what should my virtual memory be set on for best peformance?

Question

I had my friend come over one day and he is a computer hacker and what not? He set up my virtual memory, but a few days later, I formatted my computer. He is in jail right now for god only knows what, but what should it be set on for the best performance. Right now: initial size (MB): 672 Maximum size (MB): 1344. My hard disk is 60 gigs. My sddram is like somewhere around 489 or something like that...

Answer 1

I'd set it up to use 'System managed size' instead of trying to choose an arbitrary value. With 'System managed size' set, if the system needs more virtual memory, the system will automatically expand the amount of VM (virtual memory) paging needs as necessary.



The benefit to choosing it yourself is that the VM will never grow beyond the size you specify and it preallocates the space up front. So, if you think there's a chance it could run you out of disk space when 'System managed', then it's better to choose the value than letting it grow. When the system grows the VM, there's a bit of a system performance slowdown until it's done adding more space to the VM.



With the size of your hard drive and since it's newly formatted (little used), I'd say you're not in any danger of running out of space. So, I'd use 'System managed size'.



If you need step by step on how to set it, let me know and I'll write up an explanation.



For best performance on a system, it's best not to have any paging file. A paging file always performs poorly because you're writing to a very slow disk device (compared to RAM). If you turn off paging, your system will always perform as fast as your RAM works. But, you'll be limited to the amount of RAM on your system (489 megs or whatever you said it is).



A preallocated paging file performs next best because it never grows the file (no slowdowns because it doesn't grow).



A dynamic paging file performs slowest, but only when it has to allocate new space.



Note that VM only allocates new space when you exceed the amount of RAM you have in your system. Once you get to this point anyway, the system will continue to run poorly until RAM usage is reduced. So, if you get to the point where you are using VM at all, your system will be slow anyway. As I said, if you want the best performance, you don't use a paging file and add more RAM to your machine.

Answer 2

It always amazes me how much mis-information is written about virtual memory. Just for clarity, virtual memory is also called a pagefile.



It is widely reported that virtual memory is slow. Compared to RAM, yes, it is slower,BUT, only slightly. The data that is stored in virtual memory is not only contigous, it has already been read and compiled by the CPU so it executes immeadiately when retrieved.



The Windows system and any good application software look for and utilize virutal memory for quick retrieval of lesser used functions and data lists to free up RAM for the core functiions.



To get the best performance utilizing virtual memory, the amount is 1.5 x RAM. An example would be if you had 256Mb of RAM, you would set it at 384Mb. and so on.



The minimum and maximum should be set to the same amount. This does two things, it allocates all the space at once which makes it easier for the system to store it contiguously and keeps the memory manager from interrupting the system to allocate more when a lesser amount has been used up.



If you have a second drive, set up the first partition for just a pagefile. If you can do this, also add a small (64Mb is fine) pagefile on c:\ for the system to use.



If you look at the report after defragging your drive, it tells you how many fragements there are in the pagefile. If it reports more than 5, set the amount to zero, reboot, and reset it to the original amount. This clears the pagefile and reallocates it, you start fresh.



Of course, more RAM is the best way to improve performance, but until you get above 1Gb, virtual memory does a reasonable job of helping the overall performance.

Answer 3

Set the minimum = the maximum (this keeps the OS from growing & shrinking the pagefile)



Monitor pagefile usage in taskmanager PERFORMANCE tab (bring it up with a right-click in an unused area of the task bar)



If the "peak" stays below the "limit" with a little room to spare (even when you have a bunch of stuff open) then you're ok. If not, then bump the size up a little (but set max = min).



BTW: If you set the page file too small, Windows will tell you. If you set it too large, it won't.

Answer 4

It is said that it would be suitable if u set up twice size of ur physical memory. But the performance is varied on computers.