How much ram? 4gb or 8gb?

Let's see, a M$ feature being discussed in a M$ blog, what would be the outcome of that I wonder?

 

Have you tried it with paging enabled? My guess it was the increase of RAM, as your system may not have to thrash or possibly page out other stuff in general. Have you tried it w/ virtual memory enabled? VS 2010 boots in about 3 seconds for me, and w/ out any solution loaded it consumes about 56+MB.

Also, I wouldn't recommend debugging or developing in VS w/ out paging. I guess it really depends on your app, but on some server based systems, (hi perf / hi caching) 64-bit I've written can allocate 3GB plus when configured aggressively to use RAM.

 

Assuming you don't mind giving up the space... Yes.

See "Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?" at Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives - Engineering Windows 7 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

For the OS, Yes. But who starts up the computer just to look at the operating system?

It is the power of running applications that matters. Loading multiple 400MB TIFF files in photoshop? Loading up a large Word document, Excel spread sheet, and PowerPoint presentation along side a browser? Running hi performance apps which use a lot of memory cache? 1GB is not gonna cut it w/ out virtual memory.

If you never run enough apps that allocate more than the memory in the system, then no it will not slow down the system. Windows should use the virtual memory sparingly, and using resmon to monitor page faults can provide this data.

Also for those w/ pagefile complaints, one thing you may want to check out is fragmentation on the disk where the page file is placed. If the page file size is growing and shrinking (and not set to set file size), I could see a system having a large performance hit where a disk is severely fragmented as it expands the file.

For those interested on this subject:

a) pagefile.sys is a piece of Microsoft's implementation of virtual memory. For more information regarding virtual memory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging

b) A bit old, but still good tips in -

• http://oreilly.com/pub/a/windows/2004/04/27/pagefile.html
• http://www.techrepublic.com/article/take-control-of-the-windows-xp-pagefile/1056269
• http://www.diskmagik.com/frag.html
• http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

[edit] edited to clarify that virtual memory will not necessarily slow down the system. not that windows won't use virtual memory. [/edit]

 

JClausius, the page file is used regardless of how much RAM you have. You can have 8GB and certain programs will still page.

 

New system (SNB, correct?) would dictate 16GB RAM.

Everything else is a poor imitation of a 'balanced' Sandy Bridge system for 2011 (and going forward).

 

Sorry that my post was a bit ambiguous.

From some details in resmon help -

"Memory, Committed Bytes: This is a measure of the demand for virtual memory. It shows how many bytes have been allocated by processes and to which the operating system has committed a RAM page frame or a page slot in the pagefile (or both)."

So yes, there is some book keeping tying a process' virtual address space to a location in the page file all handled by the virtual memory manager within Windows.

The details continue...

"As Committed Bytes grows above the available RAM, paging increases, and the amount of the pagefile in use also increases. At some point, paging activity starts to significantly affect perceived performance."

So to clarify, I should say the swap file is used sparingly, and use increases when apps allocate more memory than is available on the system.

------------------------------

Some other data -

- http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=294418

So, this explains paging is used (even w/ enough free memory).

------------------

- http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm

It looks like the answer to this question is based in your own usage (which is what I've been advocating). Check it out

 

So uhm..Pagefile on at default or disable when we have more than enough RAM like 8GB?

 

If you have 8GB... it's probably safe to disable it. If you run into problems, enable it.

 

Thanks! Now theres a great conclusion lol.. Rep for you.

 

Exactly. I very rarely run into OOM with 6GB (under very hard load).

 

I compile with VS2008/10 and I'd probably run into problems with 4/6GB. I'm moving to 8GB soon, hopefully.

 

Have you tried it? I've been using 4GB for VS 2008/SQL 2008 without any problems before..Though I believe 8GB would improve the performance a bit..

The entire time I had 4GB I've honestly never hit OOM..pagefile on though..Now I have pagefile off with 8GB of memory..

 

While compiling I hit 3.8GB. It really depends what you're compiling.

 

Yeah good point, you must be compiling huge stuff..Well with 8GB prices these days, getting 1 shouldn't be a problem..

 

I'm sure I would go higher if I didn't have 4GB. I'm sure I'll make good use of the 8GB.

I think I'll use 2GB on an eboostr cache, just to try it out.

 

May I ask what the ebooster cache does?

 

@BeastRider & Hungry_Man regarding Visual Studio-

A couple of other notes, I already covered suggestions for virtual memory with Visual Studio.

One thing to also keep in mind if you are a developer running SQL Server is SQL Server has an aggressive caching model (I *think* Express editions may be slightly less aggressive). If you use any databases that are hundreds of GB, turning off the swapfile can lead to problems - especially with the x64 version. If you haven't already, take a look at your max server memory run values to ensure SQL Server is not caching outside expected values:

Code:

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure 'max server memory'

Also note, you may run into problems if you have a large number of databases on you SQL Server instance - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316749


@BeastRider - In regards to eBoostr, I'm pretty sure it is a RAM drive which creates a solid state disk area from extra memory or any attached Flash drives for caching disk information.

