Windows 7 Pagefile/Superfetch/ReadyBoot discussion

3,305 · December 11, 2009

Without the pagefile, even if you aren't using all available RAM for applications and you have extra left over, you're negatively impacting the responsiveness of your computer by having less RAM available for superfetch than you would otherwise with a reasonably sized pagefile.

Without lots of installed RAM, even if you don't need it, you're negatively impacting the responsiveness of your computer by having less RAM available for superfetch than you would otherwise with a reasonable amount of installed RAM.

See what I did there? It still hold that one can still run out of memory using a swap, just like one can run out of memory without using a swap. Enabling the swap can be compared to doubling your physical installed memory.

As for your rigidness, your loss. I'm not asking you to change, I'm simply asking you not to spread this misinformation around. There are newbies here that might not know to disregard your advice.

Luckily disabling the PF is completely reversible. That is, unless you manage to fill up your Hard Drive in that time being thus having no room for a PF. I should apologize for that registry file though, that requires regedit to fix.

-------------

Not much of a tweak or anything awesome, but oddly I think many do not realize that snooping through the Task Scheduler might lead to an increase in performance and/or more control of your system,

Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler

The Task Sheduler shows scheduled events that can be run or that are run on a schedule.

For example, SSD users,

Go to Microsoft -> Windows -> Defrag

Make sure that ScheduledDefrag is desabled.

Or,

Microsoft -> Windows -> Customer Experience Improvement Program.

If the user has consented to participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program, this job collects and sends usage data to Microsoft.

Non Microsoft related tasks are unnecessary, but be more ware of the Microsoft ones. Do not touch WindowsBackup and SystemRestore.

December 11, 2009

@starlion

everything you have said throughout this entire thread is correct, and can easily be backed up by simply visiting google.com and doing some research.

@udedenkz

you are really misleading ppl who don't know anything about the use of RAM and PF,

not knowing what you're talking about yourself half of the time.

So give it a rest, stop posting wrong statements, and lay of the rant.

You're ruining the entire purpose of this thread for a lot of ppl,

and your posts that contain all the inconsistencies should be removed.

December 11, 2009

Without lots of installed RAM, even if you don't need it, you're negatively impacting the responsiveness of your computer by having less RAM available for superfetch than you would otherwise with a reasonable amount of installed RAM.
See what I did there?

Not really, it's becoming increasingly difficult to decipher your English... It sounds like you're telling people to "get more RAM to make up for the ammount that was lost by disabling the pagefile, even if the extra RAM isn't required by most foreground applications the user runs." I gotta say, that is utter nonsense on so many levels....

Remember when I compared RAM vs hard disk space on a price-per-gigabyte scale? Hard disk space is cheap, RAM is not. Using a bit of the cheap (slower) resource for unimportant data so you have more of the expensive (faster) resource available makes perfect sense to me. You already have vast quantities of hard disk space, which means enabling the pagefile frees up that physical RAM, free of charge.

What you've basically just told people is to spend more money on RAM to get around the disadvantages and problems caused by your tweak. You don't see what's wrong with that?

Enabling the swap can be compared to doubling your physical installed memory.

First of all, that would require you make a pagefile that is the same size as the amount of RAM you have installed. If you've got 8GB of RAM, making your pagefile that bulbous probably isn't necessary. I'm personally using a 2GB pagefile with 8GB of RAM.

Second, comparing it to adding physical RAM doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The pagefile is a resource used to compliment RAM, but the massive speed difference will never really make them comparable for useage.

Luckily disabling the PF is completely reversible. That is, unless you manage to fill up your Hard Drive in that time being thus having no room for a PF. I should apologize for that registry file though, that requires regedit to fix.

Shouldn't be done in the first place. Period.

By the way, you're still ignoring my question. Can you actually show that there are any positive effects from disabling the pagefile? If you really can't, then please, just go away. Multiple people (myself, genuine555, Max, Xilo, trip21, Kaboose, MagicAndre1981, Relativity_17) have now asked you to stop.

---------------- actual contribution to the thread ----------------

You can move the locations of folders in your User Folder (Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Music, Pictures, Videos, Saved Games, Searches) to any location on any hard disk. Great if you want to keep your user data from piling up on your OS drive (my user folder is 300GB, so yeah, can't really keep that on my 60GB OS volume).

Right click one of the aforementioned folders and select "Properties" from the list. On the properties sheet, go to the "Location" tab. Click the "Move" button and select the new location of the folder. When you're done, click "Apply," Windows will throw up a prompt, asking if you wish to move everything that is currently in the folder to the new location, you'll probably want to answer yes to that.

Done! You've just moved a personal folder.

3,305 · December 11, 2009

I am going to try to end this debate once again as its crutch is the memory argument which I reject, here is another attempt at reasoning at you,

Your arguments for using the page file can be used to argue the benefit of having two sticks of RAM instead of one.

With one stick of RAM you will have less memory, than with two, for superfetch thus reducing your system's responsiveness. With one stick you are will run into stability problems with applications that need a lot of RAM to run, it is better to have two sticks of RAM if with two you will have more memory for the application to run decreasing the chances of a crash. Windows can also move empty reserved space onto the the second stick of RAM giving you more space on the first one. And Windows will be able to manage memory much better with two RAM sticks.

The analogy is a bit flawed due to dual/tri channel architecture and because RAM is significantly faster than the HD medium, but it still shwos the same thing. Not having a Page File and then getting one of the equivalent of your RAM is similar to doubling your RAM.

Will doubling RAM help superfetch? Sure.

Will using a PF help superfetch? Sure.

Will doubling RAM decrease the chances of running out of System Memory? Duh.

Will using a PF decrease the chances of running out of System Memory? Duh.

Will doubling RAM increase stability of the OS by reducing the chances of Running out of Memory? Duh.

Will using a PF increase stability of the OS by reducing the chances of Running out Memory? Duh.

In short: more memory = better. This I understand.

Here is where I do not think we have agreement,

Will doubling RAM disallow you to run out of System Memory? NO.

Will using a PF disallow you to run out of System Memory? NO.

I doubt that you acknowledge that running out of System Memory is possible regardless of whether or not a PF is enabled. Hell if you have a 160GB Page File - sure running out of System Memory would be harder than say with 1GB PF. Impossible? No. You can still run out of memory, whether or not you use the PF regardless of how much space your PF uses.

For example, you have 8GB, I have only 2GB (minus the amount for Nvidia ION) so to achieve the stability of your system I would need Page File of 6GB (+ memory allocated to NVIDIA ION). And this is assuming that you yourself are not running the recommended 8GB page file!

The allocated empty memory by applications is not an argument as I have proven above. Either that space is on the PF or in RAM; whether or not with the PF, you will still loose space duo to applications reserving it either on the PF or in RAM.

I have been running for 2 days and 13 hours, my memory usage is 792 - it is not climbing. I urge you to have some faith in Windows 7, it is quite efficient with memory management regardless of where System Memory resides.

If the above doesn't portray my logic behind the rejection of the PF, keep reading,

2GB Page File? Sir, I beg you, seek reason! That is far too small, what if your applications would need 11GB Memory? That will cause instability as Windows 7 will be scrambling to save memory - and what if it will not be able to? Oh the woes!

Do not listen to this man! You need the minimum PF of your memory size.

Windows can surely put the dormant background applications into the PF, giving you more RAM for superfetch and foreground applications. With a small Page File this will not be possible. You will have less RAM for the superfetch thus compromising the responciveness of your OS. You will also have less RAM for foreground applications to use.

Further Windows can move reserved space to the PF, 2GB is surely not enough. Therefore you will have less RAM to work with.

etc.

I have rejected your argument on the basis of being OBVIOUS: you will have less memory and the following bad things will happen. It has no sway.

Reasons for Turning off the PF,

- Space.

----- counter argument: Space is Dirt Cheap.

---------- counter counter argument: Not with SSDs.

---------- The smaller your SSD, the more you will see reason in this.

---------- Upgrades require moolah

- Writes + SSD = BAD. The longer you used your SSD, the more reason you will see in this.

