Help with the Windows 7 swap file.

I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
motherboard.

The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.

If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
the system to use little or no page file?

Peter

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:40:03 +1000, Peter Jason <> wrote:

>I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
>motherboard.
>
>The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
>consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.

I'm not seeing a problem. What problem are you trying to solve? If
half of your existing memory is already going unused, what's the point
of having 75% go unused?

>If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
>the system to use little or no page file?

Sure, but you can also do that without buying additional RAM. I'm not
sure why you'd configure the system that way since it already looks
like the Pagefile isn't being used extensively, but that goes back to
the question asked above: what problem are you trying to solve?

--

Char Jackson

Peter Jason wrote:
> I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
> motherboard.
>
> The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
> consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.
>
> If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
> the system to use little or no page file?
>
> Peter
>

You can try this, and get a breakdown of memory usage on your computer.
Maybe this will give you a more meaningful result than the "gadget".

"RAMMap v1.1"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/ff700229

If that doesn't satisfy your curiosity, you can try this.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk

Now, I tried that on my WinXP system. I allocated 2GB to a RAMDisk. This
is a benchmark of the resulting virtual disk.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif

Then, I placed my page file on it. Not a large page file, but
large enough. The end result, was a smoother running system,
under certain circumstances (i.e. when the normal system memory
was exhausted and the system needed to page). It helps to show,
at least on older versions of Windows, how their memory management
tends to choke under pressure. But the result wasn't enough of a
success, to continue to use it. I noticed a couple anomalies over
a period of four days, and stopped using it. If you get your 12GB
installed, you can have some fun with it.

Paul

>
> Now, I tried that on my WinXP system. I allocated 2GB to a RAMDisk. This
> is a benchmark of the resulting virtual disk.
>
> http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif
>
> Then, I placed my page file on it. Not a large page file, but
> large enough. The end result, was a smoother running system,
> under certain circumstances (i.e. when the normal system memory
> was exhausted and the system needed to page). It helps to show,
> at least on older versions of Windows, how their memory management
> tends to choke under pressure. But the result wasn't enough of a
> success, to continue to use it. I noticed a couple anomalies over
> a period of four days, and stopped using it. If you get your 12GB
> installed, you can have some fun with it.

I played with that exact same thing back in the Windows98 days. I never
quite grasped the contradiction. It's like removing clothing from a walk-in
closet, pushing a free-standing wardrobe closet inside the walk-in closet,
placing the clothes in there & somehow feeling that it works better for
picking out clothes.
However, it was fun playing with RAMDisk but I also uninstalled it as
unpractical.

Rich

Rich wrote:
>>
>> Now, I tried that on my WinXP system. I allocated 2GB to a RAMDisk. This
>> is a benchmark of the resulting virtual disk.
>>
>> http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif
>>
>> Then, I placed my page file on it. Not a large page file, but
>> large enough. The end result, was a smoother running system,
>> under certain circumstances (i.e. when the normal system memory
>> was exhausted and the system needed to page). It helps to show,
>> at least on older versions of Windows, how their memory management
>> tends to choke under pressure. But the result wasn't enough of a
>> success, to continue to use it. I noticed a couple anomalies over
>> a period of four days, and stopped using it. If you get your 12GB
>> installed, you can have some fun with it.
>
> I played with that exact same thing back in the Windows98 days. I never
> quite grasped the contradiction. It's like removing clothing from a
> walk-in closet, pushing a free-standing wardrobe closet inside the
> walk-in closet, placing the clothes in there & somehow feeling that it
> works better for picking out clothes.
> However, it was fun playing with RAMDisk but I also uninstalled it as
> unpractical.
>
> Rich

I've experimented with previous OSes, so this isn't the first time.
But I don't leave them like that.

There was actually a second reason for the test I did on WinXP. We've
been told in the past, that WinXP 32 bit can only use 4GB of RAM. I
installed 6GB of RAM, and that RAMDisk program is the first one I've seen,
that could use memory above the 4GB mark, and that is with a 32 bit OS. It
implies that PAE, or some kind of similar mapping is being used,
which we're not accustomed to. With the 6GB plugged in, WinXP claimed
3.2GB was free, and 2GB was allocated to the RAMDisk. The page file was
placed on the RAM Disk. When I opened up enough applications to go past
3.2GB, the system didn't even blink, because the page file was so fast.
In the past, I've experienced long delays, when RAM is de-allocated on
that system. And that was the impressive part of the experiment. Normally,
I'd stop launching programs around the 2.6GB mark or so, but with the
pagefile mounted on the (unreachable) memory, I was able to work past
that point, with no obvious side effect. Allocating or deallocating
RAM around the "limit", had no visible effect. Smooth as could be.

I'd have liked to keep the configuration, but for a couple situations
that implied there was a bug in the software. One program "lost" it's
Task Bar icon, such that I could not click it and maximize the window.
I could go into Task Manager, and the program was still running. I could
kill it, no problem. But the graphical output was kinda "lost in space".
After that, I put the toys away, and returned the system to having
the pagefile on the hard drive. I also had a 3D game abort, half way
through the game, which is not normal on this system.

