Last week I started a series on the Windows Virtual Memory feature, in the first part of the article I explained the swap (or paging) file. In this part of the article I am going to talk about how to optimize it.
Optimizing the Swap File
The default Windows VM settings will work fine for most people. Although, there are still a few ways to optimize the swap file, but in reality they will only offer small amounts of extra performance. So for most people the time required to make these changes might not be worth the effort.
For the real system performance fanatics, I will show you some ways to make your system work more efficiently.
Trick 3: If you have multiple hard drives (and I don't mean multiple partitions on the same drive) installed on your computer. Consider moving the swap file to the non-system drive. This way the computer can access multiple drives at the same time.
Trick 4: If you have enough physical RAM installed on your computer (generally 2GB or more), you might want to consider turning off the VM feature. This will help your computer's performance because it doesn't have to manage the swap file. In the VM dialog, select the 'No paging file' radio button, and press the OK button.
Optimizing the Swap File
The default Windows VM settings will work fine for most people. Although, there are still a few ways to optimize the swap file, but in reality they will only offer small amounts of extra performance. So for most people the time required to make these changes might not be worth the effort.
For the real system performance fanatics, I will show you some ways to make your system work more efficiently.
- Note: None of these changes should cause irreversible damage to your system, but I aways recommend that you have a good back up of your data before proceeding with system changes. Also as always proceed at your own risk.
- From the Start Menu, right-click on My Computer and select Properties
- Click the Advanced tab, and press the Settings button in the Performance section.
- Click on the Advanced tab again, then press the Change button.
Note: The general rule of thumb for setting the size of the swap file is about 1.5-2 times the size of your physical RAM.Trick 2: After turning off the automatic growth feature (in Trick 1), defragment swap file. This can be done using the Windows Defragment tool. This will make the file contiguous and prevent your computer from having to seek all over the hard drive to get the data it needs.
Trick 3: If you have multiple hard drives (and I don't mean multiple partitions on the same drive) installed on your computer. Consider moving the swap file to the non-system drive. This way the computer can access multiple drives at the same time.
Trick 4: If you have enough physical RAM installed on your computer (generally 2GB or more), you might want to consider turning off the VM feature. This will help your computer's performance because it doesn't have to manage the swap file. In the VM dialog, select the 'No paging file' radio button, and press the OK button.
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