----- counter argument: SSDs has warranty

---------- counter counter argument: It is better to have something not break in the first place.

- Privacy. The PF might be considered a security issue.

----- counter argument: you can set it to be deleted at shutdown and then recreated

--------- counter counter argument: slower reboot. Killing you SSD.

- Logically, moving something from A to B, B to A is more wasteful than just keeping it in A - if A is faster.

----- counter argument: Logically slower, but not proven.

---------- counter counter argument: vise versa has not been proven.

:)

EDIT: I am enjoying this, not sure about StartLion. I also have tried ending this debate, unsuccessfully. See post 105. As StarLion replied to post 105, it was of my nature to reply back to the untruths of his words. So this debate will go on until one of us stops replying.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Udedenkz

December 12, 2009

Your arguments for using the page file can be used to argue the benefit of having two sticks of RAM instead of one.

No they can't RAM and the pagefile are used in very different ways (unless you've run out of RAM, in which case the pagefile is forced to become spillover). I've explained it to you over and over, stop willfully ignoring the facts being presented to you.

With one stick of RAM you will have less memory, than with two, for superfetch thus reducing your system's responsiveness. With one stick you are will run into stability problems with applications that need a lot of RAM to run, it is better to have two sticks of RAM if with two you will have more memory for the application to run decreasing the chances of a crash. Windows can also move empty reserved space onto the the second stick of RAM giving you more space on the first one. And Windows will be able to manage memory much better with two RAM sticks.

You're mentioning stability problems and crashes due to running out of physical RAM in the above example; this sort of thing wouldn't be a problem if you had a pagefile to spill over into.

You're now also specifically advocating that Windows keep empty reserve space in RAM, possibly wasting gigabytes of RAM holding nothing but zeros. Why would you want to waste such an expensive resource like that when that very same reserve space could be held in the pagefile with no performance impact? Storing that reserve space in a pagefile also frees up more of that RAM you've just paid, giving Windows more fast memory to hold foreground applications or cache to make the system more responsive.

You really aren't making any sense. You're suggesting we disable the pagefile (for which you list no advantages of doing so), then go out and buy more RAM to make up for the space lost by disabling the pagefile! What part of this is good, or helpful?

Will doubling RAM help superfetch? Sure.
Will using a PF help superfetch? Sure.

Will doubling RAM decrease the chances of running out of System Memory? Duh.

Will using a PF decrease the chances of running out of System Memory? Duh.

Will doubling RAM increase stability of the OS by reducing the chances of Running out of Memory? Duh.

Will using a PF increase stability of the OS by reducing the chances of Running out Memory? Duh.

In short: more memory = better. This I understand.

You understand that more memory is better, but you want to DISABLE a large chunk of address space (which also forces you to waste fast memory instead of wasting slow memory)? Sorry, you're contradicting yourself again.

Here is where I do not think we have agreement,
Will doubling RAM disallow you to run out of System Memory? NO.

Will using a PF disallow you to run out of System Memory? NO.

I doubt that you acknowledge that running out of System Memory is possible regardless of whether or not a PF is enabled. Hell if you have a 160GB Page File - sure running out of System Memory would be harder than say with 1GB PF. Impossible? No. You can still run out of memory, whether or not you use the PF regardless of how much space your PF uses.

This is a non-argument. The same thing could be said about any resource. There's only so much matter and energy available in the universe, everything is finite one way or another.

That said, you yourself have mentioned that a pagefile would make it significantly more difficult to run out of address space. Why would you want to make it less difficult to run out of space by disabling the pagefile?

For example, you have 8GB, I have only 2GB (minus the amount for Nvidia ION) so to achieve the stability of your system I would need Page File of 6GB (+ memory allocated to NVIDIA ION). And this is assuming that you yourself are not running the recommended 8GB page file!

Stop right there. Do you really think that your pagefile is supposed to be the same size as the amount of RAM currently installed in the system?

I'm speechless. You've done it, you've finally said something so uninformed and blatantly wrong that I have no words. Bravo, you're more clueless than I thought.

This this is a farce, it just has to be...how could anybody really attempt to argue on a topic that they're THIS uninformed about?

I have been running for 2 days and 13 hours, my memory usage is 792 - it is not climbing. I urge you to have some faith in Windows 7, it is quite efficient with memory management regardless of where System Memory resides.,

I have faith in Windows 7's ability to manage memory, I've never said anything to the contrary. It's just that, by disabling the pagefile, it can't manage RAM as optimally.

As of yet, you've still given us no reason(s) to disable the pagefile, so why should we revert to your sub-optimal setup? What advantages are there to disabling the pagefile? Stop ignoring this question!

2GB Page File? Sir, I beg you, seek reason! That is far too small, what if your applications would need 11GB Memory? That will cause instability as Windows 7 will be scrambling to save memory - and what if it will not be able to? Oh the woes!
Do not listen to this man! You need the minimum PF of your memory size.

This coming from the same guy who's been advocating we disable our pagefile for days on end? Now you're saying we should have a pagefile?

The pagefile just needs to be large enough to hold extra reserve address space and old pages (also possibly some spillover of actual data from RAM if you really do run out) so that RAM can be used optimally for useful data. So far, Windows has determined 2GB is enough for this task.

The mistake you made was to assume a fixed pagefile size. Windows allows you to specify a minimum and maximum size for the pagefile, I happen to have my minimum size set to 2GB, and it usually never has to be made larger than that. If I were to do something horrendously memory hogging, and it required more address space than my 8GB of RAM + current pagefile size, then Windows would simply expand the pagefile accordingly.

So no, you wouldn't run into stability problems like you would when you run out of physical RAM without a pagefile present. The pagefile is flexible that way.

Windows can surely put the dormant background applications into the PF, giving you more RAM for superfetch and foreground applications. With a small Page File this will not be possible. You will have less RAM for the superfetch thus compromising the responciveness of your OS. You will also have less RAM for foreground applications to use.
Further Windows can move reserved space to the PF, 2GB is surely not enough. Therefore you will have less RAM to work with.

Now you're just trying to throw my own concerns back in my face. It won't work (and it's quite rude).

As I said, Windows is managing the pagefile size. If it feels it needs more pagefile space for extra reserve space or old pages, then it will simply take some more space to keep the usage of physical RAM as optimal as possible.

Reasons for Turning off the PF,
- Space.

----- counter argument: Space is Dirt Cheap.

---------- counter counter argument: Not with SSDs.

---------- The smaller your SSD, the more you will see reason in this.

---------- Upgrades require moolah

- Writes + SSD = BAD. The longer you used your SSD, the more reason you will see in this.

----- counter argument: SSDs has warranty

---------- counter counter argument: It is better to have something not break in the first place.

- Privacy. The PF might be considered a security issue.

----- counter argument: you can set it to be deleted at shutdown and then recreated

--------- counter counter argument: slower reboot. Killing you SSD.

- Logically, moving something from A to B, B to A is more wasteful than just keeping it in A - if A is faster.

----- counter argument: Logically slower, but not proven.

---------- counter counter argument: vise versa has not been proven.

You finally decide to list some reasons, and that's all you can come up with?

Lets start with space. Since hard disk space is cheap, you've fallen back to solid state drives. Even so, Windows 7 requires a minimum of 16GB of free hard disk space before it allows you to install it, this 16GB includes space for a pagefile. In short, if you were able to install Windows 7, you have space for a pagefile. No reason to disable it if you already have the space.

I'm not sure why you even bothered to bring up SSD write cycle limitations as an argument for disabling the pagefile. Most of us will have tossed out gurrent-generation SSD's and moved on to larger/faster ones long before they run out of write cycles (even with the pagefile enabled on the drive). Really, from a performance perspective, SSD's are the best kind of drive to put the pagefile on, as they have much faster random read performance than mechanical hard disks.

Privacy is the only legitimate concern you've come up with so far, but if you're that paranoid, deleting the pagefile at shutdown probably isn't enough security for you. There's always the option of using full drive encryption (windows 7 includes the ability to do this, it's called Bitlocker). Full drive encryption would keep all the data on the system safe, while also allowing you to keep your pagefile without worrying.

