Hi - I have a GB of ram on my laptop. I use it primarily for web browsing, e-mail, and word processing. I'll play an occasional game on it - with the most advanced game being Battlefield 1942. Is it really necessary for me to have a pagefile? I only have a 40GB hard drive - and my pagefile is 1.5GB - so it just seems like that space could be better used. Thanks!
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I have 1GB of ram - is a pagefile really necessary?
- Thread starter NleahciM
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Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2003
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- 246
What OS are you running? If you are running Windows XP/2000, right click on the taskibar and go to task manager. Click the performance tab, and look in the bottom left square (don't remember the exact name) and look at the peak value. If the value never exceeds you amount of ram, then you probably don't need.
BUT, some programs require you to have a page file anyway so be warned.
BUT, some programs require you to have a page file anyway so be warned.
OK I'll bring it down to 500MB then. But I don't understand why I need it? I mean I really don't see how I could possibly burn through 1GB of ram?
Edit: Here's my task manager. Seeing that it's talking about 2.5GB - I'm assuming it's adding the GB of ram and the 1.5GB of pagefile. Pagefile.sys is 1.5GB BTW. So how do I change it's size?
another edit: Yes - OS is Windows XP with SP1. Even if it kinda looks like OS X.
And how do I even change the pagefile size?
This thread is just one of several in the last month or so regarding PF questions. Short answer = the PF is more than you think it is, you probably need it, you can tweak it but it's just as easy to leave it alone, and someone else here will come along and tell you the opposite of everything I just said. (PF is hotly debated by the ill-informed).
[edit] Just think about it for a second.... MS may not code everything as well as they could, but don't you think they would do away with the PF if it were beneficial to do so? Like maybe incorporate that into automatic performance options or something like it does with graphics? Perhaps there is a lone coder at MS who has a hard drive access fetish.
[edit] Just think about it for a second.... MS may not code everything as well as they could, but don't you think they would do away with the PF if it were beneficial to do so? Like maybe incorporate that into automatic performance options or something like it does with graphics? Perhaps there is a lone coder at MS who has a hard drive access fetish.
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Gawd
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2002
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- 938
500MB might still be a lil much if you have a gig of ram and don't really do much on your laptop. If you run stuff like PHotoshop and stuff like that though, its gonna require one.
Leave it alone. If search worked I could find my old threads on the issue:
The pagefile is used for more then extra memory, it also keeps memory fragmentation low, it also allows your apps to grow into the memory that is available, and it speeds up your machine.
The pagefile is used for more then extra memory, it also keeps memory fragmentation low, it also allows your apps to grow into the memory that is available, and it speeds up your machine.
This isn't an issue on 386 or higher x86 systes running a protected mode operating system. The logical address space is divided into pages and mapped to real memory via a table (the page table). Normally pages are 4K on x86, though 4MB (maybe larger?) pages are also supported. You only need contiguous sections for memory mapped IO to certain devices, and in that case the OS should just copy the affected memoy elsewhere and adjust the page table to point to the new physical location.
Memory fragmentation was a problem on Macs running OS <= 9, but not on PCs using *nix or win95 or higher.
That said, not having a page file can cause funny things to happen.