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Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows Vista and 7 => Topic started by: ilovedota2 on April 06, 2012, 08:32:21 PM

Title: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: ilovedota2 on April 06, 2012, 08:32:21 PM
isnt it too much? i never really go past having 50% memory usage. can i just not use virtual memory to save storage space?

also are there bad consequences if i delete hiberfil.sys ?
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 06, 2012, 10:03:51 PM
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are there bad consequences if i delete hiberfil.sys ?

Yes, you can remove it. The dubious advantage is that you have more disk space. But it you have enough disk space there is no benefit by removing it.

In other words, Microsoft put it there for a reason. Hibernation is a cool feature and can be real handy.

If you want to be away from you PC for twenty Minutes,  just put it into hibernation and when you come back it will return to where your were.  It saves power and reduces heat build up.

It is your choice. Unless your are really cramped for drive space, there is no noticeable performance gain by removing it.

Note: before defragmenting you could  delete hiberfil.sys, but that recommendation is not from Microsoft. Really, I found no recommendation from MS to ever delete ithe hibernation file or the page file.

Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: patio on April 06, 2012, 11:11:15 PM
Stop looking at resource manager...especially with 8G of RAM.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 02:00:01 AM
Your virtual memory always starts off to be the same size as your installed RAM. also before removing hiberfil.sys first disable hibernation. i have 16gb ram and set myself a 1gb pagefile with kernel paging disabled. i rarely go over 40% ram usage (but i have hit over 90%)
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 07, 2012, 04:29:42 AM
Follow patio's advice above - just leave it alone and don't worry about it.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 04:53:15 AM
Assuming you're not running a 30-60gb ssd/hdd as your main drive you could leave it. I would recommend if you don't really have 100 things open at a time though to lower the value to a set size of 1024MB to 4096MB. of course if you don't know how to properly modify the setting just leave it
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 07, 2012, 05:03:13 AM
There is not reason to change the pagefile setting from system managed.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:13:35 AM
Certain software, usually games, will require you to have a pagefile of at least a certain size, and is the only reason i even have one on my system. The performane increased is only noticed when switching between opened programs or reopening a previously opened program since startup. The basic sweet spot with pagefiles is basically make it as small as possible while maintaining system stability. Windows can guarantee stability by automatically adjusting the pagefile but presetting the value depending on your system and how you use it can be a much better and even more beneficial alternative, especially in systems with more than 4gb ram. An 8gb system as as much physical memory as a 4gb system has physical and virtual memory combined on a default windows installation. I'm sure he has virtual memory to spare.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: BC_Programmer on April 07, 2012, 08:41:12 AM
Certain software, usually games, will require you to have a pagefile of at least a certain size
No, they don't. Unless they are very old. Actually, I've only ever seen this with mac programs, since there is no way for a Windows program to even see if the system is using pagefiles, or what it's limits are set to on various drives.

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The performance increased is only noticed when switching between opened programs or reopening a previously opened program since startup.
Because disabling, or having a small pagefile, forces more of the memory allocated by each process to remain in physical memory, rather than being mapped into a pagefile after a period of disuse. This often results in more physical memory fragmentation, too, which isn't usually something that affects performance but it does affect the ability of the kernel allocator from being able to allocate memory efficiently. I believe that the system keeps a bit of the pagefile reserved for the purposes of the kernel allocator to allow for the creation of such contiguous areas. It is usually applications that make large demands on the Virtual Memory Manager for memory but do not actually touch many of the pages that would cause the most problems on systems with no pagefile or a very small pagefile.

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The basic sweet spot with pagefiles is basically make it as small as possible while maintaining system stability.
The size of the pagefile is unrelated to system stability. The worst that can happen with no pagefile is frequent out of memory errors. The actual problem of course is that most programs are not designed for a scenario where VirtualAlloc() fails; the use of a pagefile ensures that any application can use the full address space it is given.

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Windows can guarantee stability by automatically adjusting the pagefile but presetting the value depending on your system and how you use it can be a much better and even more beneficial alternative, especially in systems with more than 4gb ram.
No, it cannot. The only thing you can ever gain from such a symposium is more disk space, Speed improvements can be realized, but only by way of choosing faster disks or disks with more contiguous space to allocate for a pagefile. On it's own, The pagefile doesn't add "stability" to the system; the Virtual Memory manager is just better able to work with one. Stability is questioned only by way of applications typically not handling low memory or out of memory conditions very well.



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An 8gb system as as much physical memory as a 4gb system has physical and virtual memory combined on a default windows installation. I'm sure he has virtual memory to spare.
To user programs, there is absolutely no difference between physical and virtual memory.

