Pagefile size?

Experiments
Change the size and see "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational (local) :
IsDegradation = {false|true}

On this computer there are hundreds of open webpages and no special applications in use:

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 7.34 GB
Total Virtual Memory 61.4 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.38 GB
Page File Space 29.5 GB

Edge: 242
Chrome: 188
Duck Duck Go: 19
Opera: 30

On This Desktop Current Memory status as of right now is

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.6 GB
Available Physical Memory 16.0 GB
Total Virtual Memory 62.6 GB
Available Virtual Memory 28.1 GB
Page File Space 31.0 GB



Firestorm (SecondLife Viewer) 2,7703.MB
Edge 1,993.5MB
MS Outlook Classic 134.6MB
Steam 231.7MB
MS Teams 44.5MB
Discord 223.7MB
SignalRGB Core 117MB

No Virtual Machines or anything special running, just my usual programs that i normally run typically

One or more of these links may be useful:

The following table lists the minimum and maximum page file sizes of system-managed page files in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Minimum page file size	Maximum page file size
Varies based on page file usage history, amount of RAM (RAM ÷ 8, max 32 GB) and crash dump settings.	3 × RAM or 4 GB, whichever is larger. This size is then limited to the volume size ÷ 8. However, it can grow to within 1 GB of free space on the volume if necessary for crash dump settings.

Click to expand...

@cereberus, I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of this information. Microsoft was talking about how the Windows system-managed page files works not a recommendation of how it should it should be set up manually.

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows

zbook said:

On this computer there are hundreds of open webpages and no special applications in use:

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 7.34 GB
Total Virtual Memory 61.4 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.38 GB
Page File Space 29.5 GB

Edge: 242
Chrome: 188
Duck Duck Go: 19
Opera: 30

Click to expand...

The tabs must be working, otherwise they don't matter. I "store" like 20-40 open tabs in my browsers, but if you don't click them it's the same as storing them as favourites. My memory problems told above came after opening some news site (with like 30 idle tabs of assorted sites that don't matter), and opening several (10-20) links from this page in new tabs at the same time, maybe navigating a bit in the original tab too, making a "selection" of news to read and closing them afterwards one by one. This is totally inefficient in memory and resources in general. Some pages are much heavier than others, forum pages use to be among the least demanding.

This is a quite light load in the computer I'm using now (I've done a Google search with 3-4 open pages in 2 tabs, now closed, and I have opened 3 new elevenforum.com tabs. The "Commit (GB)" line is the important one. The 7 GB must not surpass the memory capacity, RAM + free C: space (this C: has 190 GB free) or lower limit if set.



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I've read things like "the more RAM, the more evictions and the more pagefile" but I don't understand it. RAM as a factory that produces memory content, lol. Neither with 64 MB RAM (very old computers) nor with 64 GB (some current high-end ones).

Decades ago (families used to be bigger) the car roof racks were common here in vacation season, not only to carry big objects like bicycles, but also for part of the ordinary luggage, not optimal but if the car and its trunk aren't big enough... What I would never understand is that the bigger the trunk, the more luggage in the roof rack (essentially all cars here, either from decades ago or currently, can carry up to 4-5 people regardless of the car size). A situation in which the luggage in the roof raises with the trunk size could end up in small cars not needing roof rack at all and bigger cars having single, double, triple, quadruple height etc roof racks as the car size increases, but carrying just more suitcases and bags (for the same number of people), not say a small boat or golf car (that would be proportional to the statistical economic capacity of a bigger car's owner, and hence logical, disclaimer: I suppose this isn't legal or at least it isn't advisable lol).

News sites tend to have a lot of ads that consume more resources. Some ads even popup while reading the news which is very annoying. However any modern PC with 8GB RAM or more should not be delayed unless many other apps run in the background while reading the news.

MisterEd said:

@cereberus, I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of this information. Microsoft was talking about how the Windows system-managed page files works not a recommendation of how it should it should be set up manually.

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows

Click to expand...

@MisterEd , I've seen that article quoted elsewhere, but I can't find any details on what definitive calculations Windows *specifically* uses to determine the "Currently allocated" size of the page file when it is set to "System managed size".

Obviously, if the "System managed size" is using up too much disk space, you can work around this by setting the lower and upper limits manually, but those values remain static, getting rid of the ability for Windows to dynamically raise it in a rare situation where it might be needed (where some program ends up needing to significantly fill up your page file). I guess you could also set the upper limit really high if you wanted to, and it would probably suffice.

I've come across multiple examples out there where a computer's page file has been set to the "System managed size" but Windows is keeping the "Currently allocated" size high, never lowering/shrinking it after multiple restarts. No one seems to know how to reset this "System managed size" logic back to its default, and, like I said, no one seems to know how this is even explicitly calculated by Windows.

