WinXp & Game~Partitions & best for WinXP?

[drybones]

Am in a quandary as to placing computer games within the same partition as
Windows XP with SP2, or setting up a separate large partition with a few
special folders to place the computer.games individually into.

(?) Also there is the option of setting up a partition for each individual
game
outside the primary Windows XP partition.

Wanting to achieve the best possible environment for the WinXP working
condition I am thinking of moving the Paging File to the first partition (D)
to improve Win XP's ability to work faster.

Lots of questions and I do appreciate your advice with each possible
setup of my 're-install' of Win XP and partitioning of the 160GB hard drive.

I thank you for reading this message and hope for positive responses.
drybones

 

[Gordon]

Wanting to achieve the best possible environment for the WinXP working
condition I am thinking of moving the Paging File to the first partition
(D)
to improve Win XP's ability to work faster.

Won't do anything for speed unless the D partition is on a separate
HDD.......

 

[drybones]

Won't do anything for speed unless the D partition is on a separate
HDD.......

Okay, so I then place the Paging File on HD #2 in a special partition
for it?
drybones

 

[John John]

None of what you suggest or propose is necessary and any or all of it
will have the opposite results, it will in effect degrade performance.

John

 

[Gordon]

Okay, so I then place the Paging File on HD #2 in a special partition
for it?
drybones

That's a better option yes. have a look here for one of the best sites on
the XP Pagefile:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

 

[drybones]

John,
Please be more specific. Are you saying that I should leave everything
within the Primary partition? Games and so forth?
If so 'why'?
drybones

 

[John John]

In your house/home design would you put the sink, refrigerator and
dishwasher in separate "rooms" to make cooking meals more efficient and
faster? No, all it would do is make you run around alot more! As for
the pagefile, placing it on a different partition on the same hard disk
is tantamount to putting the kitchen stove in the attic!

Leave ALL Windows and program working files on the same partition. You
might want to cut the hard disk into different partitions to store your
data or to make smaller more manageable data storage areas but as a
general rule don't place programs or Windows files on these partitions.
Now, if you have more than one hard disk that's a different matter.

John

 

[drybones]

That's a better option yes. have a look here for one of the best sites on
the XP Pagefile:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

Great read! Just wish I were a bit more technology trained.
Have 2GB DDR 2 SDRAM. What actual size would the Paging file be
when placed on partition #1 of the 2nd HD and size of the partition?
drybones

 

[Gordon]

Great read! Just wish I were a bit more technology trained.
Have 2GB DDR 2 SDRAM. What actual size would the Paging file be
when placed on partition #1 of the 2nd HD and size of the partition?
drybones

You'd need quite a small one -
Have a look here:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

and here for a tool to monitor your pagefile usage:
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/
(it's the file at the top you need)

HTH

 

[drybones]

I do have two hard disks. Am using the second at the moment for Norton Ghost
backups (160GB)

Are you saying to leave the primary hard drive at 160GB and load ALL game
program folders into this Windows XP primary drive?
drybones

 

[John John]

Are these drives SATA or IDE? Do they share the same drive controller
in a master/slave relationship or are they masters on their own
controllers? Leave all the software on the same partition as Windows.
The pagefile, ...depends on the answers to the questions above.

John

 

[drybones]

SATA it is a new Dell XPS 600.
drybones

Are these drives SATA or IDE? Do they share the same drive controller in
a master/slave relationship or are they masters on their own controllers?
Leave all the software on the same partition as Windows. The pagefile,
...depends on the answers to the questions above.

John

 

[John John]

In this case it MIGHT be advantageous to have the pagefile on a
partition on the second disk. Keep the Windows and applications/program
files on the same partition on the first SATA disk.

As for the pagefile you could place the pagefile on the second disk but
if the system does little to no paging it may make little difference.
If you do a lot of file read writes on the second disk then it might not
be optimal to place the pagefile there. There is no one size fits all
with the placement of the pagefile. If the second hard disk is only
used for archives and light read write operations it could make sense to
put the pagefile there. Also note that it hurts nothing to have 2
pagefiles, by default Windows will favour and use the pagefile on the
least busy disk.

John

 

[drybones]

Thanks John,
Your reply helps a bunch with the page file. There is nothing else on the
second SATA but Ghost so to add a partition in the beginning with my
Partition Magic 8 would be no problem.

When I use Norton Speed disk I see a rather large sized Paging File
so must assume that a 4 GB partition might be good.
Your thoughts on 4 GB would be acceptable.

drybones

 

[John John]

You don't really need a partition just for the pagefile. I think the
idea of a separate partition just for the pagefile came more out of
having fragmentation of dynamic pagefiles than anything else. A dynamic
pagefile will resize to suit the needs of the operating system and if it
shares storage space it can become fragmented, which can in turn
negatively affect paging performance, so in the past many gave it its
own partition to avoid this performance hit. If you set a static
(fixed) size for the pagefile then it will not become fragmented and
there is no real need to have a separate partition just for the
pagefile, but it will hurt nothing to give it its own partition on an
otherwise unused or less used disk. Your second disk which appears to
be used very little would most likely be an excellent location for the
pagefile. Regardless of how much RAM you have installed in the computer
the maximum size of a pagefile on a disk is 4,095 MB so it would be
pointless to create partitions any larger than that to accommodate it.

Even if you move the pagefile from the boot volume you should still
maintain a small pagefile on the volume to accommodate for a memory.dmp
or crash dump file in the event of a kernel mode STOP error or BSOD.
Without a pagefile on the boot volume the debug information will not be
captured and that might make troubleshooting STOP errors more difficult.

John

 

[Joe Wright]

In your house/home design would you put the sink, refrigerator and
dishwasher in separate "rooms" to make cooking meals more efficient and
faster? No, all it would do is make you run around a lot more! As for
the pagefile, placing it on a different partition on the same hard disk
is tantamount to putting the kitchen stove in the attic!

If the C:\ drive had six heads, e.g., odds are that some other files
being accessed could slow access to the swap file since any one head
can't be in two places at the same time. If, on the other hand, another
drive D:\ was dedicated to the swap file, any of its six heads, when
needed to access its particular disc within that hd, would have instant
access.

 

[John John]

You cannot pull information from 2 different areas on a hard disk at the
same time... even if you have 20,000 heads! Placing the pagefile on a
different partition on the same disk that holds the boot volume is just
plainly a bad and counterproductive idea.

John