Virtual Memory

I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory. Should
i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it. My Specs are
:-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

Cheers in advance
Mike Collins

Mike wrote:
I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory.
Should i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it.
My Specs are :-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

That's one hell of a fast hard drive you have ;o)

The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard drive, and
use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and defragged.

Tom wrote:
Mike wrote:
I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory.
Should i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it.
My Specs are :-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

That's one hell of a fast hard drive you have ;o)

The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard
drive, and use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and
defragged.

What is the advantage to doing that? I have some unpartitioned space on my
hd that I could allocate for a paging file....would I notice any difference
by doing so?
1.4Ghz Tualatin
384Mb ram
120Gb, 8Mb cache HD

Thanks.....

BalloonKnot wrote:
Tom wrote:
The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard
drive, and use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and
defragged.

What is the advantage to doing that? I have some unpartitioned space
on my hd that I could allocate for a paging file....would I notice
any difference by doing so?
1.4Ghz Tualatin
384Mb ram
120Gb, 8Mb cache HD

If your page file is on the same partition as your OS and data files, over
time it fragments, and slows your system down. When you defrag the drive
you'll notice the page file is marked as "unmoveable", and won't get
defragged.

To be honest, I don't know how much difference you'd actually notice, but
it's one of the many "good practice" things that all add up to a smooth,
slick system.

HTH

How do i actually put the pagefile onto another partition ?
Is it when i set the size i also set the drive it will be located on.


"Tom" wrote in message
news
BalloonKnot wrote:
Tom wrote:
The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard
drive, and use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and
defragged.

What is the advantage to doing that? I have some unpartitioned space
on my hd that I could allocate for a paging file....would I notice
any difference by doing so?
1.4Ghz Tualatin
384Mb ram
120Gb, 8Mb cache HD

If your page file is on the same partition as your OS and data files, over
time it fragments, and slows your system down. When you defrag the drive
you'll notice the page file is marked as "unmoveable", and won't get
defragged.

To be honest, I don't know how much difference you'd actually notice, but
it's one of the many "good practice" things that all add up to a smooth,
slick system.

HTH

"Mike" wrote:
I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory. Should
i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it. My Specs are
:-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

Personally, I set the min and max to the same size (1.5 x RAM); because this keeps it from being fragmented.
Remember to go and change it if you add more memory.

Jon

Jon Danniken wrote:
"Mike" wrote:
I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory.
Should i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it.
My Specs are :-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

Personally, I set the min and max to the same size (1.5 x RAM);
because this keeps it from being fragmented. Remember to go and
change it if you add more memory.

I'd just set it to a gig and leave it at that, regardless of whether you add
more memory down the line. I have 512MB and a 1GB pagefile. If (read:
'when') I add more RAM my pagefile will stay the same size.

It's best to disable vitual memory first, reboot if it tells you to, then
defrag. *Then* set up your pagefile min and max the same. That way, with any
luck, it'll be one contigous file. If you don't do the defrag stage (without
VM enabled) it'll just allocate the space as it finds it, which could be all
over the drive. Also, ideally, this shold be done immediately after initial
install of the OS, before installation of applications, as then the pagefile
will be closer to the beginning of the drive (inside of the platters) and
this is the fastest portion of the drive. However, I'm not sure if you'd
notice the difference, it's the ideal situation and it's the way I do it on
new installs. However, when I 'fine-tune' existing installs I just go ahead
and do what I've listed above.

There is no point on having it on a seperate partition. The only advantage
would be that you could format the pagefile partition using FAT32 as it's
faster than NTFS (I used to do this) but then the HDD heads have to travel
further to get to the pagefile partition (from the OS partition) which
offsets the advantage. I tried making a 1GB Fat 32 partition first
(pre-install) so it was on the fastest part of the drive and more likely to
be close to the OS files once but then XP insisted on calling that C:
partition and the OS went on D: partition. Call me old fashioned but I like
my OS on C:. g.
Also, you can't use the whole partition, only about 95% of it. (Don't ask me
why, ask MS). Then, sometimes, XP has the annoying habit of telling you
periodically that the 'drive' (partition) is full and to delete some files
to free up space. PITA.