Finally, your cost/benefit analysis is skewed, largely because you don't know how memory management actually works. In the case of excess reserved address space, nothing is actually moved to the pagefile, the addresses are just shifted to point to locations available within the pagefile. Since there's no data in that reserve space, nothing is moved. Windows can preemptively reallocate those reserved addresses back into physical RAM when an application does decide it needs to use them (again, no actual data has ever moved from the RAM to the pagefile, or from the pagefile to RAM).

Continuing on your troubled cost/benefit assessment; in instances where Windows is moving old pages out of RAM (meaning it's moving actual data), it's not always detrimental to the overall performance of the system to move that data out of RAM while it's not in use. If a resource hasn't been used in hours and it gets moved to the pagefile so that more RAM can be used for cache to improve the performance of applications you're actually using, then it's worth the slight penalty incured by moving it back when it's called upon again. Also, as mentioned, in a previous post, resources that you use often will be in the aforementioned cache, so this won't be a problem for most of the apps you use regularly.

I also have tried ending this debate, unsuccessfully. See post 105. As StarLion replied to post 105, it was of my nature to reply back to the untruths of his words. So this debate will go on until one of us stops replying.

The only one uttering "untruths" around here is you. You don't know what you're talking about, you aren't even bothering to read most of what anybody posts that is contrary to your warped view of reality, and now you're starting to become genuinely insulting. A number of people have now asked that you stop posting your FUD.

The only explanation I can come up with for your behavior is that you are being willfully difficult, which would make you a troll. I have reported you to the moderators.

3,305 · December 12, 2009

I have 1.59 GB space on my SSD. From what I understand, I need this space, if not more, for System Restore - this is the only valid reason for keeping enough Drive space available that you didn't know I guess. Otherwise I will get "The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage failed to grow." error - as Windows 7 saves system restore points in a convoluted fashion, having too little space somehow makes W7 rage and delete all System Restore Points. This happens at restart.

If the above is true, by advocating to me to enable the PF, you are advocating against the use of System Restore. Either that or see below,

I have a first generation PATRIOT V2 WARP SSD - 64GiB. I am not planning on getting a new one until this one breaks as I have no problems with it so far. The Page File is bad for this baby. And certainly using the SSD as an extension of memory is an idea of a madman because many first gen SSDs has JMicron which pretty much will get my OS stuck if you write randomly to it. Because I have a slow SSD, it doesn't recognize my SSD as an SSD and therefore does not streamline my writes to help avoid such issues - and as Home Premium does not have group settings where I can tell it to use SSD mode improving writes... Disk Trashing is bad enough as is, but with my SSD - well no - no - no - no. It is much better allow RAM hungry / bugged applications to crash. I don't want to use anything else than lightweight applications anyway. This itself is a fully valid reason to never ever touch the PF.

The only way to free up space for a Page File, if ignoring everything above, is to start removing applications, movies, music, etc. In other words to diminish the productivity of my setup by being forced to uninstall important applications, music, games. I am lucky that I am not that bloke with a 16GB SSD and a PF who realized that he / she doesn't have enough space for anything. It is fully justified to disable the PF on a 16GB setup otherwise - where will your applications be?

So you might say, upgrade! upgrade!! Your hardware is teh sux! I surely can as long as you pay for it.

Or you might say, transfer your PF to another drive! I am sorry, but netbooks can only have ONE DRIVE.

Or you might say, transfer everything to your 7200RPM HD w. 160GB space and then use PF. The think is that this first gen SSD is the faster storage medium I have, also lightest, safe due to no moving parts, and more energy efficient. No thank you sir! I shall stay with this one, as speed is what matter to me sir. That and battery life.

When I first came here to tell you that you are full of air, that was what I said - the PF can be disabled in certain situations. Here is an example. If you disagree, then put yourself in my shoes and try again.

I originally disabled the PF because of the above, because of OCZ forum - sure my SSD is not a first gen OCZ - but it pretty much is in the same position. Stability wise, I never had problems. Windows 7 did not crash even IF it hit the RAM usage to the max. I had about 8MB left out of 4GB due to a unrelated problem. Guess what crashed? Nothing. Nothing. Repeat after me, Nothing. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing. I say, if it uses lots of resources - DON'T JUST STAND THERE, KILL IT WITH FIRE - problem solved. Badly coded applications should not even be used. My memory usage does not bloat over time. W7 cleaned it out when I ran World of Goo for example. W7 is efficient without the PF, it knows what to do with empty/wasted memory. Do you really think that I would be looking at you like a lost sheep if I did experience problems running without the Page File? No. I would agree with you. Partially, to me your argument is a theoretical one as it involves running out of memory during normal operation, I am neat person _ I do not allow extra services, bloat, etc to run. All your arguments stem from not having enough memory / running out of memory / no having enough memory / etc, well I am still saying that if you do not have enough memory then don't disable the PF. I would not know what to do with 8GB of RAM for example, I wouldn't go over 1GB with normal usage? So I wouldn't need all that RAM and neither would I need the PF. I mean, honestly, 7GB extra RAM to make sure I don't run out of memory using Firefox and playing Texture/Surf Maps on Counter Strike Source?!

I already said enabling the Page File is like adding RAM equivalent. If you don't need more RAM, you do not need the Page File.

Your large chunk of address space will be collecting dust (as I have enough RAM therefore only 0s will be allocated), will either make me make sacrifices in programs and data or in System Restore Points or both and, if actually used as extra memory it will make my system much much slower and make it get stuck often (J-Micron + NTFS). For me, the benefit of your Page File preaching is actually in the negatives.

I have read all your arguments and I have tried to explain multiple times how they don't apply to when it is safe to disable the Page File for either Window XP or 7. I won't care about them when I write my W7 tweaking guide. As I said many times before, all your arguments come from having not enough RAM which I already said is a flawed argument on many bases such as that you can ran out of memory no matter what. ETC.

You should realize this, but everything you said had no influence over me.

EDIT:

The following will be ignored for obvious reasons,

- Not enough Memory Argument

- Not efficient use of Memory Argument

- Possibly not enough Memory Argument

- Less Memory Argument

- Possibly Less Memory Argument

- Space is dirt cheap Argument

- Less stability Argument

- Memory related performance Argument

- Diagnosing a BSOD Argument

- ANY form of the above.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Udedenkz

16,859 · December 12, 2009

The posts above were split from:

Windows 7 Tips & Tricks?

December 12, 2009

I have 1.59 GB space on my SSD. From what I understand, I need this space, if not more, for System Restore - this is the only valid reason for keeping enough Drive space available that you didn't know I guess. Otherwise I will get "The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage failed to grow." error - as Windows 7 saves system restore points in a convoluted fashion, having too little space somehow makes W7 rage and delete all System Restore Points. This happens at restart.
If the above is true, by advocating to me to enable the PF, you are advocating against the use of System Restore.

No I'm not, you're making another incorrect assumption.

1. You hadn't stated how much free space you had on your SSD until just now, there's no way I could have known you were running so dangerously close to a full drive.

2. I do, in fact, know what shadow copes are. But you aren't keeping enough drive space available for it to be of much use either.

3. I never advocated killing system restore, you pulled that one out of nowhere.

4. There's a simple solution to this that you've purposefully overlooked, clear off some space and enable the pagefile.

Also, you're trying to suggest other people disable their pagefile. This may be shocking to you, but your circumstances don't apply to most people...although even if they did, it still doesn't prevent the use of a pagefile.

I have a first generation PATRIOT V2 WARP SSD - 64GiB. I am not planning on getting a new one until this one breaks as I have no problems with it so far. The Page File is bad for this baby. And certainly using the SSD as an extension of memory is an idea of a madman because many first gen SSDs has JMicron which pretty much will get my OS stuck if you write randomly to it.

The controller on that SSD has so many issues that, in addition to the stuttering problem, you feel it actually qualifies you to disable the pagefile? and you consider something like that "not broken"?

