Pagefiles are a compromise. They allow the OS to manage memory beyond what is physically installed. Frankly, they are a relic of ancient computing. In today's age of 32, 64, or even more RAM, there is no need for them. The documents are all written in the mindset that memory is expensive, and you don't have enough. Allowing the OS to have unlimited paging ability is pointless, and only slows down a properly spec'd system. The fastest SSDs are orders of magnitude slower than RAM. RAM is cheap. And you can't have too much. Most systems I see have too much CPU horsepower and not enough RAM. I wish people would let go of old superstitions and dump their useless and counter productive page files.
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I have seen too large of a pagefile cause some weird issues :) There still are uses for it by the system tho ?
Yeah, for analyzing kernel dumps.
Do you analyze your kernel dumps?
My system never crashes. I go 100 days without rebooting if I choose. I reboot 5 times a year just because security updates.
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I am sure i have that shut that off. I don't need the dumps for anything. Windows update causes my crashes then i nuke and rebuild. 100 days on a unmodded windows 10 ? :) bait I still hear my system use the paging of the hdd from time to time without it crashing or having issues.
Tips for a stable system:
1: test the fuck out of your memory. use memtest86+ (48 hours)
2: make sure your storage media is working ok. use crystaldiskinfo
3: burn in test with Aida64 (free beta version).
4: do a dry run installation. distill your necessary drivers from whatever sources you need, then put them on your install media and cleanly install.
5: Avoid USB. USB is shit. It fucks up all the time. I had some crashes, then I removed a USB SATA dock and problems went away. Have a sacrificial system for that shit.
6: Don't be a fucktard. UAC is your friend. If you disable UAC you deserve dick cancer and AIDS.
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I agree with most of that but I do usb installs constantly. I have all my drivers with it and fav tools all right there.
That's fine. Just limit what USB devices you keep attached as a part of your regular system.
There's so many crap USB devices out there, and it's hard to know what ones suck and what ones are ok. Even 'name brand' stuff sucks sometimes (and some no-name stuff is just fine).
I get it, oldschool stuff usb hubs :) The bane of my existence in windows 7
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Naw, he manually set them.
You can disable the update service.
Have you looked into unattended installs? I do that on my gaming machine. Takes me about 30min to get back up from scratch, and I have to do basically nothing. Suicide raid SSD ftw...~900MB/s 4k seq write from somewhat garbage kingston drives. Drivers, applications, all in one go. Just a thought.
I mostly just restore if too many issues develop i nuke it. I am always changing stuff have a need to install in a controlled manner. Play with a lot of different software ect.. something to think about but all i really need is the os everything else may change from build to build.
Fair enough, I mostly just have LoL and Steam plus whatever apps for my mobo, keyboard, mouse, and AIO cooler.
I have a bunch of stuff ? I just don"t store it on the OS drive. Install the the os and place shortcuts ? Doesnt work with everything.
right, same here. 500gb samdung drive for all the other schtuff.
Look at Windows recommended page file and pad it a bit.
Probably makes no difference but I like to use a binary type number - 4096 MB, 8192 MB etc. I usually use RAM size = swap size because I do hibernate (I leave my PC on 24/7). I had a recent issue where Just Cause 3 was nearly eating my whole swap file so I switched the C:/pagefile.sys to System Managed. Having 2 swap files (G:Games is an SSD) is faster for me.
(Is this true? IDK but it is getting used.)
If your swap file is on rotating rust make min and max the same. There is a technique to set your swap file to be on the outer rim of the disk so it can be accessed faster, but I forget how now. If the swap size changes, that outside rim technique gets broken.
Hibernation doesn't use pagefile.
Huh? But you said... I based my comment on your earlier comment.
Whatever.
Your mileage may vary.
I think the point is windows has to support all the old shit and if you dont have a page file you might end up with a hiberfil.sys file and a pagefile.sys because old programs expect them.
Cant rewrite all the old software that windows might need so a page file etc.
I said that hibernation uses disk space - to destage RAM there and restore it when you turn your PC back on. But it doesn't use pagefile. Windows reserves required disk space by creating a hidden system file called, iirc, hiberfil.sys, and its size is always equal to your total RAM. You don't need to create additional swap for it.
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