hi, whats the best page file size for 4gb ram memory for gaming, i use windows 7 x64 ultimate and is it moving page file to different partition good, i have one hard disk with page file on C system, boot partition and have logical partition D and E. Thanks
Hello ljubinko, and welcome to Seven Forums.
It's best to let the page file be managed by the system instead of setting a custom size. This way you do not have to worry about getting a low memory error if you should set the size to low.
It's only worth moving the page file if it'll be to a separate hard drive and not just another partition on the same hard drive. In addition, the other hard drive should be as fast or faster (ex: SSD) to gain some performance with it.
Virtual Memory Paging File - Change
Hope this helps, :)
Shawn
Shawn thanks, whether to check automatically manage paging file size for all drives, or system managed for partition C
I would recommend 12GB of virtual memory, allocated to another drive, with a 1024MB pagefile remaining on your System/C: Drive...
This is based off of Mark Russinovich's article regarding Pagefile use...probably one of the most thorough examinations of how Windows uses this seemingly mysterious file.
Thus: 3X...different drive.
The need for having it at the beginning of the drive isn't what it used to be, but you can always make a new partition at the beginning of the drive to accommodate this "tweak"...
Regardless...for your system: 12GB/different drive...
Once you do set it up, and run it for a while, it would be great to know what your experience has been...
Most attempts to optimize the pagefile are a waste of time. Typically there will be no measurable or noticeable gains with using any settings other than system managed.
There can be a benefit (not likely noticeable) by putting the pagefile on a separate physical drive. Putting it on a separate partition is a bad idea. Of course this assumes that the separate drive is of comparable performance as the system drive.
If you want the best performance then install the OS and games on an SSD. This will do more good than anything you could possibly do with the pagefile.
Mark Russinovich comments on formulas like that in this blog:
Blogs - Mark's Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
Mark says that a simplistic formula is "ridiculous".Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should I make the paging file? There’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2. Now that you understand the role that the paging file plays in defining a system’s commit limit and how processes contribute to the commit charge, you’re well positioned to see how useless such formulas truly are.
Since the commit limit sets an upper bound on how much private and pagefile-backed virtual memory can be allocated concurrently by running processes, the only way to reasonably size the paging file is to know the maximum total commit charge for the programs you like to have running at the same time. If the commit limit is smaller than that number, your programs won’t be able to allocate the virtual memory they want and will fail to run properly.
So how do you know how much commit charge your workloads require? You might have noticed in the screenshots that Windows tracks that number and Process Explorer shows it: Peak Commit Charge. To optimally size your paging file you should start all the applications you run at the same time, load typical data sets, and then note the commit charge peak (or look at this value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). Set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of RAM in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). If you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number.
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You’ll notice that the default configuration is for Windows to automatically manage the page file size. When that option is set on Windows XP and Server 2003, Windows creates a single paging file that’s minimum size is 1.5 times RAM if RAM is less than 1GB, and RAM if it's greater than 1GB, and that has a maximum size that's three times RAM. On Windows Vista and Server 2008, the minimum is intended to be large enough to hold a kernel-memory crash dump and is RAM plus 300MB or 1GB, whichever is larger. The maximum is either three times the size of RAM or 4GB, whichever is larger. That explains why the peak commit on my 8GB 64-bit system that’s visible in one of the screenshots is 32GB. I guess whoever wrote that code got their guidance from one of those magazines I mentioned!
Mark says that the OS uses a simplistic formula.
Therefore, Mark says that the OS is "ridiculous".
I've read that entire blog series (when it was new).
I've also watched long videos of Mark talking on this topic.
Conclusion:
1) It takes RAM to manage the page file. If you set the page file minimum too high, you waste the RAM that is set aside to manage the page file.
2) I let the OS manage the page file size since memory management has progressed since that old blog was written.
...and then there is the swapfile.sys in W8 and above.
The "simplistic formula" of making the pagefile proportional to RAM size is not ridiculous. That would be the case if there was some standard workload to accommodate. In that case the more RAM you have the less the pagefile will be needed. But that is not the case.
Workloads vary greatly. Windows has to set the default pagefile size to something. It seems reasonable to set it according to the workload, and RAM size is as good an indicator of that as anything Windows has available. The pagefile is used as a place to offload the contents of rarely used memory, which being relieved of this burden can be used for more productive purposes. A large RAM with an appropriate workload will generate more of this rarely used data and needs a larger pagefile to contain it. A large RAM needs a large pagefile if it is to realize it's full potential.
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