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Hey guys its been a long time. Anyways I had a question. Recently I got call of duty 4 for the pc. My pc is in very good shape. 4gb of ram, core 2 duo 2.53ghz nvidia 9600m gt 500gb hard drive. Well the game runs good but sometimes it can have lag. Could increasing my virtual ram improve my computer and game preformance? Also is increasing your virtual ram safe? Could it ruin my computer? 4362mb it is and it says the recomended amount is 6093mb. I heard the rule of thumb is x 1.5. So can someone tell me about this and what will it and is it safe?
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mesarmath,
is it simply down clocking because of increasingly rising temperatures?
Jalf,
First, let me agree with you that on most systems with less than 4GB and certainly on all systems with only 2GB of RAM or less, leave the pagefile settings alone!
In the above cases, Windows does know best for most users.
As you can imagine from my first post, I have spent some time experimenting with the size of the pagefile. Windows actually uses that antiquated RAM x 1.5 method for setting the size, so in 8GB systems or more, you are wasting a lot of space for really, no reason.
With an SSD, it is even more important to limit the pagefile size. Not because of 'extra' wear on the flash memory (I don't care about that, I consider that part of operating Windows and actually MS points out that the pagefile is best suited to an SSD), but because of the relatively small capacities we currently have (in SSD's) and the detrimental effect on performance of using anything much over 50% of an SSD's total capacity.
The pagefile size also depends on what applications you're running. With multiple RAW converter (image) programs running, including PS CS4 and many smaller programs - a 2GB pagefile has been sufficient for my uses (512MB pagefile on each of 4 Raptors). Why? Mostly because each program I use has it's own swapfile it creates and doesn't rely solely on Vista's. This is my desktop with 8GB of RAM.
On my notebook, also with 8GB of RAM, I have set the pagefile size to 512MB and because I don't demand multiple (large) programs to perform at the same level as my multi-Raptor desktop setup, it also has proven reliable, this time with Windows 7.
Also, if you have multiple physical hard drives (not partitions), it is advisable to setup a pagefile on each one for maximum overall performance of a system. This happens because when Windows has a choice of which pagefile to use - it will use the fastest one first - automatically.
So, in summary, change the Managed by Windows pagefile setting at your own risk (to overall performance), but if you are making intelligent decisions based on your actual usage and the applications you use, then I say you can see an increase in performance, with overall improvements worth the small one time investment to find the 'best' setup for you.
I also can state to 'never' disable the pagefile - unless a stable O/S is not a priority you value and/or you never push your system to its limits.
Maybe Win 8 will be intelligent enough to set pagefiles on each physical HD it finds and/or set the size of the primary pf on C: to a much lower limit that it defaults to now (especially on systems with 4GB of RAM or more). Until then, as usual, if you need maximum performance - you need to set the pagefile manually. -
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Of course, it depends on the use, but I find that turning off the pagefile actually increases HD usage.
If you do want to turn it off though, make sure you First set it to its smallest size (16MB), then turn it off. Otherwise, you'll have all the (non) benefits of no pagefile while still allowing it to use the full size it was set to - just before you turned it off.
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Lag in games shouldn't really be connected to the page file one way or the other.
Usually it's associated with gpu drivers that don't do well in the performance department for your gpu, and possibly some extra programs running in the background you don't need.
Also keep in mind that benchmarking programs are not really an exact indication of how your games will perform since in some overclocking cases people noticed severe performance increases in games while the benchmark program increased marginally.
Use Ccleaner to remove anything from the Windows startup (apart from antivirus, the touchpad drivers [if they want to startup] and possibly a program you utilize to connect to the Internet - if you have such a connection setup ... everything else is nothing but a drain on resources).
Update your gpu drivers or simply remove the present ones, then run Ccleaner to clean up house, restart, and install them again (or try replacing them with an earlier/latest version of the drivers that might yield better results).
McAfee antivirus?
My recommendation: remove it immediately and replace with MSE (Microsoft security essentials) or Avira.
There's really no point in having full Internet Security suites if you take a few basic steps when it comes with web surfing, and McAfee is a serious drain on system resources.
While I do agree with the premise that turning off the page file (if you have large enough RAM capacity) shouldn't really compromise your system, I would be cautious though if you are working with RAM intensive programs such as 3d Studio Max like myself (in which case I prefer keeping the page file intact due to the fact that Max in itself can drain even 4Gb RAM when I'm working with very high polygon textures/meshes and render out test shots on a regular basis).
Try turning off the page file if you feel like it and have a go at it for a test period.
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Virtual ram
Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by 4fingers97, Nov 30, 2009.