I would have demanded a refund. Dealing with the slow random read performance of a mechanical drive is less of a headache than trying to get around the problems of first generation SSD's.

Moving on...since you've said you've found some miraculous way to prevent ever going over the physical memory limitations of your computer with actively used applications, that shouldn't be much of a problem for you. ;) You'll never use the most I/O intensive feature of the pagefile, which would be spillover form active applications, leaving the pagefile to handle optimizing the usage of physical memory.

If you had actually read my previous post, you would know these memory optimizing operations involving the pagefile don't actually read and write a whole lot of data to the pagefile much of the time. In the case of excess reserved address space, nothing is actually moved to the pagefile, the addresses are just shifted to point to locations available within the pagefile. Since there's no data in that reserve space, nothing is moved. Windows can preemptively reallocate those reserved addresses back into physical RAM when an application does decide it needs to use them (again, no actual data has ever moved from the RAM to the pagefile, or from the pagefile to RAM).

In instances where Windows is moving old pages out of RAM (meaning it's moving actual data), it's not always detrimental to the overall performance of the system to move that data out of RAM while it's not in use. If a resource hasn't been used in hours and it gets moved to the pagefile so that more RAM can be used for cache to improve the performance of applications you're actually using, then it's worth the slight penalty incured by moving it back when it's called upon again. Also, as mentioned, in a previous post, resources that you use often will be in the aforementioned cache, so this won't be a problem for most of the apps you use regularly.

Because I have a slow SSD, it doesn't recognize my SSD as an SSD and therefore does not streamline my writes to help avoid such issues - and as Home Premium does not have group settings where I can tell it to use SSD mode improving writes... Disk Trashing is bad enough as is, but with my SSD - well no - no - no - no. It is much better allow RAM hungry / bugged applications to crash. I don't want to use anything else than lightweight applications anyway. This itself is a fully valid reason to never ever touch the PF.

More proof that particular line of SSD's shouldn't have been allowed to leave the factory.

Did you really just suggest it's BETTER to allow applications to crash rather than having a little bit of pagefile used? I'm sorry, but you are officially out of touch with reality.

The only way to free up space for a Page File, if ignoring everything above, is to start removing applications, movies, music, etc. In other words to diminish the productivity of my setup by being forced to uninstall important applications, music, games. I am lucky that I am not that bloke with a 16GB SSD and a PF who realized that he / she doesn't have enough space for anything. It is fully justified to disable the PF on a 16GB setup otherwise - where will your applications be?

Oh please, you can't spare to clear off 500MB of space? Wait...did you really just suggest games are productivity applications? Uh, no...

I'm not sure why you're bringing up users with 16GB solid state drives, they don't meet the minimum requirements for drive space to install Windows 7. You need a minimum of 16GB of free space to install Windows 7, while a 16GB SSD only offers 14.9GB of free space (thanks to the GiB to GB conversion). The smallest SSD you're likely to find Windows 7 installed on from the factory is 32GB (Which is 29.8GB after the GiB to GB conversion).

You really need to fact-check before posting.

So you might say, upgrade! upgrade!! Your hardware is teh sux! I surely can as long as you pay for it.

I never said you should upgrade anything...you're the one suggesting people buy more RAM in order to make up for your suggestion of disabling the pagefile.

Or you might say, transfer your PF to another drive! I am sorry, but netbooks can only have ONE DRIVE.

First, your situation does not apply to everyone. You cannot recommend others turn off their pagefile based on the above.

Second, you're just plain wrong. Every netbook I've seen has had an SD Card slot perfectly capable of accepting a second drive. There's also the option of fitting internal USB flash drives as many eeePC owners have done. There are options, you're just choosing to ignore them.

Or you might say, transfer everything to your 7200RPM HD w. 160GB space and then use PF. The think is that this first gen SSD is the faster storage medium I have, also lightest, safe due to no moving parts, and more energy efficient. No thank you sir! I shall stay with this one, as speed is what matter to me sir. That and battery life.

Faster storage medium? It's so slow Windows can't even recognize it as an SSD. Combined with the stuttering issues, I would take a mechanical drive any day.

Light and safe, you've got me there. SSD's are more shock resistant and do fail-safe when they run out of write cycles (no dataloss). However, given all the issues that particular drive you're using has, I wouldn't touch it.

As for energy efficiency and battery life...you must be joking. Did you bother to do any research at all? Most SSD's aren't any more energy efficent than mechanical hard disks, worse yet, some of them can actually decease battery run-times by being more power hungry than their mechanical counterparts. Toms hardware found that some laptops lost MORE THAN AN HOUR of run-time when switching from a hard disk to a solid state drive.

Check the results for yourself: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hd...ery,1955-2.html

Click through the pages, they do extensive testing. The results are undeniable, all but two of the SSD's they tested ended up using more power than mechanical drives. If you can't be bothered, here's the graph

See, hard disks have multiple power states. Not all tasks require spinning the drives up to their maximum power state in order to complete the task. Solid state drives only have two power states; Maximum or idle. Every single operation performed on an SSD puts in its maximum performance consuming mode, every time. This compounds to the results above, hard disks beating solid state drives on power consumption.

I originally disabled the PF because of the above, because of OCZ forum - sure my SSD is not a first gen OCZ - but it pretty much is in the same position. Stability wise, I never had problems. Windows 7 did not crash even IF it hit the RAM usage to the max. I had about 8MB left out of 4GB due to a unrelated problem. Guess what crashed? Nothing. Nothing. Repeat after me, Nothing. Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing.

That is astonishingly lucky (or you're withholding information, which I find far more likely).

I've been toying around with a Windows 7 virtual machine with 2GB of RAM and pagefile disabled to simulate your setup. So far, I've managed to make it crash just running Word 2007, Powerpoint 2007, and firefox at the same time (obviously with documents and tabs open). In one instance it crashed so badly that Windows was unable to properly write the user profile back to disk; after the machine came back up, it would BSoD when you attempted to log in due to the corrupt profile. It was fixable by booting into safe mode, deleting the entire user account, and making a new one...

I say, if it uses lots of resources - DON'T JUST STAND THERE, KILL IT WITH FIRE - problem solved. Badly coded applications should not even be used.

It's not always about the application being coded poorly, some tasks are inherently memory hungry and there's nothing you can do about it. If I were to take your advice, i would be out of a job, as I would be unable to run Photoshop, Maya, Firefox (it does hog memory), etc.

At this point you're being wholly irrational. Get a clue.

My memory usage does not bloat over time. W7 cleaned it out when I ran World of Goo for example. W7 is efficient without the PF, it knows what to do with empty/wasted memory.

1. I never claimed memory usage bloated over time, I said memory management wasn't as efficient without a pagefile.

2. Windows 7 does try its best without a pagefile, but it's better with one. I've gone into why countless times now.

(sorry, this is going to spill onto three posts. I keep running into posting limitations regarding the number of quotes-per-post)

December 12, 2009

Do you really think that I would be looking at you like a lost sheep if I did experience problems running without the Page File? No.

Actually, yes, I would. That's exactly what a troll would do.

If you're a troll, you know you're completely wrong, and are just arguing for kicks (you did mention you were enjoy this). If you're actually being honestly dense, then wow...just wow... Minus one point for my faith in humanity.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt as a troll, just come out with it now. This has gone on long enough, you know everything you've said has been wrong. Just stop now and we can get on with our lives. Ignoring valid points just to continue on arguing is getting old.

Partially, to me your argument is a theoretical one as it involves running out of memory during normal operation
[...]

All your arguments stem from not having enough memory / running out of memory / no having enough memory / etc

Wrong. Wrong-wrong-wrong. I've said it time again. Are you really this handicapped? I'll repeat it again, be sure to actually read this time.

You don't have to run out of memory to make use of the pagefile. Windows will put reserve address space as well as old pages there. You had free RAM already (being used for cache), but this means you have EVEN MORE free RAM (to use for even more cache). This increase in cache space allows for improved system responsiveness.

Nowhere in the above have you run out of RAM for active processes. The pagefile is just allowing you to use your existing RAM more efficiently. Nothing here is theoretical...you simply don't know what you're talking about (as usual).

