Virtual memory vs real memory

[Out Of Bubblegum]

I am using the HWiInfo program. I have 16G memory. And I am playing fallout 4. It shows the virtual memory going to 99.8% usage. But the real memory usage is just 48%. And Fallout 4 just did a CTD. What is this virtual memory?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Manually change the virtual memory to either 8192 min and max or higher. Apply and reboot.

[Electric Cupcake]

You don't have paging set to dynamic?

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Dynamic? I duuno. Is that an option in the UEFI?
And is UEFI where you change this virtual memory setting?

[Out Of Bubblegum]

OK. I see it. That is what Windows calls the hard drive swapping space. I did not think that with 16G, the Windows would ever need to use disk swap space. I will add a swap space.

[Julien, cut it out.]

You don't really need to tinker any options there. 16 GB of RAM is plenty for daily usage.
Windows allocates and released RAM all by itself. Increasing virtual memory won't give you better performance in general.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Set it to 8gb or 16gb and you won't run out. Otherwise you will.

System ram is meaningless because some apps or games need high amount of pagefile regardless

[L37]

Virtual memory[en.wikipedia.org] is ALL memory, physical + swap combined. Running out of virtual memory is pretty bad situation, it might lead to complete OS crash, that's why OS is killing something (in your case game) - to protect itself from complete failure.
It means 2 - things:
1. Increase swap. This should help with crashes.
2. Add more RAM. Because this means you are running aout of RAM and will have significantly reduced peformance, because swapping is slow.

Another option might be - is the game 32bit? In this case the limit on amount of (virtual)memory it can use will be ~4 GB on 64bit OS or 2-3(depending on settings) on 32bit.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Originally posted by Bananarama:

You don't really need to tinker any options there. 16 GB of RAM is plenty for daily usage.
Windows allocates and released RAM all by itself. Increasing virtual memory won't give you better performance in general.

That is what I thought. There should be no reason for Windows to swap stuff to the HD when it has half of the real memory left to use. I have been setting that swap space to a tiny amount for years. I make it just big enough just so windows will be happy that it can store crash reports. Oh well. I will try with an 8G swap space and monitor what happens.

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

System ram is meaningless because some apps or games need high amount of pagefile regardless

Ok.

[Julien, cut it out.]

Well, back in the day I learnt that pagefiles are used when you run out of physical memory. The OS then puts a "page" on the hard drive, swaps the pages in and out when necessary.

But without knowing how window's 10 scheduler works, I can't really say anything useful but that it should be left in the hands of the OS.

For your fallout 4 crash: Use stability mods. It's a bethesda game.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by Bananarama:

You don't really need to tinker any options there. 16 GB of RAM is plenty for daily usage.
Windows allocates and released RAM all by itself. Increasing virtual memory won't give you better performance in general.

That is what I thought. There should be no reason for Windows to swap stuff to the HD when it has half of the real memory left to use. I have been setting that swap space to a tiny amount for years. I make it just big enough just so windows will be happy that it can store crash reports. Oh well. I will try with an 8G swap space and monitor what happens.

The poster told you that you don't need to tinker with those options. You agreed. And then proceed to explain how you tinker with the options.

You don't need to micromanage the pagefile at all. Set it to default and let Windows manage it, it's going to do a better job than you.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

The poster told you that you don't need to tinker with those options. You agreed. And then proceed to explain how you tinker with the options.

You don't need to micromanage the pagefile at all. Set it to default and let Windows manage it, it's going to do a better job than you.

Sigh. Mr grammar nazi. I should have cut down the post.

This make it more clear for you?

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by Bananarama:

16 GB of RAM is plenty for daily usage.

That is what I thought. There should be no reason for Windows to swap stuff to the HD when it has half of the real memory left to use. I have been setting that swap space to a tiny amount for years. I make it just big enough just so windows will be happy that it can store crash reports. Oh well. I will try with an 8G swap space and monitor what happens.

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Also. With a spinner hard drive there is a good reason to manage the swap space better than Windows. You get fragmentation with a dynamic swap space. Which is why Motha suggested a fixed size. On an SSD it should not matter.

And ... Bugger off.

[Autumn_]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

The poster told you that you don't need to tinker with those options. You agreed. And then proceed to explain how you tinker with the options.

You don't need to micromanage the pagefile at all. Set it to default and let Windows manage it, it's going to do a better job than you.

Sigh. Mr grammar nazi. I should have cut down the post.

This make it more clear for you?

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

That is what I thought. There should be no reason for Windows to swap stuff to the HD when it has half of the real memory left to use. I have been setting that swap space to a tiny amount for years. I make it just big enough just so windows will be happy that it can store crash reports. Oh well. I will try with an 8G swap space and monitor what happens.

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Also. With a spinner hard drive there is a good reason to manage the swap space better than Windows. You get fragmentation with a dynamic swap space. Which is why Motha suggested a fixed size. On an SSD it should not matter.

And ... Bugger off.

Sorry, how is he a grammar nazi, he hasn't commented on anything regarding grammar....

Windows is better managing it itself, like he said, just like defragging/TRIM of drives.
While Windows is ♥♥♥♥, and I would rather be using Linux, Windows does things much better than what people say it does, and doesn't need much help to run well. (The only help you can give it is not install a bunch of trash.)

Originally posted by Bananarama:

Well, back in the day I learnt that pagefiles are used when you run out of physical memory. The OS then puts a "page" on the hard drive, swaps the pages in and out when necessary.

But without knowing how window's 10 scheduler works, I can't really say anything useful but that it should be left in the hands of the OS.

For your fallout 4 crash: Use stability mods. It's a bethesda game.

Not just when you run out of physical memory, but when you're not using a program for a while and Windows decides ''hey, you're not using that now, but you may need to access it later, I'll save that'', and some programs need page files for caching even though there's enough space in RAM.
But, like you said, Windows knows what it's doing better than you, me, or anyone else.

[Carlsberg]

There is no performance gain in disabling the pagefile but there are potential errors in not having one. Regardless of how much memory you have, Windows was designed to run with a pagefile, set it and forget it.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

The poster told you that you don't need to tinker with those options. You agreed. And then proceed to explain how you tinker with the options.

You don't need to micromanage the pagefile at all. Set it to default and let Windows manage it, it's going to do a better job than you.

Sigh. Mr grammar nazi. I should have cut down the post.

This make it more clear for you?

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

That is what I thought. There should be no reason for Windows to swap stuff to the HD when it has half of the real memory left to use. I have been setting that swap space to a tiny amount for years. I make it just big enough just so windows will be happy that it can store crash reports. Oh well. I will try with an 8G swap space and monitor what happens.

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Also. With a spinner hard drive there is a good reason to manage the swap space better than Windows. You get fragmentation with a dynamic swap space. Which is why Motha suggested a fixed size. On an SSD it should not matter.

And ... Bugger off.

Well you do you, it's still a waste of time. On either a HDD or a SSD. I think you overestimate how much the page file contributes to fragmentation on a HDD.

You clearly believe this is an important and valuable thing you're doing. But I think you're going to have a tough time substantiating that if asked to.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Pagefile can't fragment you drive at all if done right. Windows never does it right. I've been telling folks how to do it right for many years, since Win2k.

How to stop it fragmenting your os drive and actually have it run better?

Go to the pagefile settings.
Set it to None and click OK.
Reboot and defrag or trim your os drive.
Go back into pagefile settings and click C drive, now set the size manually to 8192 for both min and max, click set, click OK. Reboot.

Now the pagefile is recreated fresh on C drive all in one chunk that should be in order and not scattered all over the drive. It wont fragment now because you've locked in a min and max size to the same amount.