Opinion on Virtual Memory

[bsforyt727]

I purchased a new laptop with 16 GB of ram. Pagefile is set to system managed (1 GB). Should i change it manually? This is because it seems even though my RAM is not committed even 12 GB windows is swapping it to the SSD.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How much swap usage are you seeing? Typically you should leave it to the default unless you have a weird usecase or issues. Using pagefile won't cause issue, and can help performance as programs will store unallocted memory on pagefile instead of actual memory, saving space for caching.

[bsforyt727]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much swap usage are you seeing? Typically you should leave it to the default unless you have a weird usecase or issues. Using pagefile won't cause issue, and can help performance as programs will store unallocted memory on pagefile instead of actual memory, saving space for caching.

0.9 GB or thereabouts.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, bsforyt727 said:

0.9 GB or thereabouts.

How much bandwidth are you seeing? Unless your seeing lots of bandwidth to the page file I don't see an issue. And if that happens you probably need more ram.

[Eigenvektor]

Windows moving stuff that isn't actively used to swap is a good thing. This makes more physical memory available to processes that might need it in the future. So generally just leave it as is.

[cmndr]

Most people are better off leaving it on the windows default vs changing it. 

If you want something "better" consider adding in a cheap 16GB optane stick just for swap, they're as low as $5 each on ebay, shipping included. I think I bought a 3 pack for $10 once. Ensure you have an extra m.2 nvme slot. 

[da na]

Fine as-is. Any modern SSD is capable of handling a swap file with sufficient speed, and 1GB is fine capacity-wise.

[Kisai]

15 hours ago, bsforyt727 said:

I purchased a new laptop with 16 GB of ram. Pagefile is set to system managed (1 GB). Should i change it manually? This is because it seems even though my RAM is not committed even 12 GB windows is swapping it to the SSD.

You shouldn't even need to have swap "enabled" but more to the point you need to have some swap so a memory dump can exist after a BSOD.  The rule used to be, back in the 386 era, to have 1.5x as much swap as you do RAM, but we've largely been able to install more RAM than the OS can use since Windows Vista and other x64 bit compiled OS's. 

 

You only want to turn page files entirely off if you're going the full way and turning all the logs off as well so that the device writes nothing to the OS partition. In which case you'd have things that only need to exist and be writable to a RAMdrive, and when the system is rebooted, the contents are wiped. Nobody does this outside of embedded systems and it's usually not even worth attempting on a desktop.

 

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

Just let Windows manage the page file. Messing with that kind of stuff will only cause problems outside of very specific niche use cases.

[LogicalDrm]

I have bit doubt that it would be 1Gb with system managed. Windows default has been 50% of system memory for ages.

[Egon3]

10 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

I have bit doubt that it would be 1Gb with system managed. Windows default has been 50% of system memory for ages.

I'm thinking the same thing as you. I have 32GB memory and my page file is just over 14GB when set to automatic. 

 

Either way, I would keep it on automatic if it isn't already. Windows will know what to do for most use cases.

[bsforyt727]

20 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

I have bit doubt that it would be 1Gb with system managed. Windows default has been 50% of system memory for ages.

That's what i fail to understand myself given that my gaming rig defaults at about 8 gigs having 32 GB of physical memory.

[LogicalDrm]

On 5/7/2024 at 4:06 PM, bsforyt727 said:

That's what i fail to understand myself given that my gaming rig defaults at about 8 gigs having 32 GB of physical memory.

Can you post screenshot from the settings page? Task Manager can be bit confusing here.

 

E: Actually looked at my pagefile. Its also system managed. At the moment, 2Gb, maxing at 4Gb. I have 32Gig of RAM.

Edited May 8 by LogicalDrm