The problem here is that many people think Virtual Memory is only used when physical memory is close to exhaustion. This is not the case, mostly because Virtual Memory and the pagefile are not interchangable terms. Virtual Memory is what every single program uses. That Virtual Memory is then either mapped into physical pages in RAM or into the pagefile; the address in that processes virtual address space is what is used as a memory handle. Either way, all memory allocated by any program is allocated as "Virtual Memory" as part of that application's virtual address space, regardless of whether it truly refers to physical memory or pages in the pagefile.

The Memory Manager is designed to try to keep as Much Physical Memory free as possible, without jeopardizing system response time too heavily. If you leave an application idle in the background with memory allocated, eventually it's physical memory will get paged out to make more room in RAM, as well as help keep free memory blocks contiguous. If you limit the size of the pagefile, you limit the amount that can be paged out, this forces that memory to stay in RAM; this doesn't really help, since the algorithm for determining what get's paged out is rather accurate about which applications are more heavily used.

The problem with setting a limit on the pagefile size is you are setting a hard limit on the total commit charge of the system. With a System Managed size, the pagefile will grow and shrink as necessary to accommodate demands made by the various applications running on the system. With a set Pagefile size (or maximum size) you are setting a hard limit. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to have more memory allocated than your physical memory size plus your pagefile maximum size.

I believe much of the confusion lies with people thinking that the pagefile is similar to the swapfile used by 16-bit windows-(win386.swp) but this is not the case; Virtual Memory and pagefiles take advantage of the processor's Protected Mode Virtual Address space which gives each process a set address space that it is free to consume, and then allocates memory based on the parts of those address space that are actually used. Memory is moved to the pagefile and back based on need. With Earlier systems, the Memory manager itself is doing all the mapping to and from the swapfile, without the assistance of the processor's virtual addressing capabilities.

Anyway, the thing isn't that reducing the size of the pagefile or eliminating it completely will necessarily cause problems, but the fact is that leaving it as system managed will not cause any problems at all either, so I honestly don't understand why so many people are fascinated with screwing around with the size of pagefiles, unless they truly have no idea what they are for. Such people seem to give the impression that they somehow know more about Windows internal memory workings than their peers, but this sort of notion is usually dispelled by simply reading the nonsense that is posted, and is illustrated rather well with the inability to discern between the pagefile and Virtual Memory, which are completely disparate concepts. All it amounts to is bad advice based on vague and completely anedotal or conjectural "evidence" faciliated and amended by a complete lack of any understanding of how the actual memory subsystems work or how the pagefile fits into that equation. May as well stick RAM cards into a voodoo doll of the computer and assert that performance improves as a result.

Nothing bad will happen if you disable or tweak the pagefile settings (well, actually, disabling it would cause all sorts of slower codepaths in the Memory manager as well as larger page sizes contributing to both memory fragmentation as well as slack space). However nothing good will happen either. Performance will not perceptibly increase; and instead now the memory subsystem is running with arbitrary limitations placed on it. Many programs allocate large amounts of memory, but leave it unused, relying on the virtual memory subsystem to only allocated touched pages. typically, this memory is not added to the pagefile (since it's empty) and only those pages that are actually touched can be paged out; however, such allocations still contribute to a sum that would be used to determine if the set limit has been reached. This is partially why the default pagefile size is larger than the system memory size.

The only reason for messing with pagefile settings is to change pagefile settings on specific drives in the interest of saving space on certain drives, disabling the pagefile on SSDs for both size as well as preventing writes, or preferring faster drives, as well as preferring physical drives that are not on the same host controller as the drive containing the system partition (for better asynchronous I/O). Much like the now removed option to change the size of the registry on the same dialog, the option of changing the size of the various system pagefile's is only for completeness, and to conform to certain regulatory standards.

A better way of setting limitations on the size of a pagefile, if it is necessary or desired, is not to use the pagefile limitation options but rather place the pagefile on a separate partition; make that partition the maximum size you want to allow, and then set it to system managed. This has the advantage of making sure that the pagefile is always contiguous. (although this isn't a problem on most systems, then again, neither is setting the pagefile to system managed, either).
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 07, 2012, 11:15:05 AM
You deserve three tank yous, BC.
Hee is your key statement.
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he Memory Manager is designed..

Why do users think a billion dollar company does not hire the best software engineers out there? If any  user really that  way, same should drop Windows and try something else. Like the Mac OS ten.

Wait, maybe that is not a good idea.
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Apple patches 3-month-old Mac OS X security flaw .

Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 07, 2012, 12:21:53 PM
Certain software, usually games, will require you to have a pagefile of at least a certain size,
Not true. And please, don't confuse the issue. Thank you.

ilovedota2 - there is no reason to change it from system managed.

