Does page file size matter in gaming / regular tasks?
Posted by SceneCreepy304@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 8 comments
soo ive noticed alot of "benchmarkers" and optimizing videos suggest to set pagefile whatever youre ram is so for 32 its 32 i even heard x2 so if you have 32 then 64 in some videos. what are youre thoughts? surely if you have a 512GB nvme for just windows and programs it cant hurt right? also alot of these videos main topic was either rust or tarkov cause both can eat up ram (ive seen videos where tarkov eats 58GB of ram holy optimization right?) and both can have reduced chances of crashes if you havev so much pagefile then the regular for me it was set to 4 gig i think.
greggm2000@reddit
A pagefile (which is to say: virtual memory) is only ever actively used when system RAM isn’t enough. I have 64GB and my pagefile is disabled.
BrentNewland@reddit
If the page file is there, Windows will use it, regardless of how much of your RAM you're using.
_therealERNESTO_@reddit
It's not a great idea, if you ever utilize more than 64gb the system will crash if you have no page file. Even something like 16mb prevents it, but in this case the pc will still slow down a lot and funny stuff will start happening (like the desktop not rendering, out of memory errors when trying to open programs).
It's better to leave it on auto and let windows do its thing, this way the system won't ever become unusable even if you fill up all the memory, as long as you have a decently fast ssd.
Source: I have 64gb and tested all these different configurations, while deliberately filling the ram with stress tests.
greggm2000@reddit
I agree. For my use case it’s not been necessary in 4 years with this build, but if that changes, then yeah, I would re-enable it.
ZeroPaladn@reddit
Windows defaults the pagefile size to
(RAM x 3) or 4GB, whichever is larger, but it's dynamic and will allocate more or less based on what you're doing. For 99.999999% of people, this is fine and you'll never need to touch it. Random people telling you to change or "optimize" this without an explicit reason/game/purpose are just blowing smoke up your ass.Let's say you have 32GB of RAM and you want to manually allocate 64GB (RAM x 2) for your pagefile (note: this is 16x bigger than the default!). Windows will let you, then allocate 1/8th of your 512GB SSD and you'll never use that space for anything else. Given that modern games are >100GB each, you're monopolizing a lot of drive space for no reason.
Unless you have a specific problem that needs to be solved (Tarkov being a turbo-hog and crashing consistently, and this crashing is mitigated with your pagefile changes) just don't fuck with it.
TheStillio@reddit
I don't think the paging file has been relevant for a long time now. It's basically using your much slower hard drive as RAM because you've run out of RAM. Your system is going to take a big hit performance wise if you are triggering the paging file.
It's a much better idea to buy more RAM if you are using more than you already have.
_therealERNESTO_@reddit
Touching the page file setting is useless, it won't improve performance. Windows automatically manages the size by itself. One thing you can do is explicitly stop it from creating page files on a certain drive, for example if you have a very slow hdd or don't want it to mess with anything that isn't on the C: drive.
Dry-Influence9@reddit
Page file are mostly used when you are about to run out of ram and for saving dumps. Didnt windows have an option where it gets resized automatically based on need?