Edit:
Here are some example threads, where no one seems to know how the "System managed size" actually calculates the "currently allocated" size, or how someone might reset this calculation back to defaults, as if the computer were brand new:

One solution is to boot from Windows Setup USB or Linux USB and manually delete the pagefile.sys If you are in Windows Setup, press SHIFT+F10 to open a Command Prompt and then use this code:


assuming your Windows partition shows as C: If it is different replace the drive letter accordingly. To see the contents of the drive use the dir command. Try all drives in order, D:, E: etc until you find the correct one.

MisterEd said:

@cereberus, I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of this information. Microsoft was talking about how the Windows system-managed page files works not a recommendation of how it should it should be set up manually.

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows

Click to expand...

No. My point was why does Windows work like this anymore when it is clearly so outdated now.

With all the so called AI, you would think Windows could optimise the pagefile automatically, refining size based on users needs.

spapakons said:

One solution is to boot from Windows Setup USB or Linux USB and manually delete the pagefile.sys If you are in Windows Setup, press SHIFT+F10 to open a Command Prompt and then use this code:

Code:

C:
cd \
del pagefile.sys

assuming your Windows partition shows as C: If it is different replace the drive letter accordingly. To see the contents of the drive use the dir command. Try all drives in order, D:, E: etc until you find the correct one.

Click to expand...

Far easier to use the Windows method, set to no paging file > OK > Restart.
Go back to the Dialogue box and change back to Auto system managed size and Restart.

Not needed to do this for many years.

I haven't tried in Windows 11, but in earlier versions there was a warning against disabling the page file entirely. Windows would boot and work OK, but I never did that, just in case. Of course back then I didn't have any system with more than 8GB RAM. Probably 32GB+ RAM systems never need a page file, unless they run too many demanding apps or virtual machines at the same time.

Well with out mine enabled even though I have 32GB DDR 5,.

Programs would say out of memory, or textures discarded like Second Life 3rd Party viewer did when I had mine on custom size a bit

Now back on system managed and seems to be I guess fine now

mmortal03 said:

I've come across multiple examples out there where a computer's page file has been set to the "System managed size" but Windows is keeping the "Currently allocated" size high, never lowering/shrinking it after multiple restarts. No one seems to know how to reset this "System managed size" logic back to its default, and, like I said, no one seems to know how this is even explicitly calculated by Windows.

Click to expand...

Windows will never shrink an existing page file. Once it's grown to a larger file, you'll have to delete it and create a smaller page file as a replacement. That's why it's recommended to create a fixed-sized file by specifying the same lower & upper limits.

If you run out of page space, you can always increase the upper limit as needed.

Why can't Windows shrink it? It goes against modern OS design. Once it's been demonstrated that Windows needs that much assigned space, then it thinks this situation will happen again. And it doesn't want the risk of not being able to grow the page file if there is no disk space left.

Several other Windows files are also set to grow, but never shrink. These include database files, and virtual disks.

It's recommended to have a page file even if you have lots of memory.

Why you should always have a page file.

With today's large disks, there is no downside that I can see for most users. I let Windows manage whatever size they like, and life goes on.

The topic with a life of its own LOL

allan said:

The topic with a life of its own LOL

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Better than having someone else's life!

Helmut said:

Far easier to use the Windows method, set to no paging file > OK > Restart.
Go back to the Dialogue box and change back to Auto system managed size and Restart.

Not needed to do this for many years.

Click to expand...

My desktop has 32GB RAM and a. pagefile.sys of 12GB.
If I select No Paging file and reboot then I found that Windows had deleted pagefile.sys.
If I set pagefile back to automatic and reboot then the pagefile.sys is recreated again with a size of 12GB.
BTW, this computer also has a 12GB hiberfil.sys file. Windows won't let me delete this file even though hibernation is disabled.

My laptop has 32GB RAM and a pagefile.sys of 5GB. I wonder what the difference is? Also, it has no hiberfil.sys file.

Hmm... I have no Hiberfil.sys with hibernation disabled. I enabled system file display and here's all the files in my C:\ root. My pagefile is a modest 4GB, all the rest of the system files are trivial sizes. I have 64GB of RAM on this system.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Better than having someone else's life!

Click to expand...

I swear, we had the same topic (more times than I can count) with essentially the same responses, arguments, fallacies, and facts almost 25 years ago on tweakxp.com (later tweaks.com). In the end, the bottom line was ALWAYS: it's your computer, do whatever you want. It really won't make much of a difference (if any) for 99.9% of users.