Windows 7: PAGE File Size

Hi,

New year greetings....

I purchased a new motherboard and RAM . ASUS M5a97 and 32GB DDR3
Made a fresh install of Windows 7 x64. My query is how much PAGE FILE do i really need? Currently windows created a PAGEFILE of 32 GB..(Do i need that ?) or manually reduce the size ? and how much ?

Will be using 3dsMax Design for rendering


regards

Hi inwell. With 32 Gbs of RAM, you shouldn't need a page file that size. I have 8 Gbs myself and have manually set the page file to 2 Gbs without encountering any problems.

Theoretically pagefile is there in case you run out of RAM, but with 32 GB... it's not going to be the case even with 3ds max.
Keep it below 1 GB but don't ditch it as it still serves some minor functions.

thank you ,

I have 32GB RAM and don't use the Windows 7 paging file at all. It works great for me, but I make sure to leave plenty (typically roughly 16GB, though this does drop lower from time to time, depending on what I'm running) of RAM available and free for SuperFetch and so I don't risk filling it too full. I plan to get another 32GB shortly for a larger RAM drive.

The Windows 7 paging file system does provide some minor additional beneficial functions other than covering you if you run out of RAM, but for my usage and needs, not using one has proven to be completely inconsequential.

Dont disable it, make it static or fixed size, like 2048 min/max.

Yeah, probably good advice, but in my case at least, there seems to (in effect) be no real need for it. I'm not advising others to disable it; just sharing my empirical results.

...

I've left my computer up and running nearly 24/7 (only restarting for updates and the like) for several months now without using the Window's paging file. I primarily use my computer as a gaming PC, Minecraft server, workstation, web browser, home entertainment system, and also for crunching for BOINC.

If you remove the page file completely, the system can not generate a memory dump file if needed.
I believe it needs at least 800MB for this.

This might be a workaround for that:

A hotfix is available that enables a Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer to create a memory dump file without a page file

Either way, I'm not too concerned about needing to use it, so I haven't bothered with it.

I've heard that the Windows 7 paging file also helps cycle through the loaded application data to defragment RAM over time so that enough sequential RAM is available to be written to, though I'm not sure if that is actually the case or not, nor how much of an issue fragmented RAM actually is, especially in my case where nearly half of my 32GB of RAM is typically "available" and/or "free," and about a third is used as a RAM drive. As mentioned, I haven't notice any negative effects of not using a paging file for my needs. I typically restart my computer for updates of some sort or another about once a week, it seems, and that might be enough to keep my RAM from becoming too fragmented to effectively use.

Physical memory is already divided into many small pages. Only for special purposes does it need to be contiguous. There is no way to defragment the virtual address space.