But it's still fun to play with.

The last time I tried that program, it crashed during the very first
test case I ran on it. The RAMDisk program has matured considerably
since then, and is damn close to being a "keeper". Using it to host
a pagefile, is asking a lot of it, and it's likely that if you were
just storing regular files on it, the thing would be spotless.

Paul

On Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:09:43 -0500, Char Jackson <>
wrote:

>On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:40:03 +1000, Peter Jason <> wrote:
>
>>I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
>>motherboard.
>>
>>The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
>>consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.
>
>I'm not seeing a problem. What problem are you trying to solve? If
>half of your existing memory is already going unused, what's the point
>of having 75% go unused?

Since the RAM memory is volatile, and the page data stays on the HDD,
then it would be safer to use the RAM method should the computer HDD
be imaged or stolen.


>
>>If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
>>the system to use little or no page file?
>
>Sure, but you can also do that without buying additional RAM. I'm not
>sure why you'd configure the system that way since it already looks
>like the Pagefile isn't being used extensively, but that goes back to
>the question asked above: what problem are you trying to solve?

Just for security as above. Also, the HDD would have to work less.

On Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:12:32 -0400, Paul <> wrote:

>Peter Jason wrote:
>> I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
>> motherboard.
>>
>> The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
>> consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.
>>
>> If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
>> the system to use little or no page file?
>>
>> Peter
>>
>
>You can try this, and get a breakdown of memory usage on your computer.
>Maybe this will give you a more meaningful result than the "gadget".
>
>"RAMMap v1.1"
>http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/ff700229
>
>If that doesn't satisfy your curiosity, you can try this.
>
>http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk
>
>Now, I tried that on my WinXP system. I allocated 2GB to a RAMDisk. This
>is a benchmark of the resulting virtual disk.
>
>http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif
>
>Then, I placed my page file on it. Not a large page file, but
>large enough. The end result, was a smoother running system,
>under certain circumstances (i.e. when the normal system memory
>was exhausted and the system needed to page). It helps to show,
>at least on older versions of Windows, how their memory management
>tends to choke under pressure. But the result wasn't enough of a
>success, to continue to use it. I noticed a couple anomalies over
>a period of four days, and stopped using it. If you get your 12GB
>installed, you can have some fun with it.
>
> Paul


Thanks, I'll check this out.

"Paul" <> wrote in message
news:ipatc9$s6n$...
> Rich wrote:
>>>
>>> Now, I tried that on my WinXP system. I allocated 2GB to a RAMDisk. This
>>> is a benchmark of the resulting virtual disk.
>>>
>>> http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif
>>>
>>> Then, I placed my page file on it. Not a large page file, but
>>> large enough. The end result, was a smoother running system,
>>> under certain circumstances (i.e. when the normal system memory
>>> was exhausted and the system needed to page). It helps to show,
>>> at least on older versions of Windows, how their memory management
>>> tends to choke under pressure. But the result wasn't enough of a
>>> success, to continue to use it. I noticed a couple anomalies over
>>> a period of four days, and stopped using it. If you get your 12GB
>>> installed, you can have some fun with it.
>>
>> I played with that exact same thing back in the Windows98 days. I never
>> quite grasped the contradiction. It's like removing clothing from a
>> walk-in closet, pushing a free-standing wardrobe closet inside the
>> walk-in closet, placing the clothes in there & somehow feeling that it
>> works better for picking out clothes.
>> However, it was fun playing with RAMDisk but I also uninstalled it as
>> unpractical.
>>
>> Rich
>
> I've experimented with previous OSes, so this isn't the first time.
> But I don't leave them like that.
>
> There was actually a second reason for the test I did on WinXP. We've
> been told in the past, that WinXP 32 bit can only use 4GB of RAM. I
> installed 6GB of RAM, and that RAMDisk program is the first one I've seen,
> that could use memory above the 4GB mark, and that is with a 32 bit OS. It
> implies that PAE, or some kind of similar mapping is being used,
> which we're not accustomed to. With the 6GB plugged in, WinXP claimed
> 3.2GB was free, and 2GB was allocated to the RAMDisk. The page file was
> placed on the RAM Disk. When I opened up enough applications to go past
> 3.2GB, the system didn't even blink, because the page file was so fast.
> In the past, I've experienced long delays, when RAM is de-allocated on
> that system. And that was the impressive part of the experiment. Normally,
> I'd stop launching programs around the 2.6GB mark or so, but with the
> pagefile mounted on the (unreachable) memory, I was able to work past
> that point, with no obvious side effect. Allocating or deallocating
> RAM around the "limit", had no visible effect. Smooth as could be.
>
> I'd have liked to keep the configuration, but for a couple situations
> that implied there was a bug in the software. One program "lost" it's
> Task Bar icon, such that I could not click it and maximize the window.