BCP - good post. Bottom line, there's no reason to mess with the virtual memory settings.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: patio on April 07, 2012, 12:39:45 PM
You deserve three tank yous, BC.
Hee is your key statement.
Why do users think a billion dollar company does not hire the best software engineers out there? If any  user really that  way, same should drop Windows and try something else. Like the Mac OS ten.

Wait, maybe that is not a good idea.

Quite a tangent to spin off into don't you think ? ?
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 07, 2012, 01:41:48 PM
Quite a tangent to spin off into don't you think ? ?
I try my bet.  :D
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 03:36:22 PM
I would like to point out that the size of the virtual memory in your system can indeed be called upon. i have built a program to do so myself and there is more than one method of doing it. Also, i have no reason of lying about virtual memory being needed for certain applications, you can get yourself a copy of guitar hero world tour and try it out yourself. Not the only game i seen that requires it. BTW the stability comment comes from the possibility of both ram and vm being full. Without windows being able to adjust the size of the pagefile upon it being full there would be application errors, crashes, and therefore stability problems. Anyways if there wasn't any use for setting the pagefile size for average home users then i doubt Microsoft would have made it a GUI-accessible option.

Please try to refrain from assuming i don't know what I'm talking about because I'm always sure when i post
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: patio on April 07, 2012, 03:59:26 PM
Re-visit BC's Post above...
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 07, 2012, 04:17:36 PM
Code: [Select]
Please try to refrain from assuming i don't know what I'm talking about because I'm always sure when i postGlad you let us know!
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 04:35:17 PM
This is a debate that has been going on for a long time over the internet. Even though we have both taken sides here, i understand completely why Microsoft made their decision to make the pagefile relative and even linear to the size of the installed RAM. Really, i do. But when somebody has a system with that amount of RAM, which equals the combined pagefile and RAM size of another still modern computer running the same apps, then lowering the pagefile size helps so much, especially when you have 20 things open at a time like i do. It prevents more of the apps you're using in the background from being paged to a much slower harddrive.

Also, if you happen to have a secondary harddrive kickin around i would definitely suggest moving your pagefile
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 07, 2012, 04:44:59 PM
Okay, you know what? There are a ton of "pagefile experts" on forums all over the web and while it is among the most contentious subjects it is also among the least important. Just leaving it as system managed is the best option for 99.9% of users. Arguing otherwise may make you feel important or knowledgeable, but this forum has a lot of truly well informed members who actually  know what they are talking about. So perhaps you would be kind enough to stop beating a dead horse so we can just move on, okay? Thank you very much for all of your input in this matter and your cooperation now.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:00:19 PM
I agree with you about the importance of this subject. I have way better things to do with my time than argue. read the thread again and tell me who caused all of this useless bickering
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: patio on April 07, 2012, 05:17:00 PM
Stop looking at resource manager...especially with 8G of RAM.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:18:15 PM
As a moderator you should be trying your best to not be so personal. I don't think i'm knowledgeable, i am. and I've earned it from years and years of experience, the kind you could never get at a school or job. My experience comes all the way from dos and windows 3.1. I literally taught myself how to format a computer and work with drivers. I was literally fixing computers with DOS boot diskettes when i was 9 or 10 years old. if there's anything left for me to learn i doubt its going to be here
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: patio on April 07, 2012, 05:26:54 PM
I wasn't being personal...nor questioning your skills.
I was merely re-stating that with 8G of RAM this whole discussion other than BC's informative Post is pure nonsense...
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:30:42 PM
Not the part about him being wrong and stating that no application could be set to rely on the minimum size of the pagefile to say the least
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:36:40 PM
since there is no way for a Windows program to even see if the system is using pagefiles, or what it's limits are set to on various drives.

Using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), a programmer could easily not only view the status of the pagefile on a running version of Windows, but could also change the pagefile size, etc..
It can even be done with VBScript:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2006/01/18/how-can-i-change-the-size-of-a-page-file.aspx (http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2006/01/18/how-can-i-change-the-size-of-a-page-file.aspx)
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: JJ 3000 on April 07, 2012, 05:42:40 PM
no application could be set to rely on the minimum size of the pagefile

I've read that phrase about ten times now and I still can't understand what it means. I suppose I'm just dense. Could you explain what that means? Why the minimum size? and how could it rely on it?
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 05:51:09 PM
I've read that phrase about ten times now and I still can't understand what it means. I suppose I'm just dense. Could you explain what that means? Why the minimum size? and how could it rely on it?

i had a game that required my pagefile to not only exist, buf be set to a minimum size
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: JJ 3000 on April 07, 2012, 05:55:18 PM
I had a game that required my pagefile to not only exist, but be set to a minimum size.

Okay. I think I understand now.

Thanks.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 06:33:16 PM
That Virtual Memory is then either mapped into physical pages in RAM...

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Basically, virtual memory is non-physical memory (yeah, that helps, huh?)

