2GB of RAM is more effective with XP!

[Steve Marshall]

Report back from new RAM install; took system from 1GB of PC3200 DDR
SDRAM to 2GB of same - big increase in speed across the board!

Using Page File Monitor (thanks Ron Martell for that link - great
program) I now have peak page file usage of 5 MB vs. 97 MB after playing
a hungry resource beast like Half Life 2.

In general, though, everything a little snappier and worth the money.

Using 2 Crucial non-ECC, unbuffered 1GB sticks of 3 CAS latency PC3200
DDR 400 SDRAM.

Thanks to all who responded to my original question.

 

[Guest]

Peak usage of the page file huh,sure youve really set it correctly ? For
optimizing
any computer with that much ram,or over 512mb,one would certainly disable
the paging executive in the registry,bet they didnt tell you about that
information.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Peak usage of the page file huh,sure youve really set it correctly ? For
optimizing
any computer with that much ram,or over 512mb,one would certainly disable
the paging executive in the registry,bet they didnt tell you about that
information.

DONT

There are other reasons why XP needs a page file, even though it is not
going to write anything to it. See explanation at
www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Peak usage of the page file huh,sure youve really set it correctly ?
For optimizing
any computer with that much ram,or over 512mb,one would certainly
disable the paging executive in the registry,bet they didnt tell you
about that information.

Andrew - answer me something; were you born a ****witted moron or did you go
to classes? You don't have a clue and you don't appear to be accepting of
clue - Goddess knows the number of times I've bashed you around the head
with a clue-by-four. I hope one day someone sues you for the damage they
will do to their system by following your 'advice' - maybe then you'll *WAKE
UP*!! The page file should be left well alone - for a number of reasons (see
link posted by Alex). Now, do the computing community - and the world - a
favour by ceasing posting until you have the necessary skills to impart
advice - I have been following your bumblings for the better part of three
years and, in all that time, I have never read a single post where you offer
comprehensible, accurate and well-thought-out advice. I also notice you
never post to a thread more than once - it's probably because you know
damned well you're an idiot and don't want to be told.

Now get this into your thick head - the page file should *NEVER* be
disabled.

 

[Steve Marshall]

I have had the Paging Executive disabled for quite some time.

I have a custom swap file on the non-OS drive, set to the recommended
(by XP) of 3070MB for both minimum and maximum.

 

[Steve Marshall]

Alex,

I have read your article on VM numerous times and agree.

I do have the Paging Executive disabled but I do have a custom swap file

 

[Alex Nichol]

I do have the Paging Executive disabled but I do have a custom swap file
on a non-OS drive, set to 3070 min/max. I do not have any swap file set
on the OS drive.

If you disable the Paging executive, then the VM system is not in use.
There may be a file left around, but nothing is being written to it.
OTOH real RAM is being used to allocate a lot of those 'never been used'
pages, which ties up a lot of RAM (easily hundreds of MB) to no purpose
at all

 

[Carl Nettelblad]

If you disable the Paging executive, then the VM system is not in use.
There may be a file left around, but nothing is being written to it.
OTOH real RAM is being used to allocate a lot of those 'never been used'
pages, which ties up a lot of RAM (easily hundreds of MB) to no purpose
at all

Incorrect -- the paging executive flag is just about the kernel (executive)
code and data. That will normally not amount to hundreds of MBs. If you
really want to verify this, just set the flag to 1, reboot and write a small
program to allocate an amount of memory equal to the size of your RAM. It
will succeed, but some of it will naturally be in the page file.

/Carl