Default paging size in RTM too large

jimbo45 · 10 Aug 2009

Hi all
It seems that the default paging size set in RTM is the same as the actual amount of physical RAM in the system - on the laptop I'm using this is 4GB.

Now unless your system is going totally 100% bonkers the general rule of thumb for setting paging size in almost every OS on the planet that uses paging is to set the page file size at HALF the amount of physical RAM installed in the system.

I've re-set mine without any adverse effects whatsoever. Also makes startup and shut down quicker as there's less paging info to initialize and free.

Cheers
jimbo

DataMan47 · 10 Aug 2009

Windows has always set the default page file size to a range of 1.5x to 3x the physical RAM size. And given that 90% of the world's OS is Windows, I think that the vast majority of operating systems don't have it set to half the RAM size. :P

That having been said, setting the paging file size based on the physical RAM size is silly and makes no sense. Even if you set it to half the RAM size, that means that on systems with more RAM, you have a larger paging file (when in fact you will be using less of the paging file). I normally set my paging file to a static size, either 1GB or 2GB, regardless of how much RAM the system has.

petrossa · 10 Aug 2009

i've set paging to zero since vista sp1. Have yet to run out of memory and that's not for lack of trying.

EarlZ · 10 Aug 2009

I have also disabled page file since i moved to Vista SP1 and 8GB's of ram, never had any memory related errors unless i run a synthetic benchmark that loads up more than 8GB's of ram.

usasma · 10 Aug 2009

The general rule of thumb is just that - a general rule of thumb that was developed years ago for older systems.

There are some practical reasons for it (such as capturing of memory dump files) - but the "proper" way to judge your paging file needs is by monitoring it's usage - through Task Manager...Performance tab.

pparks1 · 10 Aug 2009

petrossa said:

i've set paging to zero since vista sp1. Have yet to run out of memory and that's not for lack of trying.

Unfortunately there are applications that do check for the presence of virtual memory and don't run unless it exists. For this reason, it's usually best to set it to at least a fairly small amount.

With today's hard drives being as large as what they are...allocating a few GB's to a pagefile while not usually necessary, won't really hurt either.