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In the end, this goes back to the point I'm trying to make w/ Gracy. You can turn off the pagefile for virtual memory, but it really depends on the end user's usage to know if this is a viable solution. To just come out and say it will work w/ out any qualifiers is just wrong. It really depends on how a computer system is being used.

 

I primarily just use VS and SQL for school, so I don't think the builds are that big as well as the databases.. Thanks though, the eBooster thingy, does it improve performance? i mean what benefits would i have from using this program?

 

Ah.. I see. I've been developing for 20+ yrs now - including all kinds of database work. So I've been running large builds and debugging larger databases for customers for some time now.

In any case, eBoostr may improve your system performance, but it depends on your configuration. For instance, if you are using SSD, I think the verdict is still out on any benefits there. If you have a slower platter/spindle based disk, and an available flash drive or extra memory, then I believe it should improve disk related bottle necks. If you have some of these new faster drives (7.2K/10K RPM), I couldn't say what impact that would have there either.

Be aware, disk related bottlenecks are not necessarily a large component of all the components a piece of software runs through. If "tilleroftheearth" is reading this thread, he will opine. If not, try to find a post of his about SSD and RAID 0 is senseless.

In any case, you could try it out on your own system and see what kind of impact it has on your daily work.

 

Yeah I know him..I get it, so if for example i can use the extra RAM I have as actual physical storage? Or will it automatically just serve as cache? Plus I was thinking, could I use the SD card slot and add like a 16GB flash SD and use eBooster? Seems pretty complicated though..lol, first time to do this if ever..I'd probably just live without out if little/no performance gains would actually be felt..

 

THanks for the VS advice. I'll take it into consideration. I don't often use it but I'd like ot be prepared.

What eboostr does is moves a cache (that it builds itself based on program preferences and most used files) and puts them somewhere.

You can put them on a USB flash drive or your RAM or wherever.

I personally have a pretty fast HDD so I won't be using the USB flash drive because it won't help... it own't hurt either because eboostr checks both drives at the same time (unless it's in powersave mode.)

RAM however is MUCH faster than your HDD but it is volatile, meaning you have to reload the cache every time because once the power shuts off you lose it.

By moving files to your RAM you can access them much faster. Consider that you'll get maybe 50MB/s read on a HDD. You'll get aroudn 18GB/s from RAM.

So if your most used files are kept in RAM you can see how that would be beneficial.

SD cards are very slow, slower than your hard drive, so it would basically serve no purpose to use one as a cache. USB's will help with older 5400RPM drives but my 7,200RPM drive + SSD will probably be just as fast if not faster.

If/when I get 8GB I'm going to see if I Can reallocate 2GB and have eboostr automatically assign most used files to it.

 

Oh alright..I get it..Off topic, did u move TEMP files from your SSD to a different location? In topic, so it would basically be like what the momentus XT drive does, only is uses extra RAM? The eBooster automatically sets most used files to the allocated RAM space? Or do you have to do this manually? Might try eBooster since I only use up to like 3GB..I can use maybe 3-4GB for eBooster and it sounds like it'll be quite a performance boost..Is it difficult to set eBooster?

 

I don't have an SSD I was referring to the momentus XT's SSD part.

And yes, exactly waht the XT does bu with RAM. The difference being that RAM gets reset when it's powered off so you have to reload the cache each time.

I haven't had much experience with ebooster but I've seen benchmarks from users on this forum and they have reported good things.

 

My bad lol..Yeah I'm using an XT as well..I see, so you haven't tried eBooster? I'll try it maybe..Would you happen to know if eBooster automatically detects frequently used programs or if i have to enter the programs manually? Sounds like something worth doing..Especially for someone like me who doesn't really make use of the 8GB RAM..I can use a lot of RAM for cache if eBooster works the way I understand..

 

You don't need ebooster for that. Windows would use all unused RAM for cache. If it doesn't(say if you check your memory) it means your regular working set is not that large. My experience shows that I would top out around 2G as far as cache is concerned. Why I suggest 2G + your real working set. So 6GB is a pretty optimal figure.

 

I'm using around 2GB cache as well according to task manager..So then what does eBooster actually do?..Sorry this is new to me..

 

My understanding is that it is a third party 'readyboost' solution. That is, it use SD/USB flash as cache.

If you have enough RAM, readyboost helps very little performance wise. It does reduce disk activity so it helps temperature wise.

 

If you have RAM to spare Windows kind of just leaves it alone... it doesn't really use it for cache and it's left "free." You can assign some of that ram to a ramdisk.

You can do two things:
1) Assign certain programs to be prioritized.
2) (this is automatic) It checks files that you often access from the HDD and caches them.

I tested it out on 4GB. I left it open a bit and just went around and the ratio of it hitting the cache was pretty decent.