paging file snafu

[0ld_Chicken]

So I've been playing with my paging file this morning after noticing some high usages in HWiNFO64 AND afterburner.  While playing Doom I am getting over 14gb of virtual memory commited with an 80% virtual memory load.  I find this interesting because I'm only using around 7gb of my 16gb of ram.  So I tried setting my pagefile to a smaller size, minimum 1024, max 2048.  After changing this (in control panel>system>advanced etc...) and restarting my pc I view the same usages while playing games like I haven't changed the pagefile size.  So I tried disabling the pagefile just to see what happens and again I get the same result of 14gb of virtual memory and around 7gb ram.    It's been the same in several games so far so I know it isn't just Doom

 

 

I'm just interested to know what is going on here?  It seems to me that my computer is going willy-nilly with virtual memory no matter what I set it to.  Am I just misunderstanding something here?   I'm not having performance issues, just curiosity issues.  If someone knows of a better way to monitor/control virtual memory or any other advice I'd appreciate it. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Virtual memory is the entire memory space available to the OS. The second number may also just mean how much space is reserved for itself rather than how much space it's actually taking up. Programs in Windows will request X amount of memory, but Windows won't actually give it to them unless they really need it. To paraphrase Raymond Chen who's one of the Windows programmers (he also has a really interesting blog called The Old New Thing):

Quote

It's like reserving cleaning service for your room on a particular day. The cleaning company isn't going to put one person away to wait until that day to clean your room. It just means they will guarantee someone will show up and clean your room on that day.

 

[0ld_Chicken]

45 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Virtual memory is the entire memory space available to the OS. The second number may also just mean how much space is reserved for itself rather than how much space it's actually taking up. Programs in Windows will request X amount of memory, but Windows won't actually give it to them unless they really need it. To paraphrase Raymond Chen who's one of the Windows programmers (he also has a really interesting blog called The Old New Thing):

 

let me see if I understand,  the 16gb of virtual memory that it is showing isn't from a hdd/ssd paging file but from the ram?  I've been reading into virtual memory a bit (as much as I can comprehend ) and I do understand that windows sort of allocates space for things without necessarily putting them there.  Perhaps I need to be watching for the physical reads/writes to the pagefile drive to see if there is anything being written/read... didn't think about that one lol

[Mira Yurizaki]

Virtual memory is physical memory + page file space. If you reduce your page file space to 0, virtual memory is now just physical memory.

 

*Although that's a really simplified explanation.

[0ld_Chicken]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Virtual memory is physical memory + page file space. If you reduce your page file space to 0, virtual memory is now just physical memory.

ok that helps a lot!  There is a difference between the virtual memory allocated and physical memory used because like you said, windows won't actually put it there until necessary but its been allocated.  Thanks a bunch!