I once tried moving the XP swap file to a separate hard drive and that
caused problems, I can't remember exactly what now though. One problem I
have had with putting the XP swap file in odd places shows up only if you
get a crash that would cause a blue screen of death and creation of a dump
file. The dumping bit can sometimes go haywire if the swap file isn't where
it expects it to be.

There is a good chance this is all fixed in Windows 7.


> I could go into Task Manager, and the program was still running. I could
> kill it, no problem. But the graphical output was kinda "lost in space".
> After that, I put the toys away, and returned the system to having
> the pagefile on the hard drive. I also had a 3D game abort, half way
> through the game, which is not normal on this system.
>
> But it's still fun to play with.
>
> The last time I tried that program, it crashed during the very first
> test case I ran on it. The RAMDisk program has matured considerably
> since then, and is damn close to being a "keeper". Using it to host
> a pagefile, is asking a lot of it, and it's likely that if you were
> just storing regular files on it, the thing would be spotless.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

Hi, Peter.

The swap file - also known as the page file or paging file, or as virtual
memory - is not very well understood by most computer users. One of the
best articles on the subject was written by MVP Alex Nichol, but he died in
2005, while Vista was still in beta and long before Windows 7. While that
article focuses on WinXP, and some details of the user interface have
changed since then, the fundamentals have not changed and we can still learn
a lot from that explanation:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

A key paragraph from that article applies to your question:
<quote>
Why is there so little Free RAM?
Windows will always try to find some use for all of RAM — even a trivial
one. If nothing else it will retain code of programs in RAM after they exit,
in case they are needed again. Anything left over will be used to cache
further files — just in case they are needed. But these uses will be dropped
instantly should some other use come along. Thus there should rarely be any
significant amount of RAM ‘free’. That term is a misnomer — it ought to be
‘RAM for which Windows can currently find no possible use’. The adage is:
‘Free RAM is wasted RAM’. Programs that purport to ‘manage’ or ‘free up’ RAM
are pandering to a delusion that only such ‘Free’ RAM is available for fresh
uses. That is not true, and these programs often result in reduced
performance and may result in run-away growth of the page file.
</quote>

> If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure the
> system to use little or no page file?

The more RAM you get, the more of it will be "wasted", to use your term.
And see the paragraph, "Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really
large machine?", in Alex's article. I used RAM disks a lot and loved them -
but that was back in DOS days and even in early Windows, as I recall.
(Remember the days of "expanded RAM" v. "extended RAM", and using DesqView
and other RAM managers?) But that was when 1 MB was a lot of RAM and 1 GB
was almost unimaginable. Nowadays, all a RAM disk does in most cases is use
up RAM that could be used more efficiently - if needed at all - by the page
file.

If you insist on managing the swap file yourself, you can do it easily
(after a long click-path to find the page):
Start | Control Panel | System | Advanced system settings (furnish
Administrator credentials) | Advanced tab, Performance / Settings | Advanced
tab | Virtual memory / Change

Finally!

This page can be tricky. But you can choose from 3 "radio buttons": Custom
size, System managed size, or No paging file. Unless you actually
understand this subject, I recommend you let the system manage it. You need
to understand WHAT you are doing and, more importantly, WHY you are doing
it. I have 4 hard disks with a dozen or so partitions and 8 GB RAM. I let
the System manage my page file - and it does it very well. Just set it and
forget it.

I agree with Char: "I'm not seeing a problem."

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3508.1109) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1


"Peter Jason" wrote in message
news:...

I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
motherboard.

The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
consistently used at 45%, and the CPU never exceeds 10%.

If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
the system to use little or no page file?

Peter

On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:40:03 +1000, Peter Jason <> wrote:

> I have Win 7 and i7960 6-core CPU, and 6GB of RAM, & a X58 Gigabyte
> motherboard.
>
> The "gadget meter" on the desktop indicates that the RAM is
> consistently used at 45%,


If you are only using 45% of your RAM, you have considerably more RAM
than you need for what you use your computer for.

Here's my standard message on the subject:

Wanting to minimize the amount of memory Windows uses is a
counterproductive desire. Windows is designed to use all, or most, of
your memory, all the time, and that's good not bad. Free memory is
wasted memory. You paid for it all and shouldn't want to see any of it
wasted.

Windows works hard to find a use for all the memory you have all the
time. For example if your apps don't need some of it, it will use that
part for caching, then give it back when your apps later need it. In
this way Windows keeps all your memory working for you all the time.


> and the CPU never exceeds 10%.


That's fine.


> If I buy twice as much RAM to get 12GB, is there any way to configure
> the system to use little or no page file?


No configuration is needed. If you are only using 45% of your RAM, you
are already using little or no page file. Do not confuse page file use
with page file allocation. Windows preallocates virtual memory in
anticipation of a possible need for it, even though that allocated
virtual memory may never be used.

And buying additional RAM is completely unnecessary. It's a waste of
money, since it will do nothing for you.