I am neat person _ I do not allow extra services, bloat, etc to run.

Still wrong. First of all, disabling services doesn't improve anything by a noticeable margin, all it does is reduce functionality. Services don't use any CPU time (ok, one single clockcycle to skip the idling process) and don't use much RAM unless they're actually doing something (and if they're doing something, you probably need them). Simply not worth it to disable them, all those service trimming guides are a joke.

I would not know what to do with 8GB of RAM for example, I wouldn't go over 1GB with normal usage? So I wouldn't need all that RAM and neither would I need the PF.

Nope, you still havn't read, otherwise you would understand why this is incorrect.

Even if you never use all that RAM for currently running applications, Windows will still use it to help you out. The more RAM you have, the more Windows can cache, which results in improved system responsiveness across the board (in essence, more RAM is ALWAYS better). Having a pagefile available allows you to keep yet more of that RAM free for things that actually improve performance, so it's still necessary as well.

I mean, honestly, 7GB extra RAM to make sure I don't run out of memory using Firefox and playing Texture/Surf Maps on Counter Strike Source?!

7GB of RAM to improve the performance of everything. Get it through your head, please.

I already said enabling the Page File is like adding RAM equivalent. If you don't need more RAM, you do not need the Page File.

Uh, I already explained why this line of reasoning is unsound. Stop ignoring the facts.

Adding RAM is nothing like adding the pagefile. The fact that you can still use the pagefile to help out memory management no matter how much RAM you add should make that self evident.

Your large chunk of address space will be collecting dust (as I have enough RAM therefore only 0s will be allocated)

Yup, you could waste multiple gigabytes of RAM holding nothing but zero's instead of cache that would improve performance.

will either make me make sacrifices in programs and data or in System Restore Points or both and, if actually used as extra memory it will make my system much much slower and make it get stuck often (J-Micron + NTFS). For me, the benefit of your Page File preaching is actually in the negatives.

1. I never suggested you disable system restore, get that out of your head right now.

2. If you can't spare to free up 500MB I really do feel sorry for you.

3. No, they're positives, you just don't understand how any of this works (and it shows).

4. You still can't recommend others disable the pagefile based on your clearly broken SSD.

I have read all your arguments and I have tried to explain multiple times how they don't apply to when it is safe to disable the Page File for either Window XP or 7.

There's nothing to explain, you're wrong, it's not a good idea to disable the pagefile. Stop recommending it.

I won't care about them when I write my W7 tweaking guide.

There's no way you can be serious. You've demonstrated countless times that you have absolutely no idea how Windows works. Any tweak guide you write would be rubbish beyond all belief.

(One more post coming...)

December 12, 2009

As I said many times before, all your arguments come from having not enough RAM which I already said is a flawed argument on many bases such as that you can ran out of memory no matter what. ETC.

As I've said many times, you simply aren't reading. The pagefile is used for more than just spillover when you run out of RAM. It's also used to improve memory management.

Read this very carefully: you don't have to run out of memory to make use of the pagefile, it can be used to improve things even if you have plenty of free RAM. Windows will put reserve address space as well as old pages there. You had free RAM already (being used for cache), but this means you have EVEN MORE free RAM (to use for even more cache). This increase in cache space allows for improved system responsiveness.

Nowhere in the above have you run out of RAM for active processes. The pagefile is just allowing you to use your existing RAM more efficiently. Nothing here is theoretical...you simply don't know what you're talking about (as usual).

I don't know how you can keep making the same mistake over and over. It's really quite sad to see someone so completely incapable of elementary reading comprehension.

EDIT:
The following will be ignored for obvious reasons,

- Not enough Memory Argument

- Not efficient use of Memory Argument

- Possibly not enough Memory Argument

- Less Memory Argument

- Possibly Less Memory Argument

- Space is dirt cheap Argument

- Less stability Argument

- Memory related performance Argument

- Diagnosing a BSOD Argument

- ANY form of the above.

Obvious reasons? The only obvious reason is that you're in some serious hardcore denial.

See, this is the kind of thing I've been talking about. You're just ignoring everything that you personally don't want to hear. You have become the forum troll equivalent of a child putting their fingers in their ears and yelling "NAH-NAH-NAH-NAH! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

December 12, 2009

There's really no point in arguing with Udedenkz, StarLion. He truly believes that disabling the PF is a good idea (it isn't). I'm baffled as to why he kept such a bad SSD if it can't even handle random writes. lol

3,305 · December 12, 2009

For my System Restore serves a purpose, I value it above and beyond the Page File.

You are also suggesting me to upgrade my hardware, which works perfectly. It won't work perfectly if I enable the PF and a rouge app will start disk thrashing, such an app should be killed/disallowed access to the PF. I can't use the Page File as its main purpose an extension for low memory systems. I do not have any problem with my Hard Ware - I know how to use it.

As from my experience there are no major problems running without a PF on 1GB netbook w. XP, 2GB notebook w. XP, 1GB Tower w. XP., 2GB (then 4GB) Notebook w. 7 x64, XP, 2003, and XP x64 and Ubuntu without Swap. And finally this 2GB netbook.

Next two paragraphs were ignored as stated in my previous post.

SSD is fine, it was a great purchase. 120 read, 0.2 seek, 14Mb/s continuous write.

Yes it is much better to have that application crash. I do not want such an application on my system, it is either a memory leak or a bug. It needs to be restarted.

Because of this I value the PF as wasted space, therefore when it comes down to whether I want HL2 or a Page File, I will choose HL2. When It comes down to storing more movies or a PF I will choose move movies. Etc. I will not bother to spare space for a Page File. If I find space to free, I will be thinking - time to get download-in!

Yep it was faster than the 5200RPM HD before it. It is also about twice as fast as my 7200RPM HD. Unmatched seek times too.

I haven't seen a decrease in battery life. So, doesn't apply. :)

I betcha you kept ignoring the memory errors and kept trying to open more stuff. You were intentionally trying to open as much junk as possible to crash the system, you succeeded. Congrats!

Photoshop is not a memory hog. I worked with 600DPI on my 4GB laptop without any problems. A properly configured Firefox does not use a lot of RAM. Never heard of Maya. You have 8GB RAM - without a PF you PWN anyone who has a PF+RAM total less than 8GB. BULLOCKS SIR BULLOCKS

If you don't have enough RAM (even though 8GB is immense overkill for Office 2007, Firefox, and Photoshop), you shouldn't disable the PF. Althouh I would recommend you to scan your PC for viruses - you shouldn't ever run out of RAM.

1. It sure sounded like you did. Second part/ argument I already said I don't care about.

2. Ignored

----------

Your second post

---------

You just don't get that you can't reason with my using arguments that I already tackled.

Right. Right-right-right. That is the more memory argument!! Ignored.

You can't say that disabling services does not improve system, you are just not using an Atom CPU to experience it. Seriously you need to ration out how I trimmed down my boot time disabling services and RAM usage. If you want to debate Service Tweaking, go to BlackViper's Forum, start an account, and make your first post being just that.

I have been reading everything you post.

Memory argument, ignored. See previous posts for detailed reasons.

Also less memory = less performance argument, ignored. See previous posts for reasons.

Yes Page File is slower than RAM therefore adding more RAM is better than enabling a controlled size PF.

1. What do you value more, the System Restore, or the PF?

2. Not for wasted space which can be used to expand my Youtube MP4 collection!

3. Ignored.

4. I don't have a broken SSD.

You haven't said anything to convince me otherwise.

You have the right to troll that thread when I create it, start a flame war, I will just put you on my ignore list.

----

Third Post

---

FYI: You are repeating yourself, I already tackled this in my previous posts. Ignored.

I already tackled all your arguments. You have nothing to say to convince me with. You can stop repeating yourself. Replying to me is futile. I already established this many posts back and explained in sufficient detail.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Udedenkz

3,207 · December 12, 2009

I already tackled all your arguments. You have nothing to say to convince me with. You can stop repeating yourself. Replying to me is futile. I already established this many posts back and explained in sufficient detail.

