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Paging File/Performance mystery

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by Blueberry, 2008/10/25.

  1. 2008/10/25
    Blueberry

    Blueberry Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I have been quite disappointed with the performance of my 3GHz DualCore P4 with 2GB of RAM, so I have been making some performance tweaks. One of the things that always irritated me was how it never seems to utilize more than ~40% of the available RAM and constantly has to access the HDD. I don't think I have ever seen Physical Memory usage dip below 1,100 MB (according to Norton SystemWorks and Windows Task Manager) even though I edit movies and very large (multiple) images, etc.

    So after reading up on some tips I decided to drop my page file to 50MB from 3,000MB as recommended by MS. First thing that happens on boot is I get a message that my page file is to small and the system is going to increase it?? Even though I "set" it to 50 min/50 max? Plus, I have a pagefile.sys in the root directory that is 51,200KB, but Norton and WinTaskMgr both report that PF usage is 608 MB !? This is more than it was using before I reduced the pagefile.

    I don't get it - where is this additional pagefile at? Why is it changing the size of it when I "forced" it to the size I want? Why does it never utilize the available RAM on board? Why is it allocating more to VM now than ever?
     
    Blueberry,
    #1
  2. 2008/10/25
    WhitPhil

    WhitPhil Inactive

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    If your RAM is only being used 40%, then Windows and your apps only need that amount to run. And, this will be flat out. There will be "some" memory in the pagefile (not the amount Taskmanager indicates) it will be infrequently, if ever, accessed again. The key with the pagefile, is not the size in use, but rather the rate at which it is accessed. A large inuse, infrequently accessed will not affect performance.

    Windows only uses the pagefile, if required. So, on a 2GB box with 40% free appearing to be the norm, any old size of pagefile will keep XP happy, and with no change in performance.

    If you are having performance issues, playing with the pagefile will have no affect on your particular PC.

    BTW the PF usage that Taskmanager displays, is really Commit Charge. Note the two are always the same.
     
    WhitPhil,
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  4. 2008/10/25
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Blueberry,
    I too have been confused by the TaskManager and its Pagefile usage. I came to the conclusion that it is mislabeled and should be "Commit Charge" as WhitPhil points out.

    I started Norton System Doctor to check current usage:

    TM reports 326 MB Pagefile usage.

    NSD reports 33 MB Pagefile usage and 326 MB Comitted Memory used. I conclude that 293 MB of my 512 MB RAM is used.

    NSD also reports the Pagefile to be 768 MB with 0 MB free. The reason is that it is set (by default) to 768-1536 MB which is 1.5-3.0 x RAM. It never shrinks below 768 MB which prevents resizing. Well, in most cases but if needed, it can be expanded up to 1536 MB. However, only 33 MB is currently used.

    My BOAC (Box Of Assembled Components) is quite old with a 1 GHz Athlon and it started with 256 MB RAM. The Pagefile was set to 384-768 MB when XP was installed the first time. When I was using PowerPoint and PhotoShop at the same time, it happened that it had to expand the Pagefile. That was a substantial reduction in performance but since increasing RAM to 512 MB and the Pagefile to 768-1536 MB, it has never happened again. This indicates that XP uses RAM until it runs out of it and then the Pagefile. (XP uses the Pagefile for memory requests it "knows" rarely or never will be utilized, hence the 33 MB on my system.)

    Christer
     
    Christer,
    #3

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