Windows uses virtual memory when it doesn’t have enough “regular” physical memory to perform a task. When it does this, Windows uses your hard drive to store information that normally would be put into your RAM memory.

http://www.worldstart.com/understanding-virtual-memory-and-ram/ (http://www.worldstart.com/understanding-virtual-memory-and-ram/)

That's two misconceptions that I've been able to easily source now. And for a programmer thinking that Windows programs don't have access to pagefile information, is a pretty bad misconception in my eyes.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 06:50:38 PM
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2160852 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2160852)
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RAM is a limited resource, whereas for most practical purposes, virtual memory is unlimited. There can be many processes, and each process has its own 2 GB of private virtual address space. When the memory being used by all the existing processes exceeds the available RAM, the operating system moves pages (4-KB pieces) of one or more virtual address spaces to the computer’s hard disk. This frees that RAM frame for other uses. In Windows systems, these “paged out” pages are stored in one or more files (Pagefile.sys files) in the root of a partition. There can be one such file in each disk partition. The location and size of the page file is configured in System Properties (click Advanced, click Performance, and then click the Settings button).

Users frequently ask "how big should I make the pagefile?" There is no single answer to this question because it depends on the amount of installed RAM and on how much virtual memory that workload requires. If there is no other information available, the typical recommendation of 1.5 times the installed RAM is a good starting point. On server systems, you typically want to have sufficient RAM so that there is never a shortage and so that the pagefile is basically not used. On these systems, it may serve no useful purpose to maintain a really large pagefile. On the other hand, if disk space is plentiful, maintaining a large pagefile (for example, 1.5 times the installed RAM) does not cause a problem, and this also eliminates the need to worry over how large to make it.

Microsoft basically says that it is not "needed" to ever adjust the pagefile, however adjustments could be made depending on system use and installed physical RAM to lower (or even raise) the value. Microsoft has a really good system in place for determining what to page out and what not to page out. All I'm saying is that minor performance gains could be realized by adjusting the value, so that Windows becomes more conservative in what gets paged to the harddrive. The amount of space available for Virtual Memory is a major variable used in the algorithm for determining what gets paged.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: BC_Programmer on April 07, 2012, 10:30:01 PM
I would like to point out that the size of the virtual memory in your system can indeed be called upon.


the pagefile is not Virtual Memory.


Most likely these programs that "require" a pagefile to be set are in fact just allocating a ridiculously large amount of memory, and only using pieces of it. This was a common practice with older 16-bit DOS applications, and old habits die hard; the developers and QA testers wouldn't see this "problem" because those blank pages would be paged out and not use up any space (except in the table used to track used pages whose name I can't remember (You can probably use this to increase your own self worth by googling it and claiming you've known it since you were 11)).. Anyway, in such a case they would only consume space when necessary by way of the application writing to that area of the allocated memory. Without a pagefile those empty but allocated pages consume space. On the other hand, some memory allocation functions and their flags can be set by the application to commit immediately or to set various other options (which again, I can't necessarily be bothered to look up and probably remember wrongly), so not all applications that have otherwise identical code paths would encounter the same scenario, and some that make multiple allocations with various flags could be found to have problems in different situations.
 
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i have built a program to do so myself and there is more than one method of doing it.
And yet, you cite no examples. There are plenty of functions to determine the amount of Virtual Memory Committed, the amount of Physical Memory, etc; the size of the page file, etc. And, as I admitted above, this was an erroneous statement on my part. I ask your humble forgiveness, ye of large intellect. However- again as noted above, this was somewhat tangential to my point; since the fact is that the programs and games in question often do not  those functions to determine if and of what size a pagefile is (and honestly, if they do, they are written badly; in that sense either is equally likely). Most of them instead make allocations using the standard memory allocation functions; they might request large chunks of memory, as well; with no paging file this causes problems because all of that data has to then exist in physical memory, simply because it has nowhere else to go. (Actually, I think this is a limitation of the Architecture used by Windows, since *Nix (Gates forgive me) seems to handle the lack of a swap space much better.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not 100% sure if paging is disabled with no pagefile; I honestly have more important things to do then twiddle about with my pagefile sizes. (I'm not of course saying it's a waste of time, just that I've never been that bored. I did get bored last week and changed processor scheduling to Background services rather than foreground. But then again I mostly did that because the system in question has mySQL running as a service. it would have had SQL Server 2008 but I'm starting to suspect that there are 6-week courses on SQL Server that don't even fully cover the installation.