The ideal situation would be a FAT32 partition on a different physical
drive, of equal or faster speed to the OS drive, on a different IDE channel.
However, I doubt you'd notice the difference to the first described,
simplest method.

As you can tell, I've spent some time trying to optimise some slow machines.
:-)
--
~misfit~

Mike wrote:
How do i actually put the pagefile onto another partition ?
Is it when i set the size i also set the drive it will be located on.

Yep, you get the choice of which drive/partition to put the PF on.

Read my post further down dude. Don't put the pagefile on a drive that is
slower than your main drive, or even a partition that is at the end of your
main drive (it's slower).
--
~misfit~

"Tom" wrote in message
news
BalloonKnot wrote:
Tom wrote:
The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard
drive, and use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and
defragged.

What is the advantage to doing that? I have some unpartitioned space
on my hd that I could allocate for a paging file....would I notice
any difference by doing so?
1.4Ghz Tualatin
384Mb ram
120Gb, 8Mb cache HD

If your page file is on the same partition as your OS and data
files, over time it fragments, and slows your system down. When you
defrag the drive you'll notice the page file is marked as
"unmoveable", and won't get defragged.

To be honest, I don't know how much difference you'd actually
notice, but it's one of the many "good practice" things that all add
up to a smooth, slick system.

HTH

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 16:43:40 +0100 Letting slip the dogs of war "Mike"
wrote :

I was just wondering what is the best setting for my virtual memory. Should
i set min and max the same or should i let windows manage it. My Specs are
:-
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512 DDR 3200 ram
160 GHz H/D

Cheers in advance
Mike Collins


Click here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/easy.html
There is no advantage to having the swapfile on another partition just
like there's no fixed formula for setting the correct minimum number
for,"Your" usage.A maximum setting is not needed.This changes in
WinXP/Win2k.
HTH



--
Free Windows/PC help,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/trouble.html
email shepATpartyheld.de
Free songs to download and,"BURN" :O)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/nomessiahsmusic.htm

In article ,
says...
BalloonKnot wrote:
Tom wrote:
The best tactic is to create a 1 or 2 gig partition on your hard
drive, and use it just for your virtual memory. Keeps it nice and
defragged.

What is the advantage to doing that? I have some unpartitioned space
on my hd that I could allocate for a paging file....would I notice
any difference by doing so?
1.4Ghz Tualatin
384Mb ram
120Gb, 8Mb cache HD

If your page file is on the same partition as your OS and data files, over
time it fragments, and slows your system down. When you defrag the drive
you'll notice the page file is marked as "unmoveable", and won't get
defragged.

To be honest, I don't know how much difference you'd actually notice, but
it's one of the many "good practice" things that all add up to a smooth,
slick system.


Creating a seperate partition for the pagefile is *not*
needed if all you're worried about is fragmentation of
the pagefile. Worse, if the drive has to read from both
the pagefile and the system's programs/DLLs, the drive
head is going to have to travel farther then if the
pagefile were on the main partition, mixed in with the
programs/DLLs.

The solution to the pagefile fragmentation problem is
to:

1. Reduce your pagefile settings to a minimal amount
(e.g. 4Mb min / 4Mb max).
2. Defrag the drive.
3. Reset the pagefile settings to what you want them to
be.

A good minimum value is 1024Mb with a maximum of 2048Mb
(or 2048Mb min and 3072 max). As long as you allocate
the minimum when the drive is already defragged, then
the space that it takes up will be unfragmented.

Common sense says that as soon as you start using a
significant portion of your pagefile on a regular basis
that it's time to buy more RAM. RAM is cheap, and while
more expensive then using the harddrive for additional
memory, the constant wear-n-tear on the HD from all that
swapping *will* shorten the life of said HD. Check your
"Commit Charge (K) Total" in Task Manager, especially
the peak value to find out how much memory you're using
on average. (Then buy enough memory to meet your usual
peak needs.)