Windows XP home paging file

[[FTF]Pyro]

Right, for some reason my paging file seems to be constantly sitting at around 300 meg regardless of the fact that I just installed 1.256 gig in the machine.



Is this normal for home xp ? I never had ANY issues with paging files under 2000 pro even with almost half the ram.

[Turbine]

I had a virus similar to that, just exponentialy increasing my page file, untill my hard drive full, and I could not start my computer up.

[[FTF]Pyro]

I had a virus similar to that, just exponentialy increasing my page file, untill my hard drive full, and I could not start my computer up.

..... this isnt a virus

[Foo]

Pyro,
The page file is a little more than just a slow alternative to RAM. Windows will manage your memory requirements and keep low-priority data in the page file despite having a lot of extra free RAM.

The reason for this is not bad managment on Windows' behalf. Consider what happens if you're doing some general work, then fire up a game for a quick deathmatch. If all your work data is sitting in RAM, it all has to be moved from RAM to the page file, then the game's data can be loaded into the RAM. However because windows has stored the data (which doesn't really need the high speed of RAM) in the page file, there's no need for this extra disk chugging.

The above probably isn't technically right, but it gives you one thing to consider as to why the page file is used no matter how much RAM you use.

[[FTF]Pyro]

So how come when I hit ctrl-alt-del


preformance I hardly EVER have physical memory and cpu data but almost always have CPUand paging file data



I NEVER had that in 2kpro it was always cpu+physical memory data

[Foo]

Try loading a memory-intensive program like Photoshop (with a large image loaded) or Doom 3, then CTRL-ESC and check the values again.

You should find that when it's really needed, it gets used.