8GB RAM with NO PAGEFILE CLUB or TOPIC (lol)

The thing I don't get is how do these apps know you're not running a PF? Windows just uses ram as swap space so how would an application even know whether you were running one or not??

 

maybe they just CHECK THE Windows Default PF settings..if its OFF, then they recognize it as OFF..simple lol? dont know either

 

What about SSDs ??

 

Im part of the club as well/

 

That's a fair comment, what is the transfer speed of SSD compared to RAM? I don't really know. I would think that SSD's would still be slower though...

 

I hate that pagefile thing also, allways scribbling something on the damn hdd. I must say that linux in that regard just owns. It uses swap only if you ran out of ram. Anyway, my work puter has now vista on and I bought a damn fast usb stick for ready boost(11MB/swrite, 30ish for read), it did improve some loading times and such. Since my machine has only 2GB RAM, the readyboost thing is not a bad idea. However I would like to be in control as in to what goes into that cache and not vista. I'm still smarter than it (I hope ).

 

CRYSIS first level load in 16.47 secs on me with NPF. if enable PF, it goes around 40- 60 seconds..think the HDD is fragmented also.

Anyway after years of experience i cant accept PF and HDD compare to PURE ram...

and i dont think SSDs can catch a performance level ram..or they can? musnt comment cause i enver used SSD.

 

I use a small pagefile (256MB) on a RamDisk, just in case.... I have 8GB of RAM, 2GB are dedicated for the RamDisk so 6GB are available for the OS, the other 2GB are for pagefile and temp stuff...

 

I have Vista Ultimate 64. Sometimes I use 4GB sometimes 8GB. Either way I set the page file to auto configure on the system drive. Oh yes. I said it.

I do it for two reasons.

One is hard drive space. My system partition is 375GB. I've got GTA IV and COD 4 1.6 installed on the system drive. I keep everything else on my other two hard drives. As of right now I have 291GB of free space on the system partition that isn't doing jack. Might as well let Windows waste some space.

The other reason is Windows uses the paging file with 4GB and with 8GB. I just checked my computer after having it on for two and a half hours. The current paging file usage is 17MB with a peak usage of 17MB. What for you ask? How the hell should I know. Honestly it doesn't concern me. IMO if Windows uses the paging file with 4GB and 8GB then it needs to be on. Does it need to be Auto configured to its current ginormous size? No, but you should have something.

I'm not trying to defend Microsoft, the paging file, or Windows. I hate all three of them just as much as the next guy. All I'm trying to do is suggest what I truly think will give the best performance. I've tried so many different paging file tweaks it's ridiculous. In the end the last three computers I have had performed best when I set it to let Windows auto configure the paging file. Two had XP and this one has Vista. Flame on!:thumbup:

 

^^ Lmao.....

Yeah I think you should be pretty safe there lolz.

Don't see hard drives becoming faster than ram anytime soon hehe ( even solid state drives....)

 

Well, the reviews of SSD's from Hillbert show that he actually runs into a processing bottleneck using SSD's for loading Cod4.
Loading times are 60% faster using SSD's versus HDD's
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-vertex-120-gb-ssd-review/11

Mr.Bigtime results show similar values --> if you take 40 seconds loading time versus 16.47, it would also be about 60% faster.

I think you'd be better of with an SSD WITH pagefile than using an HDD without. You avoid trouble when running out of physical memory and get the most speed out of it.
Your computer would be even faster in general, cos not all the load is laid on the RAM.

 

Ram spec to the left and I use a 512MB pagefile 32bit XP can only use 2.25GB with my 2x GTX285's hogging all the address space oh and I have a 120GB Vertex SSD.

Of course I have Visty x64 as well I just prefer XP for general stuff.

 

What software do you use for the RAM disk?

I just recently got a 60 GB SSD (OCZ vertex series), too, and at first I left the pagefile like setup by default (Vista 64-Bit, SP1) on my SSD.
I still had my 70 GB Raptor sitting around, so I moved all temp folders and the pagefile on it.
I didn't run any benchmarks, but not only did this moving of the pagefile to the Raptor increase the lifespan of my SSD, but it also feels a bit faster, too.

I'm wondering now if it makes sense to use 2GB of my RAM (6 GB all in all) for a RAM disk and move the pagefile into it.

What do you think?

 

Well of course SSD's are faster than HDD's with platters. But they are still nowhere the speed of RAM. If they were, we wouldn't need ram now would we?

That's why you need a decent amount of RAM installed before you can turn off your page file...I think 8Gb is prob enough.

Sorry but that couldn't be further from the truth. It's faster because everything is in RAM.

 

I don't really see the point, because windows uses RAM as virtual memory if the PF is turned off - so you're not really doing anything different by creating a virtual drive in RAM, your OS does it anyway.



Field Value
Physical Memory
Total 3582 MB
Used 449 MB
Free 3133 MB
Utilization 13 %

Swap Space
Total 3418 MB
Used 322 MB
Free 3095 MB
Utilization 9 %

Virtual Memory
Total 7000 MB
Used 771 MB
Free 6228 MB
Utilization 11 %

Physical Address Extension (PAE)
Supported by Operating System Yes
Supported by CPU Yes
Active Yes


You see what I'm getting at.... This is from my PC with no PF but windows still uses virtual memory...(or at least it thinks it is lol)

 

i have 4 gigs and no page file for past 2 years and never an issue.

 

Although imagine if you created a virtual ram drive and then loaded your games or apps whatever onto it.

Think how fast your load times would be.....

 

I think it was pillmonster that asked the differences in speed?

Even the fastest SSD's are topping out at 150MB/s of bandwidth... With DRAM, atleast on the Core2 boards, you're looking at atleast 8500MB/s with 1066mhz RAM

 

what, no smoke breaks between levels? no excuse to have that next shot of vodka?
lol, but i wouldnt say instant level loading is a necessity considering all the time we waste on other stupid things in life.

faster to just ALT/Tab out during play and use standbye mode. avoids intro's..etc.
works for me anyway.

 

Well, there are applications that still need a pagefile - or so I thought and read. I don't want to cripple my PC in any way. I don't know. I guess, I'm just a bit reluctant to turn it off completely.