Pagefile Question

[nugget2225]

I have been building computers for years, but as hardware changes, i am sure this question has come up in the past, i have 12 gigs of ram and in windows 7 my pagefile on auto wants to be set at 24 gig, now i know i dont need a 24 gig pagefile, i would like to hear some thoughts about what people have there pagefiles set too or even turning it off and if trainz even uses a pagefile, thanks in advanced.

 

[knight42]

With 12 Gigs of RAM my understanding is you can switch off the pagefile entirely. I've run XP with 2Gb and no pagefile for day-to-day use, but with 12 I think you'll be fine, unless you have really massive routes in Trainz.

 

[nugget2225]

reply

I have turned my pagefile off in the past without any problems, accept some programs still seem to been dependant on the pagefile such as the game client steam, it would'nt run correctly without it, but the only 2 games i even run on my pc now are trainz and Microsoft flight simulator, and waiting on battlefield 3 to come out in the fall

 

[pommie]

With that amount of ram the only thing you would use the pagefile for is if the computer goes to sleep or hibernates, if you are on a desktop that never hibernates/sleeps then just make the pagefile around 1/2 to 1gig for those poorly coded programs that need a pagefile even though they would never use it.
If it does hibernate then you need at least equal to the amount of ram you have.

Having said that I just let the OS (in my case Ubuntu) choose the size, after all if I get to the stage of needing the 11.5gig that swap takes, its time to ditch a load of stuff or get another hdd
I have 4gig ram and have only once used it, Vidio transcoding plus dvd ripping plus raytracing, takes up a lot of ram

Cheers David

 

[nugget2225]

Thank you

With that amount of ram the only thing you would use the pagefile for is if the computer goes to sleep or hibernates, if you are on a desktop that never hibernates/sleeps then just make the pagefile around 1/2 to 1gig for those poorly coded programs that need a pagefile even though they would never use it.
If it does hibernate then you need at least equal to the amount of ram you have.

Having said that I just let the OS (in my case Ubuntu) choose the size, after all if I get to the stage of needing the 11.5gig that swap takes, its time to ditch a load of stuff or get another hdd
I have 4gig ram and have only once used it, Vidio transcoding plus dvd ripping plus raytracing, takes up a lot of ram

Cheers David

you solved my question, i have read alot of forums and it seems like alot of people have no clue what they are talking about, thanks

 

[mrscsi]

With that amount of ram the only thing you would use the pagefile for is if the computer goes to sleep or hibernates, if you are on a desktop that never hibernates/sleeps then just make the pagefile around 1/2 to 1gig for those poorly coded programs that need a pagefile even though they would never use it.
If it does hibernate then you need at least equal to the amount of ram you have.

Having said that I just let the OS (in my case Ubuntu) choose the size, after all if I get to the stage of needing the 11.5gig that swap takes, its time to ditch a load of stuff or get another hdd
I have 4gig ram and have only once used it, Vidio transcoding plus dvd ripping plus raytracing, takes up a lot of ram

Cheers David

Obviously you've never opened about 80 miles in TransDem and tried to pull ortho photos along a route:hehe:

You hit that 4 GB barrier real quick. Being a 32-bit program TransDem can use as much as 4 GB but nothing over.

That's about the only program I have that I can flat hit the 4 GB mark, Dragon NaturallySpeaking if it's been up for a while can get to about 1 1/2 GB, I've had the new Firefox besides staying resident even after closing it seems to have a memory leak as well and the longer it's open the more it seems to take, I've had it die at about a gigabyte.

But there are programs out there that can hammer some RAM. Of course premiere Pro can absolutely make your hair stand on end think God it is 64-bit now.

 

[shaneturner12]

From what I understand (from various sources, including a well-known UK PC magazine), the minimum recommended is 1 and a half times the amount of RAM, whereas the maximum is 2 times the amount.

Some programs will always use virtual memory, including some system processes - I would not be suprised if there are programs that will not run without virtual memory.

Shane

 

[RRSignal]

Yeah, agreed with Transdem, and nothing else has come close top using that much memory. I don't use a pagefile though I know some programs want one; if I ever need one I'll set it up on a different physical drive.