What to set virtual memory at?

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unlukymule

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Feb 18, 2014
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ok so I just upgraded to 4gb ram and I am currently running windows 7 32-bit, now I'm not sure what to set my virtual ram at as someone has told me to turn the paging file off is this correct and if so could u explain why ?

if not would someone help me set it correctly as id prefer my system to run at its best

I have plenty of memory on my hard drive if I needed

at the moment I have it set to system managed

and it says the recommended should be 5085 would this be the initial size or maximum

any help would be gratefully appreciated

thanks again
 
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Pinhedd

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Aug 7, 2007
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If you have plenty of hard disk space left, let the system manage it. If not, the recommended maximum is somewhere between 1x and 1.5x the installed amount.
 
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Ryan Wee

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Jul 15, 2014
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If your computer is running on sufficient RAM (Never exceeds 60%), just set the paging file at 1 GB. The paging file is virtual memory, which in this case, is stored on your HDD / SSD. The issue with having too much virtual memory instead of RAM is because virtual memory is tons slower than RAM sticks. Even when you have a 730 SSD in RAID 0.

As a conclusion, if 4GB is sufficient (Check in task manager), lower down the capacity of the paging file and allowing the computer to utilize the RAM sticks instead of the paging file will speed up the computer. If not sufficient, just leave it at system managed and let the system do the work. Make sure that you don't DISABLE the paging file, since you will need it when you run an insane amount of programs.

Hopefully this helped, good luck ;)
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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May 9, 2013
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1) If your on a system you just 'upgraded' to 4GB, that system isn't worth the money you spent. A common off the shelf at Walmart comes with 8GB, laptop or desktop for only $249. That you upgraded tells us this is a ancient PC that will be more costly to 'upgrade' then to replace.
2) 32Bit Windows is LIMITED to only 3GB, period. So it does not matter about the page file or not, only 3GB at a time can be addressed. This is another indicator I would recommend just ditching what you have (they stopped issuing 32Bit except for tablets about 3 years ago) and instead get a new PC, since the cost of buying 'Windows' (64Bit) would be $179, which makes no sense considering how little a new PC costs.
3) The reason they were suggesting to turn off the paging file (V-RAM) was to force Windows to look ONLY at your RAM sticks, and not go directly to the slower HDD based V-RAM. That is a old XP trick, which is NOT true since Vista, last I checked, but as well everyone been on the 64Bit bandwagon for years now.
 
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Pinhedd

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Aug 7, 2007
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It doesn't work that way.

The operating system maintains what is known as a page replacement policy. When the operating system runs out of free physical memory pages (standard sized pages are 4KiB) it hunts down infrequently used pages, kicks them out of physical memory, and writes them to a swap volume. If that ejected memory is later referenced by the process the operating system must reverse the process by reading it from the swap volume back into a free physical memory page. The operative word here is infrequently used. The contents of swap volumes are not process addressable and thus cannot be used in lieu of or in tandem with physical memory, they will only be used when the operating system detects that the content of some physical memory is not being used very often so that it can put that scarce resource to better use.
 
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