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Also, i have no reason of lying about virtual memory being needed for certain applications, you can get yourself a copy of guitar hero world tour and try it out yourself.
I didn't say you were lying. I'm saying you are misguided, or perhaps purposely trying to confuse the issue by using incorrect terminology (arguably, my confusion of Virtual Address Space and Virtual Memory didn't help either). you continue to refer to the pagefile as "virtual memory" when it is not, virtual memory on any protected mode operating system is simply memory. A program doesn't know- unless it explicitly asks- whether some piece of memory it allocated is in a pagefile, a ReadyBoost drive, or is in physical memory; instead it just uses it, and if it's in the pagefile it get's faulted into physical memory. "Virtual Memory"; at least on Protected-Mode Operating Systems- is simply memory. All Applications allocate Virtual Memory; where that data actually ends up is where the "Virtual" part comes from; Removing all options for where it ends up but Physical Memory doesn't change that.


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BTW the stability comment comes from the possibility of both ram and vm being full. Without windows being able to adjust the size of the pagefile upon it being full there would be application errors, crashes, and therefore stability problems.
Fair Enough. Though when I ran, some years ago, with 1GB of Memory and disabled the page file, I must admit that I saw neither a perceptible increase nor a perceptible decrease in it's typical speed.

I did encounter the errors; but I didn't have any crashes. Programs would run out of memory, but usually they had graceful error handling. Those that didn't of course crashed in that situation, and it would certainly be fair to argue- as you have- that this jeopardizes system stability. However, a counter-point to this is that adding a small pagefile doesn't really solve those same problems, which is that there isn't enough Virtual Memory within which to store allocated pages. Virtual Memory being the sum of all memory- (Physical Memory, ReadyBoost Drives and Pagefiles;  I believe the latter two have some overlap for redundancy purposes). Having a pagefile, at least as a I understand it (and, unlike some people I at no point claimed to know a lot, which means that I shouldn't be the one with the burden of proof thereof) allows some changes with the way the Memory Manager works. I don't know if what I remember is outdated information- possibly based on 9x, or not. My understand is that without a pagefile the memory manager has to deal with larger blocks (64K, iirc), as opposed to smaller, 4K blocks that it would with any sized pagefile. My fallible human brain has forgotten the specifics of why this is the case, but I seem to remember the lack of a pagefile being the cause. I don't know if ReadyBoost drives would resolve that, myself.


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Anyways if there wasn't any use for setting the pagefile size for average home users then i doubt Microsoft would have made it a GUI-accessible option.
I explained several good reasons for changing the pagefile settings, such as disabling the pagefile on an SSD, having a large one on a faster drive
, etc. Windows Managed is a default, and there are of course cases for which performance might be better, specifically by having the pagefile on a faster hard drive. More importantly, those types of settings are important for System Administrators in an enterprise setting; To Move a Pagefile from a Mirrored RAID array to a striped one; or to a basic disk. These sorts of capabilities are important, and being that all the various editions are built from the same master, it would be silly to disable such things in the "Home" Editionm particularly when there are in fact use cases for it.

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Please try to refrain from assuming i don't know what I'm talking about because I'm always sure when i post
Well you consistently refer to the pagefile as "Virtual Memory", which it isn't. It happens to be a storage place that memory data get's virtualized to, but it's not Virtual Memory. (And yes, I will address your suppositions otherwise based on questionable sources, too).


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As a moderator you should be trying your best to not be so personal. I don't think i'm knowledgeable, i am. and I've earned it from years and years of experience, the kind you could never get at a school or job.
If you aren't getting experience by way of either school, or a job, then the only way you are getting it is by screwing around in your spare time. And, of course, this is a source of experience, and it is how I myself learned much of what I know- but there is quite a difference between Learning as a hobby and learning because it's your job. Arguably, the former is typically more "passionate"; but it's also (usually) a lot more casual. You aren't always rushing to make deadlines, or learn some specific technology; "Oh I can always learn WPF later" I used to tell myself; then I basically had to learn it as part of a freelance project. (well, OK, so I chose to use and learn WPF, but I <had> to learn how to use it at that point so it went far less casually). My point is that there are different kinds of experience, and each one of them- School, Job, and as a hobby/spare time stuff, has their own specific advantages. To only follow one of those three, and- with no actual understanding of what the others entail- declare it superior, is rather silly. The interesting part is that for some reason I think the "school" experience is the least valuable, although that's the only one I do not have; and previously I would have said that both school and job experience offered nothing that I couldn't discover on my own, so I guess it's a mental thing. Technically, I've only recently started to gain what one could call Job Experience, everything before that was as a hobby, so following your logic I still possess largely the "superior" experience, from which I draw most of this stuff, since most of my work at this point deals with database access,text processing,WPF, and so forth within the .NET environment and that doesn't come up much on this forum.

Your
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My experience comes all the way from dos and windows 3.1.
I started with DOS 3.22 myself. Didn't have the full install and 'only' a 15MB(aftermarket) hard drive; still better than the 360K floppy though.
I probably haven't been working with computers as long as you have; I myself only really "got into" then around the age of 16.

