Pagefile usage during gaming
Pagefile usage during gaming
Hi,
Quick clarification on pagefile usage – is there a specific size that’s considered excessive? Recently, I began tracking it in my monitoring tool, and it showed around 16 GB during BattleTech and about 10 GB during Aven Colony. Are these figures typical? The pagefile size should be normal; the key is the right configuration. Would increasing it help, or are those numbers unrealistic?
System
Xeon x5650
18 Gb RAM (3x4 and 3x2)
500 GB SSD and a 750 GB HDD
Thanks for taking the time to look into this.
The game runs smoothly. If there are any issues, using a page file is acceptable. Windows handles swapping memory efficiently, and hibernation works without problems.
Oke…. There's always this thought lingering in the backside of my head ; " This works oke but what would happen if it could work in a better way? Would my gaming experience improve.. would i ravel about the unimaginairy heights the creaturs must roam " etc etc etc
Yes it works more then fine!
I've seen a monitoring app claim some value for the "Page file", but in actuality it was how much virtual memory was in use. If you go to Task Manager to the Memory usage section, it's the "Committed" value.
There's some confusion that "virtual memory" means the page file, but it generally means physical memory + page file allocation.
In the past, only one program could be active at once. When you launched a new app, the operating system would hand full authority to that program, taking over all resources and control. If the program closed properly, control would return to the OS. There was no way to run several programs simultaneously without changing the system settings.
Around 1985 to 1987, during a period when Microsoft and Apple were competing heavily in operating systems, one company proposed allowing multiple applications to run at the same time. However, this needed hardware support that didn’t exist back then. As a result, they introduced something called "virtual memory."
The concept of virtual memory works by making each program believe it owns the entire system. For each application, every memory address is treated as belonging solely to it. But if two programs try to access the same address, they could interfere with each other. To solve this, early operating systems assigned a unique identifier (PID) to each process. The OS then kept track of which offset should be used for each address in a table linked to that PID. This way, when an application tries to read or write an address, the OS translates it into a virtual address and directs the hardware accordingly.
Over time, engineers discovered that running this entirely in software was extremely slow. With advancements in technology, integrated circuits became powerful enough to move this task to physical memory controllers inside the processor.
Later, as applications grew larger and demanded more memory, developers realized each program should believe it had full control over its address space and unlimited memory. But since physical memory is limited, they began using a "page file" – a section of memory that appears to be RAM but is actually stored on the hard drive. Modern operating systems and processors now use smart algorithms to manage this transition smoothly, often without the user noticing.
Usually, you won’t notice a slowdown unless your hard drive is very slow compared to the rest of the system or you’re using all available RAM, which still isn’t enough. If your memory usage is high but not at its maximum, the page file size has little impact on performance – it’s just how Windows handles things.
When you have 16 gigabytes or more of RAM, you typically don't require more than 16 gigabytes for the pagefile. Generally, 8 gigabytes is sufficient, and occasionally only 4 gigabytes or less is needed. This varies depending on the software you're using. They all have different requirements, and some can function without the pagefile enabled. I suggest keeping it active and testing to find the right amount that lets all programs run smoothly without performance issues.
By examining my own figures, that's not the pagefile. My pagefile is configured for 9-17 gigabytes, but the task manager indicates 6 gigabytes of RAM and 8.7 gigabytes in use, totaling 2.7 gigabytes for the pagefile. Afterburner displays the pagefile as 9 gigabytes, while RAM shows 6.3 gigabytes. Therefore, the pagefile in Afterburner reflects the actual RAM usage, which is about 5 gigabytes.
Afterburner reports memory committed (physical RAM in use + page file) as "Page File" for some reason.
Unless the scale is dynamic, it also looks like you don't have a page file anyway because the top of that graph is the same value as the physical RAM graph.
The task manager shows 9 gb's of shared memory usage (gpu section). The memory section lists 21 Gb's committed. Based on my pagefile settings, it's only 3.2 Gb, which seems like total RAM plus the pagefile. Earlier I had it set to 10 gb, just a thought... that would be around 18 GB of physical RAM... Hmm, maybe it varies. I should check the other numbers in the game again to confirm.