You want a fast computer? Turn off Pagefile!

[m249_saw]

Never really seen this tip anywhere before but generally people say you should have the pagefile 1.5x the size of your memory. I just want to say one thing ... WRONG! This I have found to work only with computer with 512Mb of RAM or lower. If you have a 1Gb of ram or more you are a fool to have a 1.5gb pagefile! Disable the pagefile if you have a GB of ram and it should eliminate useless swapping in Windows XP. Games benefit from this especially load times.
*BUT* Some programs require a pagefile to run properly. ( I think some graphics programs) But really, I have come across no real problems of turning off the pagefile.

If you're sceptical and think I don't know what I'm talking about, try it! At the very least you won't be using up over a GB of wasted pagefile.

To do this, right click on My Computer and Go into Properties. Then go into the advanced tab. Then click on setting where its says Visual Effects, Memory Usage and Virtual Memory. Under the advanced tab, click change where it says Virtual Memory. Then click the no paging file option and then click set. Then click OK and exit. Restart the computer and enjoy the slightly less bottlenecked form of computing

[Ominous Gamer]

The pagefile myth is rather old, and rather wrong.

First off, as you said there are programs that require a page file. No pagefile means broken programs, AOEII is one example.
Second off, having a page file does not slow down the computer. In fact, if your computer is using the pagefile, its because you need more memory.

Its a much better idea to have a static pagefile, on its own partition. Mine is set to 3gb (with 2gb of memory installed) since my computer use varies greatly.

If you want to speed up the computer, simply remove the indexing service.

[therealwesty]

There are a handful of application that I use that require the pagefile to run smoothly. The pagefile isn't all bad either, when the system load changes Windows can move stuff out of the RAM and into the pagefile to free up RAM for other applications. While the specified resourse are in the pagefile they are still considerably more 'ready' than if they were unloaded from the active memory altogether.

If you want to speed up some of you Windows and day-to-day application performance than you'd be better off doing the registry tweak to disable the paging executive. Colin has it somewhere in the tip archive, but I couldn't find it. All the same; Credit to him, I am just the repeater here.

Open the registry editor and navigate to...

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\

Locate or create the DWORD DisablePagingExecutive and set the value to 1. This will force Windows to keep the system files in RAM rather than unloading them to the page file. In my experience this comes as a bit of a trade off. Windows applications get a bit of a boost because the system files are kept in RAM. Some memory intensive games and applications will get better benefit from being able to unload parts of the Windows system to the page file to free up RAM.

Hard drive space is cheap anyway, so having 1.5GB of pagefile is really no sweat for me.

[m249_saw]

I knew people werent gonna belive me :(

I have tweaked the hell out of my system and that paging excecutive tweak ive already done. (And I dont really notice much difference)

Windows doesnt use the memory effectivley! Windows will prety much treat 256mb of ram the same as 1gb of ram and therefore still page heaps of crap to the hard drive. Also I've already turn off the indexing services ( Im not a dumbass)


Just try it and use it for a week and then tell me what you think instead of just critising my suggestion

What do you mean by no pagefile means broken programs?

[chris000001]

Photoshop requires pagefile so this tweak is no good for me...plus there are times when ive noticed that im over 1024mb used sooo yea Pagefile=good!

[omga14]

just to be safe play a game like BF2 with the task manager open to see what usage is. newer games will need that pagefile if you don't have 2gb of ram, maybe 1.5gb.

[m249_saw]

I wish I had BF2 :( Spent all my money on my computer upgrade last week(see sig)

CoD2 and Fear Demo @ Max settings seems to work fine with no pagefile FEAR seems to work better with no pagefile.

[Stone Fox]

Completely off topic, but I HAD to ask;-

Why is your name an AMERICAN lsw, and your location a 'RUSSIAN military base' ? :confused:

[§hinoßi]

i dont think he actually lives in a secret russian military base lol

[therealwesty]

I've tried it, used for a bit, benchmarked the snot out of it. In a few cases it might helped performance but in every area I was interested in having a pagefile was better. Even when I was on my breif run for the 3DMark03 top 20 having the page file gave higher 3DMark scores.

The idea certainly sounds great, and RAM access is undeniably much faster than paging. Unfortunatly Windows and a lot of other software uses the pagefile by design. And the types of things I find myself doing on the PC do get better performance from having the page file enable. Perhaps if I had 2GB or more of RAM the store would be a little different though. All the same, I don't have the RAM, and I don't plan to buy it immediatly, so for now the pagefile lives.

[Stone Fox]

i dont think he actually lives in a secret russian military base lol

Damn! You reckon?! Does that mean his real name ISN'T M249-SAW????

[m249_saw]

Completely off topic, but I HAD to ask;-

Why is your name an AMERICAN lsw, and your location a 'RUSSIAN military base' ? :confused:

whats a lsw?

an m249's origin isnt America I dont think, its belgium

Anyway back on topic. I never said disabling the pagefile was for everybody. I use my computer mainly for games and internet browsing and many others do also. None of my programs need the page file and I have benefited from it. Some people won't like it such as people doing CAD and doing graphics work

[chris000001]

its developed buy a Belgium small arms manufacturer called Fabrique Nationale, developed in 1974, and adopted by the us military in 1982