Need advise - Gaming on G73 - Paging File

So I am on the fence about disabling my pagefile on my Best Buy G73 (6Gb 1066). I primarily game (Fallout 3 etc..I've read that Fallout 3 utilizes the HD often due to swapping tex files etc???) Anyway, I do a bit of IT so I understand the how the paging file works. From what I read below, Windows 7 utilizes the page file quite different from previous OS's (XP) and is quite a bit more effecient. My question is, is the benefit worth the risk? I mean I know it may be application/game dependent on whether disabling it will improve gaming performance, but Im on the fence. Do you think the only way to figure this out is to disable it, reboot, run Fallout 3 or other games and see if I notice a difference? Then...If I get an error (some say Win7 will throw a error if the RAM gets over 50% - so 3Gb in my case) then I'll simply set it back to "let windows manage" and reboot if these issues occur.


1. If you don't have a page file, you can't use all the RAM you have.
That's because Windows preallocates virtual memory in anticipation of
a possible need for it, even though that allocated virtual memory may
never be used. Without a page file, that allocation has to be made in
real memory, thus tying up that memory and preventing it from being
used for any purpose.

2. There is never a benefit in not having a page file. If it isn't
needed, it won't be used. Don't confuse allocated memory with used
memory.

Secondly: It's common knowledge that XP does not use extended amounts of RAM, except when required. Therefore shutting off the pagefile might have benefits on a system with lots of installed memory and while running programs which do not require a P/F. Why? Doing this tricks the OS into keeping more objects in RAM than it would otherwise.

However, this is NOT true with Vista and Windows 7. These will try to maximize the usage of RAM by default, not to mention the intentional caching features. Microsoft changed the P/F's behavior so that it has more of a Queuing role - essentially maintaing a record/list of what is in memory *plus* what could be useful but isn't at the moment.

These two things being true: Disabling Pagefile can be an option in XP, but shouldn't be a consideration in Vista or Win 7.

ALSO-I am running my stock BIOS (204 I think?) and all stock drivers including the GPU's. I have not updated the BIOS to 211 bc I run very stable on stock everything. With this being said, is there any way to know, or can I be rest assured that my GPU 5870 is clocking to the max during games? I currently run HWMointor. I just want to make sure everything is optimal. (Right now I have the slider in the CCC set to "optimal quality" and the battery and Power4Gear on high performance mode)

 

windows will throw a error if the ram usage goes over 90% not 50%. Since you have 6gb of ram odds are turning it off will still do nothing, since if the game needs to access the hdd, it will still continue to access the hdd. I'm assuming the issue some people have is when parts of the game load, it can stutter or freeze. You won't be hurting anything to try.

 

Just read some posts by Kalim...he seems to know his stuff....I am not going to let windows manage it nor turn it off. Since HD space is not an issue for me, I am going to set the min and max to a static 1.5x my RAM so 9216MB.

I also learned that I should not be running in "twin turbo" mode as it actually hinders the use of all the cores (rather than "boostin" a single core application which, who does single core apps period?)

Kalim-If your there, what do you take from the bolded and italic'd information I quoted in my first post regarding Windows 7 pagefile and its "Queing" role? The guy who wrote that seems to think that everone has an outdated way of thinking regarding the pagefile...and that things have changed in the OS's architecture (esp. with Win7) and that the engineers at microsoft know a little more about utilizing the pagefile than we do...so to not mess with it.

Also, I read somewhere that the stock "vBIOS" on the 5870 in our rigs is crap. What does this mean and whats a vBIOS? Whats the fix if this is true? Again, my 5870 and everything else runs great as of current and I only want to change things if they are not running at optimal performance.

 

The only thing I do to the Page file is set it to a fixed size.
That seems to work the best for me.
I do a defrag and then go in and set the size of the page file I put the min/max at the same size, that way it stays at that amount. And it will set the page file to a fixed spot on the HD , in theory the HD addressing for this file stays at the same address and the heads do not have to search the drive looking for the data.
If you do a before and after test of this you will see a better data flow. But it will not be a huge leap in through put as some sites say.
If you remove your page file you will see a slow down of the data and you will also get a lag as the Op system will still do a search for the page file even though it is not there.
And if you have two HD's then the system will check both drives for the page file.


There seems to be a lot of tricks on the page file that can be done, and I have tried most of them over the years. And most I tried did not help in any way, but quite a few did slow things down.

So if you want to give it a go and see for yourself then try to set the page file to a fixed size, I think you will see some improvement ,but do not expect a miracle in performance when you do this.

 

Hi,
I tried to manage virtual memory on my g73. I tried to set it to maximum and then to minimum but nor one of those options wasn't good. Minimum or zero was bad because of instability of system and maximum was bad because of lagging in games (like GTA4) and increased activity of HDD. Best option for my book was to set virtual memory to 400MB. That is the minimal value for windows that's needed to save dump when system crash appear. I am not saying that this value is best for other's but for me it's best.

 

And this is what counts, what is best for you and what you are using.
Also you can always go in and change it anytime you wish.

The one thing though I would have you do is do a full defrag that moves all the folders and programs on the drive and put them together , then set the Page file and set the Min/Max to the same and the save and reboot as that will set the Page file to a set location and all using the same blocks of space.
And if you are using Windows Defrag I would download an other Defrag from Cnet or some other site that does a lot better job and is a lot faster .
One would think that Windows Defrag would be a much better program than it is.

 

BattleNut-Did just that. Defrag'd with my defraggler, set page file to a static value min/max of 9216MB. reboot. and turned twin turbo off. Played Fallout 3 and it is MUCH smoother. No stuttering as was before. I dont think this is due to the page file so much but rather the TWIN TURBO bottlenecking to one core. As Kalim stated, the twin turbo put a single core to 2.8Ghz and with it off ALL cores can operate more efficiently thus play the game smoother. This is all my feeling of course. It did crash once (It had prior to the changes) though and it was weird, for a good 3 minutes after the crash to desktop, my HWMonitor would not read my GPU???? After I reset the program and ran the sensors again, it started working again. Very odd

I noticed with the TWIN TURBO off that all cores during gaming stay 20 degrees cooler...My GPU is always maxing at 92 ish

 

Twin Turbo doesn't do that. TurboBoost overclocks the cores. Twin Turbo does a fixed boost to the bus speed and memory. The Bus speed increase causes the chip multiplier to drop, which is why performance drops compared to standard mode.

 

Keep in mind the purpose of the paging file was to act as overflow space for old machines with very limited ram [128-256MB] so that programs that needed more space could use the HDD as ram. In today's machines, the paging file is essentially obsolete [except in specialized circumstances] and can be safely disabled [thus relieving Windows from having to manage one more essentially useless process]

In very rare circumstances an old or badly coded piece of software may require that a paging file exist, which you can get around by setting a 128mb paging file.

I've been disabling the paging file so long I just do it out of habit now. I'd rather know that Windows will use my vast expanse of quickly accessed ram than fear that it's trying to use my HDD, which is obviously a much slower way to operate. Seriously, I've got 8 gig of ram, and I've never used anywhere close to half of it. Why would I give my O/S room to use my HDD as more?

 

Same here. I have 8GB of RAM, and I've never had an issue with disabling the paging file. I disabled mine because I'm on an SSD, and that gave me almost 9GB of space back, with no ill effects.