Swap/PageFile and Ram

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Leonard

We all do that <G>? I just do not like the snide way some put it!

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Gerry said:
Leonard

Twayne on this occasion was correct. He could have phrased his
observation in a less abrasive language. However, we must expect some
abrasive language from him given that we taunt him over his devotion
to the merits of registry cleaners.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the attribute, but ... I doubt that was something I said.
I'm of the camp to allow windows to control the size of the pagefile
except in certain circumstances, of which this post isn't related to one
of them. Perhaps it was Snidley's response to you a post or so back;
dunno.
Under normal circumstances the only time I would set a pagefile's
min/max would be if I moved the swap file to another physical drive.
Which is how I am running it now: MIn/max set for C, windows managed on
E. However, the only time that's of any real benefit is when I'm doing
video editing/rendering and then it helps a LOT. Personally I have
never had a pagefile go overly fragmented but then I keep free space at
reasonable numbers too; I suppose it happens though.
OTOH I don't see enough pro/con either way to argue strongly yae/nay
so ... each to his own there.

Cheers,

Twayne
 
Or in this case, the "snid(ley)" way.

Gerry said:
Leonard

We all do that <G>? I just do not like the snide way some put it!

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click to expand...
 
I have tried all options. I just want xp to use it less aggressively.

Perhaps it would clarify a lot to know why you want it to use it less
aggressively, and what it is that is too aggressive?
It's possible there may be an entirely different tact that would lead to
a more effective result for you.

Twayne
 
Leonard Grey said:
"...there may be an entirely different tact that would lead to
a more effective result..."

<Ahem>...perhaps you mean a different /tack/...it's a sailing term.
Click to expand...


Don't split hares.
<guffaw>
 
Leonard Grey said:
I was also referring to the results that can be ultimately expected by
users who think they know better.
Click to expand...

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And you're NOT a "user"??

You are definitely a twit.
 
Daave

I'm not a sailing person but don't you have to be careful not to split
the sail?


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I was thinking of working that into my post, too, but it wans't funny
enough. I was just joking about not splitting hairs, intentionally
misspelling the word. Not too funny at this point, I'm afraid!
 
We have to try.


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I am trying to save some money so I can buy a new mb, processor and ram.
Gigibyte GA-EP45-DS3L 775 ATX Motherboard
Intel® Boxed Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800MHz / 2GB Module / Vista Upgrade Edition

And I will use my current HD, DVD/CD RW, video card and wireless card.



There is a computer store called
<url=http://www.microcenter.com>MicroCenter</url> which is a computer
afficianatos dream.
 
Thanks for all the reply's, they are very informative.

I came to the realization that the sys. monitor for my pagefile is averaging
both sys. ram and pagefile. I need to change it to show only pagefile usage
in the pagefile .ini file.
 
I am also quite puzzled by Windows' (2000 and XP) behavior with regards to
memory management.

I used a PIII/850M with 384M RAM and Win2K for years. I wouldn't even think
of upgrading to XP, because every XP system I used seemed to easily get into
a condition where there was plenty of physical RAM free, but right-clicking
on something or unminimizing an application could take *30 seconds or more*,
with the hard drive light on constantly.

I recently discovered that the problem isn't unique to XP - I now have a
P4/2.4G with 512K RAM and Win2K, and it's happening to me on this machine,
though not as dramatically as a laptop I borrowed from work with 1.5G of RAM
and XP. So I have a faster processor and more memory with the same operating
system, and I end up waiting longer to get stuff done.

It seems the more memory you throw at 2000/XP, the SLOWER it gets, which is
really bizarre. Is there a way to curb Windows' obsession with keeping as
much physical RAM free as possible at all times? I bought more RAM so the
computer would USE it! It shouldn't be unmapping stuff to free physical RAM
when there's no immediate demand for more physical RAM.

As an embedded real-time systems guy, this really turns my stomach.

I have read a few competent explanations of what's going on, but can't for
the life of me understand the motivation behind such behavior. I have not
yet read the articles pointed to elsewhere in this thread, but will do so
soon.
 
rscottdrysdale said:
It seems the more memory you throw at 2000/XP, the SLOWER it gets, which is
really bizarre.
Click to expand...

That is just plain and simply not true. If you are experiencing this
odd behaviour then there is something else at work, something is not
right with your machines. I have Windows 2000/XP machines here with
memory ranging from 512MB all the way up to 4GB and I can assure you
that the machines with 2 and 4GB don't go slower than the ones with
512MB! The machine that I am now using to write this came equipped with
512MB and I bumped it up to 2GB to handle my needs and I can assure you
that there was a *significant* performance improvement with the
additional RAM!

Is there a way to curb Windows' obsession with keeping as
much physical RAM free as possible at all times?
Click to expand...

??? Windows tries to use as much RAM as is physically available, most
people post complaining that they add more RAM yet don't have any more
free RAM than they did before, they complain that Windows uses too much
of their precious RAM, for some unknown reason they add RAM to their
machines and then instead of being happy to see it in use they would
rather see it marked as unused and available, go figure...