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I literally taught myself how to format a computer and work with drivers.
I had a Book- Running MS-DOS by Van Wolverton. Do I lose points?

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I was literally fixing computers with DOS boot diskettes when i was 9 or 10 years old.
This is largely irrelevant. I fail to see the logic here. How does you booting computers with DOS (a Real Mode Operating System) floppies to edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT qualify you in the area of dealing with the intricacies of memory management in a Protected Mode Memory Paging Operating System? I mean, if I need some help using DEVICEHIGH, or my AT system gives me that "Internal Stack Failure, System halted" Message (fixed, if I recall, either by adding a FILES= or a BUFFERS= line to config.sys, I forget) , I could see this sort of thing being relevant or helpful, but otherwise it's entirely redundant; it's almost like saying "How dare you question my capability with Photoshop! I'll have you know that I was formatting floppies at a 5th grade level when I was still in diapers!"; the cited expertise- is simply not wholly relevant, and you can't really shoehorn it in there as if it is.

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if there's anything left for me to learn i doubt its going to be here
[/quo
That is an incredibly unhealthy attitude. When somebody- such as yourself- essentially says "I Know Everything"- even in a narrowed scope or context such as a forum like this one- it's rather clear that they do not. Whether by saying that they are trying to prove the idea to either themselves or others depends on the specific case, but the claim is borderline ridiculous except when limited in scope to a very narrow field, and even then, it can often be wrong. Once you assert to know everything about a given subject, you stop looking for new things in that area to learn, and in some ways it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; knowing everything about a given subject becomes equivalent to simply ignoring things you don't know about it.
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http://www.worldstart.com/understanding-virtual-memory-and-ram/

That's two misconceptions that I've been able to easily source now. And for a programmer thinking that Windows programs don't have access to pagefile information, is a pretty bad misconception in my eyes.
Except it's not a misconception. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366887%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

I was drawing everything I wrote out of memory, so naturally there would be abberations, mistakes, misrememberances, etc. I apologize if I gave you the mistaken impression that I was a cyborg or something. Although actually it would be pretty awesome to be a cyborg, though I imagine the novelty of needing a socket wrench to use the bathroom wears off quickly.  While I am glad that I was able to help you feel better about yourself by picking out those particular issues, the fact is that I am actually quite impressed that I only had two such mistakes, which aren't really "mistakes" in that I was more or less simplifying things because I wasn't able to rightly express the particulars while maintaining any measure of brevity. My mistake here is rather trivial, really. I confused Virtual Memory with Virtual Address Space. Wether the passage is accurate with that substitution, I'm sure you will let us know, while ignoring the core of the debate here revolving around the particulars of the effects of having the paging file set to a small size, disabled, or simply leaving it as system managed.

As noted multiple times, Virtual Memory is not the pagefile, but rather, Virtual Memory is the combination of Physical RAM as well as the pagefile. In that sense, I must concede that (actually I think I did above, not sure) having a limited Pagefile size will set an upper limit on Virtual Memory by virtue of the Pagefile typically being the only "stretchy" factor. On the other hand, if you plonk in a ReadyBoost drive you'll add more Virtual Memory, too.


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All I'm saying is that minor performance gains could be realized by adjusting the value
so that Windows becomes more conservative in what gets paged to the harddrive.
The algorithm used is the same, what changes are the variables; in this case only the "staler" data in physical memory would be paged out.
This could (debatably) result in some sort of speed improvement in very specific use cases since a larger proportion of data stays in Physical Memory, But, generally speaking, most people aren't going to fit into those specific use cases. And such changes could be detrimental in some circumstances, as well.

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The amount of space available for Virtual Memory is a major variable used in the algorithm for determining what gets paged.
Is this Virtual memory (Physical Memory+Pagefile+Readyboost and other crap) or just the pagefile? Outside it's use in the standard knapsack problem for memory management I don't think the size(s) of the pagefile(s) are used in any integral calculations. (on the other hand, the solution to the knapsack problem as defined there could be considered important and the "size of the knapsack" (to extend the metaphor) is an important variable in that case.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 07, 2012, 11:04:03 PM
The topic has the words 'virtual memory'.
And in his post he names the hibernation file and the page file.
As to the page-file, removing nit is seldom useful.