Translation:

LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA HAHA YOU'RE NOT SAYING ANYTHING LALALA FINGERS IN MY EARS

Not a very mature response really. I just hope that other users see this and don't take your misguided advice.

December 12, 2009

I was under the impression that Superfetch is best left off in the event you have a SSD... Am I wrong? People seem to recommend turning it off if you've got one.

Windows 7 will detect and disable superfetch and other services not needed for SSD's. There is no need to do anything because 7 was built with SSD's in mind including built in trim support.

December 12, 2009

For my System Restore serves a purpose, I value it above and beyond the Page File.

Ok, so don't disable it? I never told you to.

You are also suggesting me to upgrade my hardware

I never suggested you upgrade your hardware. Stop the lies.

It won't work perfectly if I enable the PF and a rouge app will start disk thrashing, such an app should be killed/disallowed access to the PF. I can't use the Page File as its main purpose an extension for low memory systems.

That may have been its primary use years ago, when the concept of multiple gigabytes of RAM was unthinkable, but its usage has changed with time. I've explained this, but you've ignored all the other stated uses once again.

As from my experience there are no major problems running without a PF on 1GB netbook w. XP, 2GB notebook w. XP, 1GB Tower w. XP., 2GB (then 4GB) Notebook w. 7 x64, XP, 2003, and XP x64 and Ubuntu without Swap. And finally this 2GB netbook.

Sorry, no. I've told you why disabling the pagefile is suboptimal, yet you continue to ignore it.

SSD is fine, it was a great purchase. 120 read, 0.2 seek, 14Mb/s continuous write.

That most certainly is not fine. No wonder Windows didn't enact SSD protocols, that's abysmally slow.

My hard disks all beat that read and write speed, the only thing you've got me on is seek time...except for one thing, you havn't told the whole truth about that seek time. The stuttering issues that drive experiences can send seek times into the hundreds of milliseconds (which is longer than any modern hard disk). Once again, you've failed to do research before spewing your ignorant garbage.

You really would be better off with a decent hard disk, I'm sorry you wasted your money.

Yes it is much better to have that application crash.

Completely and utterly, mind bogglingly, stupid way of thinking. No other way to describe it. Get out of here troll.

Because of this I value the PF as wasted space, therefore when it comes down to whether I want HL2 or a Page File, I will choose HL2.
When It comes down to storing more movies or a PF I will choose move movies. Etc. I will not bother to spare space for a Page File. If I find space to free, I will be thinking - time to get download-in!

I've described multiple times how you're wasting space without the pagefile. Also, if you can't spare even 500mb, and space seems more far more important than speed to you (considering how abysmal the performance of that SSD is), you might consider putting your old hard disk back in. Net performance will most likely be faster.

Yep it was faster than the 5200RPM HD before it. It is also about twice as fast as my 7200RPM HD. Unmatched seek times too.

Then you had some crappy-ass hard disks. I know for a fact that the 100+ms seek times that particular SSD experiences under mild load conditions will make it slower than just about any hard disk.

I haven't seen a decrease in battery life. So, doesn't apply. :)

Sorry, you can't deny the results so easily. The fact remains that there are hard disks that use significantly less power than solid state drives. Switching back to a decent hard disk could improve your battery life. 1.8" hard disks are especially power efficient, outpacing just about all moderately large SSD's (the power usage of an SSD does not decrease much as the physical size of the unit shrinks).

I betcha you kept ignoring the memory errors and kept trying to open more stuff. You were intentionally trying to open as much junk as possible to crash the system, you succeeded. Congrats!

Not really, i opened a powerpoint presentation from an old public speaking class exercise, the notecards in the word file, and started browse around with firefox. Out of nowhere, the virtual machine locked up and rebooted. The problem wasn't logged properly either, due to the lack of a pagefile.

(Again, two more posts coming, please stand by)

December 12, 2009

Photoshop is not a memory hog. I worked with 600DPI on my 4GB laptop without any problems. A properly configured Firefox does not use a lot of RAM. Never heard of Maya. You have 8GB RAM - without a PF you PWN anyone who has a PF+RAM total less than 8GB.

Did you...seriously just say photoshop isn't a memory hog? Try doing some transforms on high-DPI, multi-layered projects. I've come close to maxing out my 8GB of RAM more than once with 64bit Photoshop CS4. I guess you don't use photoshop for a whole lot...

You've never heard of Maya? It's a highend professional grade 3D modeling package, basically an industry standard...also highly resource intensive.

Your last line demonstrates that you, once again, do not know how memory management works. We aren't talking about performance realtive to other systems, we're talking about performance relative to the configuration of a single system. My system with 8GB of RAM and a pagefile performs better than my system with 8GB of RAm and no pagefile, simply because having the pagefile around for empty reserve address space and old pages clears up still more free RAM that can be used by windows for resource cache to improve the responsiveness of applications that I want to launch and/or am actively using.

If you don't have enough RAM (even though 8GB is immense overkill for Office 2007, Firefox, and Photoshop), you shouldn't disable the PF. Althouh I would recommend you to scan your PC for viruses - you shouldn't ever run out of RAM.

1. 8GB isn't overkill for Photoshop, I've already said I've used nearly that much on single actions before.

2. Photoshop isn't the only highend application I use on a daily basis that requires immense quantities of RAM.

3. my PC is virus free, some applications are just memory hungry.

4. Why are we talking about my properly configured system? You're the one in a shambles.

1. It sure sounded like you did. Second part/ argument I already said I don't care about.
2. Ignored

Lates take a look at what you're ignoring:

"1. I never claimed memory usage bloated over time, I said memory management wasn't as efficient without a pagefile."

"2. Windows 7 does try its best without a pagefile, but it's better with one. I've gone into why countless times now."

You've ignored that memory management is less efficient without a pagefile. Once again, you're just breezing over facts that don't fit into your narrow world view. Come back to reality, would you?

You just don't get that you can't reason with my using arguments that I already tackled.

That's the thing, you aren't tacking anything...you're just plain wrong. And ignoring proven facts isn't helping your case. You just look like a stubborn, closed minded, troll.

Right. Right-right-right. That is the more memory argument!! Ignored.

Nope, you've still got it wrong, and you still aren't reading. I've said it time again, so uncover your ears and listen. I'll repeat it again, be sure to actually read this time.

You don't have to run out of memory to make use of the pagefile. Windows will put reserve address space as well as old pages there. You had free RAM already (being used for cache), but this means you have EVEN MORE free RAM (to use for even more cache). This increase in cache space allows for improved system responsiveness.

Nowhere in the above have you run out of RAM for active processes. The pagefile is just allowing you to use your existing RAM more efficiently. Nothing here is theoretical...you simply don't know what you're talking about (as usual).

You can't just go on ignoring these facts, having the pagefile improves performance. Deal with it or discredit it (though I assure you, you wont be able to discredit it).

You can't say that disabling services does not improve system, you are just not using an Atom CPU to experience it. Seriously you need to ration out how I trimmed down my boot time disabling services and RAM usage. If you want to debate Service Tweaking, go to BlackViper's Forum, start an account, and make your first post being just that.

If you knew ANYTHING about how your operating system or processor actually worked, you wouldn't be saying anything like the above. If a service isn't doing anything, it isn't using any CPU time but the single clockcycle it takes to say "skip me, I'm idle." Having default services enabled that aren't doing anything isn't going to harm the performance of your CPU, Atom or otherwise. Get a clue.

As for blackviper, he recommends against disabling services outright. He quite clearly states that services should be set to Manuel mode which allows Windows to start them when needed, but not necessarily at bootup. There's a negligable decrease in boot time from doing this, but all you're doing is shifting your wait time around. instead of waiting for the machine to boot, you're waiting for the service to start when you launch a program that requires it.

If you hadn't noticed, quite a few services are set to Manuel by default in Windows 7, and Windows 7 will automatically start fewer of them at-boot on low memory ANYWAY, so there's not much use tweaking it. Put some faith in Windows 7, it knows what it's doing ;)

I have been reading everything you post.

