Swap File Size with 2 GB of Ram.

[DietCokeMan]

If I have 2gb of RAM do I need a swapfile with XP Pro?

I heard some say a small one, others state not needed.


Help Please

 

[SPV]

Surely it depends on what applications you're running, how much memory they need and how much disk space you can spare.

For example you might have several app's open, some taking lots of memory but, not all in use at once. In that case I would have thought that a swap file could useful as it will free up genuine RAM without spending too much time swapping.

Gool old Task Manager will show you how much physical RAM and virtual memory is in use in total and by each process.

It's a bit of a hand-waving argument, but I hope it helps.

SPV

 

[cdogg]

See:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really large machine?


Strictly speaking Virtual Memory is always in operation and cannot be “turned off.” What is meant by such wording is “set the system to use no page file space at all.”

Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring into use — the total may easily run to hundreds of megabytes. These addresses have to be assigned to somewhere by the system. If there is a page file available, the system can assign them to it — if there is not, they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.

So no, it's not necessary to eliminate the swap file. You can run benchmarks with and without it. Chances are, you'll see no difference either way if your system has more than enough RAM. When your system barely has enough to get by, then taking out the swap file can noticeably hurt performance.

~cdogg
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