I bought more RAM so the
computer would USE it! It shouldn't be unmapping stuff to free physical RAM
when there's no immediate demand for more physical RAM.
Click to expand...

What you say is not normal behaviour, the Windows Memory Manager doesn't
work like this.

As an embedded real-time systems guy, this really turns my stomach.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it would, but I think that there is something else going on
with your machines.

I have read a few competent explanations of what's going on, but can't for
the life of me understand the motivation behind such behavior.
Click to expand...

Can you pleas provide links or citations so that we too may read up on
these "competent explanations"?

John
 
rscottdrysdale said:
I am also quite puzzled by Windows' (2000 and XP) behavior with
regards to memory management.

I used a PIII/850M with 384M RAM and Win2K for years. I wouldn't
even think of upgrading to XP, because every XP system I used seemed
to easily get into a condition where there was plenty of physical RAM
free, but right-clicking on something or unminimizing an application
could take *30 seconds or more*, with the hard drive light on
constantly.

I recently discovered that the problem isn't unique to XP - I now
have a P4/2.4G with 512K RAM and Win2K, and it's happening to me on
this machine, though not as dramatically as a laptop I borrowed from
work with 1.5G of RAM and XP. So I have a faster processor and more
memory with the same operating system, and I end up waiting longer to
get stuff done.

It seems the more memory you throw at 2000/XP, the SLOWER it gets,
which is really bizarre. Is there a way to curb Windows' obsession
with keeping as much physical RAM free as possible at all times? I
bought more RAM so the computer would USE it! It shouldn't be
unmapping stuff to free physical RAM when there's no immediate demand
for more physical RAM.

As an embedded real-time systems guy, this really turns my stomach.

I have read a few competent explanations of what's going on, but
can't for the life of me understand the motivation behind such
behavior. I have not yet read the articles pointed to elsewhere in
this thread, but will do so soon.
Click to expand...

You either have too many programs running at Startup, a bad program running
or you may have an infestation.
Do a ctrl-alt-del and bring up the 'Task Manager" and select "Processes" and
see what is using your memory.
There are other 'free' programs which will even pinpoint it more, but you
will have to Google for them.

If you already have a very good up-to-date Antivirus running, I would
suggest you use the following two free programs to check and clean your
system of any malware they find.
They also uninstall very cleanly and don't ask you to purchase anything to
make them clean your system.
I also use Win2000Pro and do not experience any of the problems you seem to
have.
I have a dual boot Win98Se-Win2000Pro with an AMD xp2100+ cpu and 1GB of
ram.

Dl, install, update and run (each one by itself):

1) MalwareByte's Anti-Malware (MBAM for short)
http://malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

2) SuperAntiSpyware (SAS for short)
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
 
Buffalo said:
You either have too many programs running at Startup, a bad program running
or you may have an infestation.
Do a ctrl-alt-del and bring up the 'Task Manager" and select "Processes" and
see what is using your memory.
Click to expand...

i have no infestations. this P4 machine is a fresh Win2K install (replacing
the infested XP that came with it) as of a few weeks ago. i had my previous
machine (and this one) on the internet 24/7 and only once did i get a virus,
and that was from opening an attachment that looked like it came from someone
i trusted.

right now, the top 3 memory users are firefox, bearshare, and seti@home at
102M, 73M, and 29M respectively. next is explorer at 5M and then all the
normal windows folderal.

the only non-windows startup stuff is CoolMon, BOINC/seti@home, and roxio
drag-to-disc.

peak commit charge is 556M right now, and that's from looking at some huge
PDFs yesterday and manipulating some large images.

i'm quite familiar with sanitizing windows machines - i get roped into it
constantly by friends and friends-of-friends.

the issue is NOT that the applications i'm running are overusing memory, as
there's usually quite a bit of physical RAM free at all times. it's that
windows decides to unload things from memory for no good reason, and the
problem actually gets worse when there's more physical memory available. i'm
sure there's a point where if you have gigabytes of RAM the problem goes
away, but it seems that the 512M-1.5G memory range is particularly
susceptible to this problem. i never had the problem with a 384M win2k
machine, and my work machine with 2G and XP doesn't have the problem - but
maybe it's super-fast drive and super-fast SATA interface and the fact that
it's under the desk where i can't see the drive light are masking it, as
there are occasional inexplicable 2-5 second hiccups on that machine.
 
It seems the more memory you throw at 2000/XP, the SLOWER it gets, which is
really bizarre.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but that statement is completely false. It may or may not get
any faster if you add more memory, but that will never make it slower.
The reason it may not get any faster is explained in my standard
message on the subject below:

How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on
what apps you run. Most people running a typical range of business
applications find that somewhere around 512MB works well, others need
more. Almost anyone will see poor performance with less than 256MB.
Some people, particularly those doing things like editing large
photographic images, can see a performance boost by adding even more
than 512MB--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.
 
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