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How to limit xp system cache size

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by leftfield, 2005/07/29.

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  1. 2005/07/29
    leftfield

    leftfield Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Does anyone know the registry keys for this? I've done it before in 98, but after searching the web, i can't find anything for xp!
     
    leftfield,
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  2. 2005/07/29
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    What exactly do you mean by the system cache - the paging (swap) file?
     
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  4. 2005/07/29
    leftfield

    leftfield Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    No, i was thinking of whatever the equivalent of vCache in Xp is...
     
    leftfield,
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  5. 2005/07/29
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    In Windows 98 vcache dynamically changed the size of the disk cache depending on available disk space and application requirements. In other words it altered the size of the swap file to suit conditions. By altering the vcache limits the max/min size of the file could be fixed.

    In Windows XP the swap file is known as the Pagefile and operates in the same way changing size dynamically to suit conditions using the default settings - Windows Managed Page file.

    The max/min size of the Pagefile is set ....

    Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change. There you may set a custom size.

    My preference is for a fixed size pagefile, on a dedicated partition - the MS recommendation is 1.5 x installed RAM, but this is excessive if you have a lot of RAM installed.

    For more info see

    How to configure paging files for optimization and recovery in Windows XP

    How to set performance options in Windows XP

    How To Move the Paging File in Windows XP
     
    PeteC,
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  6. 2005/07/29
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    PeteC,
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  7. 2005/08/01
    Abraxas

    Abraxas Inactive

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    If you are talking about the system file cache, I use CacheSet to adjust its size. It can easily be run as a startup batch file, for example:

    cmd.exe /c "C:\Program Files\cacheset\CACHESET.EXE" 16384 65536
     
    Abraxas,
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  8. 2005/08/01
    WhitPhil

    WhitPhil Inactive

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    On Windows 95 there was a reason for setting limits on the file cache because of a bug in memory management.
    On Windows 9x, with more than 512 MBs installed, there is a reason for limiting the file cache.

    On XP why would anyone wish to limit the file cache?
     
    WhitPhil,
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  9. 2005/08/01
    Abraxas

    Abraxas Inactive

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    In my case, it wasn't so much to "limit" it as to increase it and put more RAM to use. But the experiment did not pan out and I didn't see any performance increases, so I agree that it is unlikely that this "tweak" is of any use.
     
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  10. 2005/08/02
    WhitPhil

    WhitPhil Inactive

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    Thanks. I was just curious.

    Windows essentially takes as much free ram as it needs for the file cache. And, when it needs free memory for a running app, it shrinks this area, so quickly that you don't need to worry about it.

    Thus changing parameters would only be used to restrict the size, for whatever reason.
     
    WhitPhil,
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  11. 2005/08/07
    Desummoner

    Desummoner Inactive

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    The mine reason to restrict cache previously was to stop Windows swap everything at my workstation with using all free memory for file cache. But it doesn't motivate me to find solution.
    But this evening my patience was really lost. This time I've spent about five minutes (!) waiting Win2k3 file server to start respond in Remote Desktop. Since files, which it serving out is big enough (gigabytes) for effective caching (RAM is 512MB) and files very seldom requested twice, caching in this case is time waste, I think. But I see, that 440MB used as cache. In another words, in phys. memory left only notswappable memory segments. If need to login and fix some ASAP, I would fail (five minutes!). The cache limit have to set in any case, as for me.

    Thanks! Sysinternals helps as always.
    :)
     
    Desummoner,
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  12. 2005/08/07
    Desummoner

    Desummoner Inactive

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    Hmm, seems CacheSet doesn't work for me - cache size easily goes up above the limit I've set.

    As I found CachemanXP does this well, so I'm just going to use it...
     
    Desummoner,
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