No, you havn't...or at the very least, you havn't been comprehending it. Otherwise we wouldn't be arguing right now. You really need to stop the mental gymnastics you're doing to keep yourself from facing the truth. You're wrong. Grow up and deal with it.

Memory argument, ignored. See previous posts for detailed reasons.
Also less memory = less performance argument, ignored. See previous posts for reasons.

Uh, sorry, you're ignoring facts. Also, I've refuted your silly misconceptions, so just pointing back at the thing I just finished refuting will get you nowhere...

Just give it up, you have no way to back up your claims. I do. It doesn't matter how much you want to ignore it, the reality of the situation isn't going to change.

Yes Page File is slower than RAM therefore adding more RAM is better than enabling a controlled size PF.

I've already told you, you can't compare them like that. They're used for different things; the pagefile is there to compliment RAM, it's only used as a substitute for physical memory in the most dire of circumstances.

And there you go telling people to add more RAM again. Stop telling people to buy crap to make up for disabling the pagefile (enabling the pagefile, even after adding more RAM, will improve performance). There's no way around it, your attempts at taking jabs at me are futile.

1. What do you value more, the System Restore, or the PF?
2. Not for wasted space which can be used to expand my Youtube MP4 collection!

3. Ignored.

4. I don't have a broken SSD.

1. I already said I value them both. i never told you to turn off system restore,I said you should consider clearing off some junk.

2. The pagefile isn't wasted space, it's there to compliment memory management. As I said previously, if you're that concerned with capacity over performance, you should consider going back to hard disks. They'll fit your needs better.

3. You're outright ignoring everything positive about the pagefile with no explanation. Remember what I sadi about you acting like a child? This is it, right here.

4. Clearly you do. Performance slower than a hard disk, including seek times in a number of situations. That's just pathetic for an SSD.

(one more post on the way...)

December 12, 2009

You haven't said anything to convince me otherwise.

That's debatable, though true if you lack the mental capacity to comprehend moderately complex information.

If you would stop and listen instead of folding your arms and ignoring everything, you might actually learn something. But no, you're so stuck, so hopelessly arrogant that you'll debate the topic into the ground, even with all information to the contrary and multiple people telling you that you need to quit it. Nobody is buying it. Now come back and join the rest of us in the real world.

You have the right to troll that thread when I create it, start a flame war, I will just put you on my ignore list.

Trolling is a right? What are you talking about? Get a grip.

FYI: You are repeating yourself, I already tackled this in my previous posts. Ignored.

Of course I'm repeating myself, you don't appear to comprehend anything that is said only. Now you're outright stating that you're ignoring me and all relevant information. I've never seen someone so utterly closed minded...

I already tackled all your arguments. You have nothing to say to convince me with. You can stop repeating yourself. Replying to me is futile. I already established this many posts back and explained in sufficient detail.

I have to agree with Athernar's assessment of your behavior. As he put it, everything you've been saying boils down to "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA HAHA YOU'RE NOT SAYING ANYTHING LALALA FINGERS IN MY EARS"

You haven't established anything...well, besides the fact that you're a MASSIVE troll. I've corrected you time and time again, and when you couldn't come up with anything to back yourself up with, you reverted to simply ignoring the facts rather than accepting that you might *gasp* be wrong!

Come back when you have something to contribute. if you're just going to ingore half of what I've said yet again, DON'T BOTHER POSTING. Nobody wants to listen to your mindless FUD generated by an absolutely appalling lack of background knowledge.

December 12, 2009

Superfetch is one of microsofts worst ever ideas.

This is how I understand superfetch to work and will try to explain how traditional caching works.

Superfetch works by trying to predict your usage and preloading data to ram of the hdd. It will improve performance if it both (a) predicts the correct data you will load and (b) does this before you load the data, so typically windows will at the very least need you to wait before loading the data since it needs time to do this. It does not have an impact on bootup data as prefetch handles that. Superfetch in a variety of ways can have a negative impact on performance. It will put your hdd under load whilst pre caching data, so if you need your hdd for anything else at the same time there will be a performance impact, it uses up ram which can be anything from a significant impact on a low ram machine to a negligible impact on a machine with lots of ram, it uses up cpu resources. In general its bad for people who only want resources been used on demand and for people with low ram. It is probably ok for people with a lot of ram and have a predictable data loading pattern.

Traditional caching will cache data after it is loaded and will speed up the system when that data is needed after it is cached, so if superfetch is disabled dont worry data and apps still get cached, the difference been only data and apps you are actually using are cached. Rather than superfetch playing a guessing game and caching stuff you not using.

On vista microsoft got superfetch horribly wrong, I would often see the hdd been thrashed for over an hour after bootup, which immediatly ceased when superfetch got disabled. On windows 7 the algorithm does seem to be improved but I still generally dont like the theory behind superfetch.

disabling a pagefile to me seems a silly idea unless you have serious hdd resource problems and need the space. If you low on ram then a pagefile can save you from serious problems, better to have performance issues than to completely run out of resources and have stability issues. If you high on ram then the pagefile will not be used much anyway.

2,802 · December 12, 2009

Superfetch is one of microsofts worst ever ideas.
This is how I understand superfetch to work and will try to explain how traditional caching works.

Superfetch works by trying to predict your usage and preloading data to ram of the hdd. It will improve performance if it both (a) predicts the correct data you will load and (b) does this before you load the data, so typically windows will at the very least need you to wait before loading the data since it needs time to do this. It does not have an impact on bootup data as prefetch handles that. Superfetch in a variety of ways can have a negative impact on performance. It will put your hdd under load whilst pre caching data, so if you need your hdd for anything else at the same time there will be a performance impact, it uses up ram which can be anything from a significant impact on a low ram machine to a negligible impact on a machine with lots of ram, it uses up cpu resources. In general its bad for people who only want resources been used on demand and for people with low ram. It is probably ok for people with a lot of ram and have a predictable data loading pattern.

Traditional caching will cache data after it is loaded and will speed up the system when that data is needed after it is cached, so if superfetch is disabled dont worry data and apps still get cached, the difference been only data and apps you are actually using are cached. Rather than superfetch playing a guessing game and caching stuff you not using.

On vista microsoft got superfetch horribly wrong, I would often see the hdd been thrashed for over an hour after bootup, which immediatly ceased when superfetch got disabled. On windows 7 the algorithm does seem to be improved but I still generally dont like the theory behind superfetch.

disabling a pagefile to me seems a silly idea unless you have serious hdd resource problems and need the space. If you low on ram then a pagefile can save you from serious problems, better to have performance issues than to completely run out of resources and have stability issues. If you high on ram then the pagefile will not be used much anyway.

Superfetch only uses Idle CPU time, so it speeds things up without slowing anything down. How is that horribly wrong?

December 12, 2009

Superfetch only uses Idle CPU time, so it speeds things up without slowing anything down. How is that horribly wrong?

As I said its a thoery, it does it when it thinks is idle. It is also a bad thing to do because you may eg. have a 1 gig ram machine, on initial bootup there is say 300meg of free ram, it starts loading 300meg of data into ram before you do anything and then at the same time you load a game or an app up and at that moment there is a conflict of resources, and not only that after the user loads their apps/game then the 300gig of ram it thought was available is not so the pre loaded data is either then flushed (so a waste of time pre loading it) or the system starts pageing to disk as a result of superfetch loading data into ram that is not needed.

I can tell you there is no speedup on my system from superfetch.

The better idea would have been to greatly increase the caching limit (like the largesystemcache setting does) and allow all free ram to be used as cache. Only caching what is been used and nothing else.

You wont agree with me, microsoft tells you it improves performance so you accept that as gospel. I have put my view across and wish to leave it at that. At least superfetch can be toggled so we can all set it how we feel is best. I however do accept in specific situations superfetch may help.

