The need for big page files in case of having a lot of ram

chamjiee

New Member
Messages
27
Hi
I have noted that on pcs that have a lota of ram say 4gb + the page file is also greater then the ram. I have seen almost 16gb of page file on few laptops.

So my question is is this needed? Can't we disable the paging? In da de of average user? Who will just be using virtual boxwood one or two vms running in it and each set to 2gb and the system having 8gb ram.

In xp days when I had 128mb of ram I would set it to 200mb and all programs would run. Later after upgrading ram of my old p3 to 512mb I would set it to 100mb.

Afterall the purpose of page file is to give a virtual ram to the os yo mitigate the issue of no memory. In old days it was understandable to use page file and may be set it to 1.5 times the amount of physical memory installed. But nowadays with a lot of physical memory already available do we even need this page file thingy and above all in this huge proportion to ram?

Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows Serve 2012 R2
To shut it off on win 8:

Untitled.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
Thanks I know how to shut it off or change its size and location.

The thing that I am after is that is such a big page file needed to r normal home or office users who would just fire word or excel or access or visio or visual studio or sone of their customized softwares which are pretty light on ram.

Or even if a user has say 8gb ram installed and he runs 2 vms each allocated 2gb ram. With nothing loaded his ram utilization is 1.2gb and add at most 5gb for the ram utilized by that vms in virtual box
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows Serve 2012 R2
If you are interested I'd suggest reading here - it is very interesting and well written.

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory - Mark's Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

I'd not reduce it unless you are very short of disk space. Most tweaks such as ram disk, fiddling with prefetch, pagefile size, clearing caches etc are not going to improve anything and possibly make things worse.

I turn it off when making a custom refresh point only to save backing it up.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro Prieview x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    MacBook Pro Core2Duo
    CPU
    T7600
    Memory
    3
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon X1600
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Internal
    Screen Resolution
    1440 x 800
    Hard Drives
    40GB
    Keyboard
    Apple
    Mouse
    Apple
    Internet Speed
    Varies
    Browser
    Various
    Antivirus
    Defender
Simple fix, try with 200MB min, max whateverMB. Take a look at it now and then, you'll probably never see it ever going above the initial minimum.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W8.1, W7
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP \ Toshiba \ Lenovo \ Dell E7440
    Browser
    FF
FYI, Windows 8 has changed the algorithm for evaluating the necessary size of the paging file. It used to be 1.5 times the size of the RAM in the good old days but I can tell you when I first installed Windows 8, mine was only set to 1920Mbs and I had 8GBs of RAM so the old assumption of "the more RAM you have, the larger pagefile you'll need" no longer applies due to improvements in the overall OSs (I guess). In summary, I agree that the more RAM you have, the less need you'll have for a pagefile. However, the only problem with not having any pagefile at all is you will receive and Event Log, notifying you that "crash dump initialization failed on boot." Anyway, I have 8GBs of RAM and I have disabled my pagefile completely; however, since each situation is unique, you'll just have to judge for yourself. The only way you will know if it works for you is to turn it off and see what happens. Good luck.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    Intel G2020
    Motherboard
    ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0
    Memory
    8GBs @ 1333 MHz
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 840 EVO
    PSU
    400w
    Internet Speed
    57/11
I keep mine set to Automatic.
I have 4 GBs of RAM.
I never run out of RAM really.

Except trying to run Skin Studio.
That was too much for my computer to handle. :(
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
However, the only problem with not having any pagefile at all is you will receive and Event Log, notifying you that "crash dump initialization failed on boot."

..and what this means is that windows will not be able to produce a Kernel Dump which will be necessary if you get BSOD. You need at least 400mb for this.

According to Mark Russinovich (link above) minimum page file should be 2x peak commit charge (you can see this in process monitor as below when you are running all of your apps at once) less installed memory plus amount required for the kernel dump type you have selected.

I have 8GB, maximum committed memory of 8.7 + 400GB for crash dump = 1.3GB. Windows has allocated 2.2GB which seems about right for my situation.
 

Attachments

  • ProcMon.PNG
    ProcMon.PNG
    13.7 KB · Views: 111

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro Prieview x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    MacBook Pro Core2Duo
    CPU
    T7600
    Memory
    3
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon X1600
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Internal
    Screen Resolution
    1440 x 800
    Hard Drives
    40GB
    Keyboard
    Apple
    Mouse
    Apple
    Internet Speed
    Varies
    Browser
    Various
    Antivirus
    Defender
Back
Top