sure the swap file is not fragmented.
Not really a good idea to turn off completely though. I tried this once, and wasn't able to boot up the computer afterwards.
Relocating to another disk is a good idea though( another physical disk) as this frees up the main drive from disk swapping activity.
Usually, I setup a perm swap file size to prevent Windows from resizing it on the fly...this practice dates all the way back to Window's 3.x