December 12, 2009

Superfetch in a variety of ways can have a negative impact on performance. It will put your hdd under load whilst pre caching data, so if you need your hdd for anything else at the same time there will be a performance impact, it uses up ram which can be anything from a significant impact on a low ram machine to a negligible impact on a machine with lots of ram, it uses up cpu resources. In general its bad for people who only want resources been used on demand and for people with low ram. It is probably ok for people with a lot of ram and have a predictable data loading pattern.

Sorry, this isn't correct. Superfetch operates in low priority I/O mode, it will not impact performance because all other actions requested of the hard disk take presidence over Superfetch. Superfetch only works while the hard disk isn't doing ANYTHING else.

The RAM superfetch uses is also very low priority. If an application loads that requires more space, Superfetch will dump cache from RA< to make room. Again, there is no performance penalty for doing this, so the circumstances of usage characteristics don't count for much.

Traditional caching will cache data after it is loaded and will speed up the system when that data is needed after it is cached, so if superfetch is disabled dont worry data and apps still get cached, the difference been only data and apps you are actually using are cached. Rather than superfetch playing a guessing game and caching stuff you not using.

But that means you have to wait for data to be loaded from disk every time you load an application instead of most likely already having it in RAM ready to go. Why would you want to take that kind of eprformance hit when there's no eal imapct from running Superfetch?

On vista microsoft got superfetch horribly wrong, I would often see the hdd been thrashed for over an hour after bootup, which immediatly ceased when superfetch got disabled. On windows 7 the algorithm does seem to be improved but I still generally dont like the theory behind superfetch.

If the disk was being thrashed by superfetch, then it means you weren't doing anything else with it at the time.

Also, you don't understand the theory behind superfetch well enough to comment on it...

Superfetch is one of microsofts worst ever ideas.

Hardly, you simply didn't understand how it really works... i hope this has cleared things up for you.

disabling a pagefile to me seems a silly idea unless you have serious hdd resource problems and need the space. If you low on ram then a pagefile can save you from serious problems, better to have performance issues than to completely run out of resources and have stability issues. If you high on ram then the pagefile will not be used much anyway.

You had that right for the most part, though the pagefile does still benefit machines with large amounts of RAM. it compliments memory usage by allowing the operating system to keep more of your physical memory free for other tasks (which is a good thing no matter how much RAM you have).

In response to your second post (which you posted before I had even finished my response. Yikes!):

As I said its a thoery, it does it when it thinks is idle. It is also a bad thing to do because you may eg. have a 1 gig ram machine, on initial bootup there is say 300meg of free ram, it starts loading 300meg of data into ram before you do anything and then at the same time you load a game or an app up and at that moment there is a conflict of resources, and not only that after the user loads their apps/game then the 300gig of ram it thought was available is not so the pre loaded data is either then flushed (so a waste of time pre loading it) or the system starts pageing to disk as a result of superfetch loading data into ram that is not needed.

There is no conflict of resources. Superfetch will purge itself from RAM to make room for anything else that needs RAM. There is no performance penalty for doing so.

Also, it wasn't a waste of time, you could have needed it at some point. Besides that, it loaded everything in the background when disk I/O was otherwise idle, so it's not a problem.

I can tell you there is no speedup on my system from superfetch.

Sorry, wrong...

The better idea would have been to greatly increase the caching limit (like the largesystemcache setting does) and allow all free ram to be used as cache. Only caching what is been used and nothing else.

I've already explained why that's a bad idea...

You wont agree with me, microsoft tells you it improves performance so you accept that as gospel. I have put my view across and wish to leave it at that. At least superfetch can be toggled so we can all set it how we feel is best. I however do accept in specific situations superfetch may help.

I accept it because I know how it works. I really am sorry for you if you're so misinformed that you think turning it off would somehow improve things...

Edited December 12, 2009 by StarLion

December 12, 2009

Sigh I am drawn back into this :p

Sorry, this isn't correct. Superfetch operates in low priority I/O mode, it will not impact performance because all other actions requested of the hard disk take presidence over Superfetch. Superfetch only works while the hard disk isn't doing ANYTHING else.
The RAM superfetch uses is also very low priority. If an application loads that requires more space, Superfetch will dump cache from RA< to make room. Again, there is no performance penalty for doing this, so the circumstances of usage characteristics don't count for much.

Again thats based on opinion and theory, what happens if I dont want my hdd doing ANYTHING when I am not doing anything? What happens when other apps are doing background activity at the same? Even a low priority I/O will have impact as it means head movements of the disk. What happens if the disk is powered down? The statement that superfetch universally improves performance is simply not true. Every machine is different and everyone has different usage patterns.

But that means you have to wait for data to be loaded from disk every time you load an application instead of most likely already having it in RAM ready to go. Why would you want to take that kind of eprformance hit when there's no eal imapct from running Superfetch?

You mean every time you 'first' load an application right? unless the ram is low and cache has to be flushed then subsequent loads of applications will come from the cache. eg. after bootup when I first load notepad it comes from the hdd (as it should), then the 2nd and 3rd time and so on it comes from cache. Same with IE, outlook etc. On a machine with high ram data can easilt remain cached for days on end so will only come from hdd on the very first load, I rather have a light delay on initial load after boot than my hdd churning away in the background loading data I may never need to use. Remembering superfetch may actually end up flushing the real cache of data that you are actually using to make ram available for its own purpose.

Hardly, you simply didn't understand how it really works... i hope this has cleared things up for you

Whats to understand? traditional caching is passive, superfetch is not it preloads data rather than caching already loaded data.

December 12, 2009

Again thats based on opinion and theory

I'm sorry, WHAT? That's based on fact, that is simply how it works...

what happens if I dont want my hdd doing ANYTHING when I am not doing anything?

Why would you want that? If you're not doing anything, it doesn't effect you.

What happens when other apps are doing background activity at the same?

Superfetch waits for them to finish obviously.

Even a low priority I/O will have impact as it means head movements of the disk.

Since Superfetch will only use the disk when it isn't being used for anything else, head movements during superfetch caching will have no effect on anything else...because nothing else would be accessing the disk while Superfetch is caching.

What happens if the disk is powered down?

Then nothing has used the disk for an extended period of time, including superfetch, and the disk has gone into an idle power state.

The statement that superfetch universally improves performance is simply not true. Every machine is different and everyone has different usage patterns.

Sorry, wrong. At the very worst, if your usage is compleatly random and you never access the same data twice, it won't hurt anything. most of the time, however, it improves performance one way or another.

You mean every time you 'first' load an application right? unless the ram is low and cache has to be flushed then subsequent loads of applications will come from the cache.

Correct, but why would you want that extra wait time?

Also, that prefetch doesn't automatically repopulate if it's flushed out of RAM, superfetch does.

I rather have a light delay on initial load after boot than my hdd churning away in the background loading data I may never need to use.

But it only loads when the hard disk isn't doing anything else, there's no hit for having it enabled in any way...so why disable it?

Whats to understand? traditional caching is passive, superfetch is not it preloads data rather than caching already loaded data.

As I've just corrected nearly every line you posted, there is apparently A LOT to understand.

Superfetch is still mostly passive, in that if will stop immediately if anything else needs the resources it uses. There's no performance penalty for having it enabled, and only performance to gain by using it...

Edited December 12, 2009 by StarLion

11,890 · December 12, 2009

what happens if I dont want my hdd doing ANYTHING when I am not doing anything

Well, the easiest way is to unplug the computer every time you finish doing something.

You don't seem to understand resource management at all. Essentially every modern operating system uses available resources to optimize itself. They defrag after some period of idle time, or cache data into free RAM so that your programs launch faster. This isn't some opinion and theory, it is the way they work.

December 12, 2009

do they?

I guess you never used a unix based OS then?

since you mentioned defrag I do tune that as well, I keep it on a schedule but reduce the frequency it runs, I may even turn it off at some point if I start using a 3rd party defragger.

Windows vista/7 are the only 2os's I know off that pre cache information.

Caching data into free ram as you label it happens without superfetch. After my last post I opened a new IE window, I havent rebooted for about a day and last opened a IE window before I went to sleep some 10 or so hours agao, it was loaded from cache and I have superfetch disabled, superfetch is not required to load apps from cache.

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