The guys are Lifehacker are often right.
Understanding the Windows Pagefile and Why You Shouldn't Disable It (http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it)
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As a tech writer, I regularly cringe at all the bad tweaking advice out there, and disabling the system pagefile is often a source of contention among geeks. Let's examine some of the pagefile myths and debunk them once and for all.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: Gray1989 on April 07, 2012, 11:28:47 PM
I don't have time for the amount of things i could say. Whether my specific terminology may be slightly off I still know what i am talking about, and my point has not been affected. My experience lies in all around computing, admittedly mostly with windows software. I taught myself how to program. I can walk into a job as a network admin tomorrow having never worked the job and still be confident in my abilities. I corrected major flaws in what you said and all you can seem to focus on is the way i use the term virtual memory. That is more useless than the topic of this thread. I have the skills and means to create very useful and very profitable applications from scratch. I have done so already. I have been programming since i was 12. Computers is what i do. Building, fixing, programming, web design, all the way to graphic design. When it has to do with computers, i know my stuff. I don't have to prove my skills here. I could put my time to better use actually using my skills, which, at least programming-wise, seem to be superior to yours. Don't take it personally though, i do try. honest :)
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: BC_Programmer on April 07, 2012, 11:37:22 PM
The topic has the words 'virtual memory'.
Yep. That's erroneous; the only way to have 8GB of Virtual Memory when you have 8GB of RAM is if the pagefile is already disabled... presumably they are talking about 8GB of RAM as well as an 8GB pagefile, and for some reason they feel that is a problem, or they are worried that it is. (It's not)


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The guys are Lifehacker are often right.
But were they booting DOS from floppies when they were 10? That's the metric with which we ought to judge their capabilities and understanding of technology.

Anyway, the content there explains why one might see a performance gain from fiddling about with the pagefile (outside moving it to a faster drive which will indisputable make things a bit better).

Of course they refer to the pagefile as "virtual Memory" even though Virtual Memory is basically the sum of all the available "memories" (RAM+Pagefile, usually). The use of "Virtual Memory" to refer only to the swap space dates back to early versions of Mac OS as well as to some extent windows NT 3.x; the former referred to it's pagefile as "Virtual Memory"; the latter did as well. In fact, that latter point is the reason why the groupbox surrounding the page file options still has the title "Virtual Memory", since it used to be a button to the side that opened a dialog much like what the "Change..." button in the "Virtual Memory" groupbox has now. This contributes heavily to confusion over what Virtual Memory is- citation being the page that grey1989 cited to debunk what I said, which says that "virtual memory is everything that isn't physical memory" which is nonsense, at least now it is.

I do sort of wonder why the pagefile is called Virtual Memory on windows NT; maybe it was to prevent confusion, since many other systems referred to their swap space as "Virtual Memory", including a few DOS DPMI applications. Another interesting note is that NT 3.1 doesn't have a "System Managed" option, so much of the configuration within is necessary to change it from defaults when you install more memory, and so forth. On the other hand, there are a few minor issues with caption names and so forth; maybe the additional work of changing it and translating it to a bajillion languages has prevented them from being "fixed". Sort of like how Notepad can't handle files with a Byte-Order Mark.

Anyway, the article is mostly sourced- as they mention- from a Mark Russinovich article (http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx) on the subject. Excellent postings there. Reminds me I meant to read Zero-Day at some point.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Gray1989 on April 08, 2012, 12:16:45 AM
But were they booting DOS from floppies when they were 10? That's the metric with which we ought to judge their capabilities and understanding of technology.

You jealous, bro?

Yeah I was fixing computers with boot floppies when I was 9 or 10. Here's an update on that. By the time I was in grade 7 I was fixing computers using the same methods HiJackThis uses, completely manually and mostly using regedit. I was creating my own batch files since '97, until I learned how to use JScript when I was 12. Since then I have been learning Server-Side scripting languages such as PHP, more JScript, some C++, and to add to all of that, I know my way around the Windows Management Instrumentation. I have set up multiple servers, got my account deleted off of my school's network for gaining access to over half the school's accounts, which goes to say that I have even dabbled with, and have had success with hacking. I even went as far as to create my own encryption algorithm. But I guess all of my knowledge on this stuff is completely useless when it comes to pagefiles, because my underlying dedication to researching computer-related information, the reason I was able to do the things I was doing at that age, apparently isn't good enough to be applied to anything but my previous accomplishments.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of
Post by: BC_Programmer on April 08, 2012, 12:36:52 AM
I don't have time for the amount of things i could say.
And yet here you are.

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Whether my specific terminology may be slightly off I still know what i am talking about
Onus of proof is on the claimant.
ght;
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and my point has not been affected.
It's been demolished, swept in the trash and taken to the dump.

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My experience lies in all around computing, admittedly mostly with windows software. I taught myself how to program. I can walk into a job as a network admin tomorrow having never worked the job and still be confident in my abilities.
Err... good for you? Are you saying this for your own benefit? Am I supposed to be enraged, or something? If you want I can pretend that I think you are better than me and record myself sobbing quietly so you can sleep, if that's necessary.

