Virtual Memory Recommendations On Older HP Desktop

cereberus · Dec 29, 2022

KevTech said:
Best to just let Windows manage the page file.

Should I Change My Microsoft Windows Page File Size?

Reasons why it is not a good idea to change the Windows page file size or disable it.

www.computerhope.com

Ughh - it talks about pagefiles executing things more slowly than if run in native RAM as a reason to use auto. What a load of twaddle.

Whole point of a pagefile is it is in use when RAM has run out. That is independent of using auto or setting a pagefile.

Rest of article is just typical rehashing other websites with no substance. It does state that the size of a manual pagefile depends on other factors (as discussed earlier).

I bet this article was written by Dave from down the pub.

jimbo45 · Dec 29, 2022

@cereberus

100 agree -- that article was certainly written by a snake oil salesman.

To others confused about Windows page files :

Do you mean paging in a Virtual Machine or do you mean managing the Windows paging file on the HOST. The principle is the same though.

If you are in a VM most modern VM systems now provide all sorts of decent dynamic memory allocation and shared memory too so provided your HOST system has enough RAM and CPU power for running the VM's of your choice then just set the VM Max RAM to the largest amount of RAM it *CAN* (not necessarily *WILL*) use. Memory from the VM will be returned to the storage pool dynamically when no longer required.

Just leave the Virtual Windows system to manage its own paging. There's all sorts of highly complex algorithms in page management -- and it's probably 99.9999% likely that you won't do better than Windows itself in managing that resource.

This also applies to Windows HOST systems too.

For those really interested you need to learn about LRU algorithms, complex task management processes, hardware interrupts etc etc. Much too complex for study over this holiday period.Just leave well alone.

Note also if you use LINUX VM's note the difference between paging and swapping -- as Linux is a multi-user system a user that is currently inactive can be "swapped out" entirely to disk freeing up the whole of that users space -- e.g applications, temporary data etc. So if using Linux VM's it's always a good idea to provide space for a swap partition -- around 30% of the RAM space dedicated to the VM should be more than sufficient.

Meanwhile let's hope everybody has a better 2023 !! -- I think the late HMQ EII had the correct expression a few years ago "Anus Horibilis" !!!. (Not sure if my Latin spelling is correct though).

Cheers
jimbo

Davy49 · Dec 29, 2022

jimbo45 said:
@cereberus

100 agree -- that article was certainly written by a snake oil salesman.

To others confused about Windows page files :

Do you mean paging in a Virtual Machine or do you mean managing the Windows paging file on the HOST. The principle is the same though.

If you are in a VM most modern VM systems now provide all sorts of decent dynamic memory allocation and shared memory too so provided your HOST system has enough RAM and CPU power for running the VM's of your choice then just set the VM Max RAM to the largest amount of RAM it *CAN* (not necessarily *WILL*) use. Memory from the VM will be returned to the storage pool dynamically when no longer required.

Just leave the Virtual Windows system to manage its own paging. There's all sorts of highly complex algorithms in page management -- and it's probably 99.9999% likely that you won't do better than Windows itself in managing that resource.

This also applies to Windows HOST systems too.

For those really interested you need to learn about LRU algorithms, complex task management processes, hardware interrupts etc etc. Much too complex for study over this holiday period.Just leave well alone.

Note also if you use LINUX VM's note the difference between paging and swapping -- as Linux is a multi-user system a user that is currently inactive can be "swapped out" entirely to disk freeing up the whole of that users space -- e.g applications, temporary data etc. So if using Linux VM's it's always a good idea to provide space for a swap partition -- around 30% of the RAM space dedicated to the VM should be more than sufficient.

Meanwhile let's hope everybody has a better 2023 !! -- I think the late HMQ EII had the correct expression a few years ago "Anus Horibilis" !!!. (Not sure if my Latin spelling is correct though).

Cheers
jimbo

Hi jimbo,
Even though in this reply it's address to jimbo, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone that replied to the question that I posted ! As I previously stated since the computer I'm typing this reply on isn't my primary one I'm thinking that if I want to continue experimenting with the page file as well as any additional settings I'll probably do just that, as long as I don't change any major settings that would possibly cause me to have any major issues with my computer overall I don't see where it would actually hurt anything. There are two separate settings that I did change for a bit that I actually couldn't see made much of any difference that I'm including as screenshots in this reply. Also I changed my power option scheme from 'recommended' to 'performance' to see if that might help.
David

NavyLCDR · Jan 1, 2023

If you really want to speed up performance simply put the OS on an SSD. Easily less than $100 upgrade and you will realize a performance increase many times that you would see with any virtual memory adjustment.

cereberus · Jan 1, 2023

NavyLCDR said:
If you really want to speed up performance simply put the OS on an SSD. Easily less than $100 upgrade and you will realize a performance increase many times that you would see with any virtual memory adjustment.

Plus add more RAM to avoid excessive paging.

DigitalGoat · Jan 1, 2023

As far as the OP is concerned do we even know if excessive paging is taking place? What is the workload they regularly apply to the machine, have they done any monitoring of pagefile useage?
An SSD is the most effecient and probably cheapest upgrade for an ageing machine, agreed, but unless the OP in particular NEEDS extra RAM then they could fit it and it never be touched.
Even with Windows grabbing as much as it needs for caching, another method to speed up PC operations, unless the OP is suffering excess pagefile useage the speed increase vs cost for extra RAM may well not be worth it.

cereberus · Jan 2, 2023

DigitalGoat said:
As far as the OP is concerned do we even know if excessive paging is taking place? What is the workload they regularly apply to the machine, have they done any monitoring of pagefile useage?
An SSD is the most effecient and probably cheapest upgrade for an ageing machine, agreed, but unless the OP in particular NEEDS extra RAM then they could fit it and it never be touched.
Even with Windows grabbing as much as it needs for caching, another method to speed up PC operations, unless the OP is suffering excess pagefile useage the speed increase vs cost for extra RAM may well not be worth it.

Sure, but as I said earlier, you have to monitor pagefiling to decide if you really need more RAM.

However, as a rule of thumb upgrading RAM to at least 4GB (if possible) is very likely going to be a benefit.

Upgrading to 8 GB is a reasonably optimum amount of RAM for average use.

If a heavy memory user e.g. running virtual machines, 16GB is better.

Few people will need more than 16GB but those that do will be aware of why anyway.

I would advise any user to have an SSD and at least 4GB RAM (preferably 8GB if possible) and leave pagefiling on auto.

Thereafter monitor pagefiling and decide if even more RAM is needed.

It is a judgement if you only occasionally exceed RAM availability - in the end that is what pagefiling is intended to do - it is not intended to be a substitute for inadequate RAM in normal use.