Ramdisk for Page File?

Hey guys, i dont know if i posted this in the correct sub-section but my question is as follows.

I have 4gb of ram on a 32bit os (so 3 is visible)

I was thinking, since the speed should be farely good (right?)
Can i assign that as Page filing, as it will be seen straight away from boot up (i believe) Or is this idea quite strange?

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/

Thanks all.
Cata

 

I thought a page file was for when you didn't have enough RAM; programs would use the pagefile as virtual RAM.

 

Yes that is correct, but at the same time there is a small loss of drive performance (why people favour ready boost?) so im thinking moving the page file from HDD to ram, what do you think?

Its also a 5400RPM HDD

 

So you would have a virtual RAM space in your RAM?

 

The only reason to ever do this is if you're running a 32 bit OS and want to utilize more memory. You use a RAMdisk tool to create a ramdrive, set that drive to be all pagefile, and disable the pagefile on your real hard drive.
But true 64 bit is a better choice. If you're on XP, do it, yes, it will work.
If you're on Vista, just switch to X64. Your license covers both versions. Consider going to Vista X64 regardless of what you're on.

 

Yes correct, would make that extra ram more useful and if i were going to game (so ramdac uses ram for gpu) then i could just disable the tool

Im just wondering if page file works on ram really, i would think so.

 

:sigh:

This somes up every once in a while.

If you have a 4Gb machine and a 32bit microsoft OS that is reporting 3.5 Gb of ram, adding a ram disk will NOT let you 'use' that missing 512 Mb. Any software that loads/runs after windows boots is subject to the windows hardware limitations including whatever ram is reported by the kernel. Dot. Period. End.of.story.

Someone else gets to fill in the details.

 

Page file by design actually keeps a copy of everything thats in ram, on the hard drive that way when it has to knock something out of ram it doesnt have to copy it. Thats also why the recomendation is to have a page file twice the size of the ram but atleast the same size.

Having the page file commited to ram is nearly pointless, Ideally you would want twice the amount of ram and its like having dual redundant ram.

If you have enough ram todo what your doing and want to take the load off the hard drive your best off disabling the page file. Anything else is a pointless run around and will also increase cpu usage.

 

uhm, clutch, no? it doesn't have a copy of everything in ram.


but moving the page file to ram is very pointless. better then remove that ramdisk and let the os use that ram directly so it doesn't go to the pagefile at the first time.

just let the pagefile on, and don't care about it. it's there in the moment you need it, and normally doesn't hurt when you don't need it.

you're on vista or win7, right? on xp, the pagefile can hurt. on vista, the pagefile doesn't even hurt when you're on a slow 1.8" 4200rpm hdd with 15ms latency. so it can't really hurt you

 

So.... you'd rather take a loss of ram performance and not drive performance?

This is a horrible idea at least for 99% of the time. If you already have enough ram and don't want page file, just disable it.

Assuming you already have enough ram, most of the files on page file are all useless files. That's why it's paged out in the first place.

 

The only good reason I can think of to use a RAMDISK for a pagefile would be if it were using RAM that was not accessible by the OS. AFAIK that link you provided is just for a normal RAMDISK with access to RAM that is usable by the system and therefore pointless for using as such.

The only one I know of is SuperSpeed RAMDISK plus which has it's own MS certified driver to access the memory that is remapped above the 4GB Windows 32-bit OS limit. I did try the trial version a while back and it managed 750MB out of 1GB that was normally not accessible leaving 3GB of RAM still available to the system. The downside is that it's not free, something like $50.

http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php

 

What I am looking at right now says different. Now while I cant see whats in the page file myself the Page file's current occupied space is currently slightly more then whats in ram. Page file is currently twice what my ram is as recommended but also is set automatically at this point. Memory usage is 34% and 36% (subtracting half the page file to get that) respectivley.

Page Filling on NT systems is alot different then previous implementations of virtual memory. As well as different then how Linux likes to cache everything in the world in the swap.

Trying to find you some documentation, difficult as usual lol. I read it all a couple years back when researching page faults and what not.

 

I have 4gb on my 32bit XP but it only reads 3.02gb or something like that. But then I bought RAMDISK plus and it does use the 1gb that xp cannot see. so i put a 1gb pagefile on that and everything runs smooth. When I have three or four programs open, nothing lags going from one to another

 

I was mainly commenting at "it contains everything that is in ram". that way, you could drop your ram completely, as the hdd would do everything all the time to be actual and all.

the pagefile contains the stuff that is NOT in ram right now.

 

As well as in most modern cases additionally everything that is. The computer could not operate without a base amount of ram to maintain the operation of the operating system etc. While very slow outside of that it doesn't need anything else.

Hypothetically and i bring this because it actually explains page faults. If a system were designed properly and to be fail safe. If everything not needed to keep the system running where to drop out of ram, upwards of millions of page faults would occur. The system would look for data in ram, it would not be there. This is a page fault, what happens next is the same data is referenced in the page file. Im not sure what its called if its in neither but probably going to get access violations and possibly crash depending on what it is.

Unrelated but similar is how anything in processor cache should also be in ram. A cache miss occurs when something the cpu is looking for is not in cache and then it falls back on the ram.

The reason why a page file by modern design can and should contain what is in ram is because this can increase performance. Its faster to write to ram and the hard drive at the same time (The hard drive of course takes longer to write to but were talking in the long run). If your write it to the ram and then decide we need to clear ram, its slower to have to wait for that to be copied from ram to the hard drive then free up the allocated space then it is to already have it in the second location and just instantly let it go.

 

ramdisk+ slides a pre-boot shim in that takes care of remapping memory around the hardware devices. That's how it (and others) work around windows. The downside of this approach that your machine is now a lot more vulnerable to potential memory and cpu cache errors that would normally be captured and fixed by the kernel.

 

Ahh, thanks for this everyone, i have learnt a great deal, i guess a HDD upgrade and 64bit OS are in order

Thanks again.
Cata