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I corrected major flaws in what you said and all you can seem to focus on is the way i use the term virtual memory.
Actually, I also conceded on those flaws. You must have missed that with all the rage flowing through you at seeing I had the utter audacity to question you about anything. As I said, it was all grabbed from my memory, sometimes it get's mixed up with other stuff, possibly the same thing that had you referring to the pagefile as Virtual Memory, though at least in that case a lot of (inaccurate) literature does that too.

Of Course I was wrong about programs being able to discover the size of the page file, but what I meant, was as part of the Memory Management API; Unlike Mac OS (Classic) for example, whether a Pagefile is in use or not is not a fundamental piece of information directly accessible via the Memory management functions; one needs to import other libs and call a mess of other functions (or inspect the Performance key) to get at that data.


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That is more useless than the topic of this thread.
Actually, it's quite relevant; my problem isn't that you made that teensy mistake, since I did accidentally mix up Virtual Address Space with Virtual Memory for some parts of my original post. it was that- even after being told the proper term, you continued to use it, and smash it's definition together with both the pagefile as well as Virtual Address Space. I now believe that you either did this on purpose, or are a moron. Most likely the former.


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I have the skills and means to create very useful and very profitable applications from scratch.
Why are you trying so hard to convince... somebody... of this? You cite overbearing confidence but your side-bets give away your hand.

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I have done so already.
Yeah, I used to have those dreams too. Then one day it was real. Although I must say the reality is not quite as fantastic as the dreams let on. On the bright side, at least now my computer screen doesn't try to eat me if my code compiles with errors. It's a mixed bag.

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I have been programming since i was 12.
K.

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Computers is what i do.
Grammar are not. Sorry had to get that in there.

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Building, fixing, programming, web design, all the way to graphic design. When it has to do with computers, i know my stuff.
OK. This would be the place where you expect me to care and say "prove it"- which would be a fair response. However, I don't really care. You are already trying pretty *censored* hard to convince somebody- possibly yourself of this, I wouldn't want to burden you with actually having to demonstrate anything. I imagine you are trying to goad me into doing the same thing and listing off a bunch of stuff I'm good at, but I won't, because I don't see the point.

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I don't have to prove my skills here.
You're the one who started to ramble about skills and formatting floppies and whatnot. And your diatribes about booting DOS floppies when you were 9-10 years old seem a lot like you are trying to prove... something.

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I could put my time to better use actually using my skills
And yet here you are.

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at least programming-wise, seem to be superior to yours.
basing a conclusion on incomplete data. An interesting approach.



EDIT: HAHA! And he's STILL posting his "histories"! COMEDY GOLD!
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 08, 2012, 01:33:21 AM
From the mouth of the horse:
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http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-the-size-of-virtual-memory
Change the size of virtual memory

If you receive warnings that your virtual memory is low, you'll need to increase the minimum size of your paging file. Windows sets the initial minimum size of the paging file at the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed on your computer plus 300 megabytes (MB), and the maximum size at 3 times the amount of RAM installed on your computer. If you see warnings at these recommended levels, then increase the minimum and maximum sizes.
...
Increases in size usually don't require a restart, but if you decrease the size, you'll need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. We recommend that you don't disable or delete the paging file.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Gray1989 on April 08, 2012, 02:23:45 AM
@BC Programmer, you are obviously pissed and have way too much free time on your hands. I on the other hand keep my posts short because I do in fact have better things to do with my time. Maybe a little OCD is preventing me from doing those things. Anyways, like i said I have better things to do. The fact that you attempt to make fun of my listed accomplishments only reminds me of them again and makes me more satisfied with the fact I was able to accomplish them. BTW I obviously know proper grammar and your pitiful attempts at aggravating me are only making me realize how much you yourself angered by this whole thing (maybe being corrected by somebody younger than yourself?) and it really kind of makes me feel sorry for you. Please, lighten up and try to have a better day :)
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 08, 2012, 06:46:46 AM
I on the other hand keep my posts short because I do in fact have better things to do with my time.
Perhaps you could do them.. Thank you.
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: BC_Programmer on April 08, 2012, 09:32:44 AM
you are obviously pissed
Best description of how I view this thread is "amusing" actually. Yesterday I thought it was hilarious, but when you hear the same joke repeat itself numerous times, it tends to get old.

Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 08, 2012, 01:23:38 PM
BC_P, this thread has now passed from  "Oversize page-file"
- to "Enlarged Prostrate".   ::)
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Allan on April 08, 2012, 01:28:11 PM
"Prostrate"?
Title: Re: is this ok? my sys gives me 8gb of virtual memory when i already got 8gb of ram
Post by: Geek-9pm on April 08, 2012, 01:40:55 PM
"Prostrate"?
OH NO. I meant "Prostate"


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