Some users may notice that if they alt-tab from a video game or swap between heavy-hitting apps such as video editors or 100-tab browser windows, things grind to a halt. This is a sign that you’ve run out of the ultra-fast Random Access Memory installed in your PC, and Windows now has to rely on your much slower secondary storage as an overflow.
Windows is swapping information from your RAM chips with the “page file” in order to free up more space on your computer. This slowdown is most noticeable when you open many programs at once, or when you try to do something that requires a lot of memory (like playing a video game). ..
Windows 10 offers a number of optimization options that can help improve performance when paging through your files. One option is to optimize the paging file. This can help improve performance when you need to page through your files quickly.
What Is a “Paging File” Anyway?
The pagefile.sys file is a system file that stores the pages of your computer’s memory. It’s located at the root of your C drive and is named after the Windows operating system’s process ID, “pagedevice”. If you’re using Windows XP or later, you’ll also find a pagefile.sys file in the same location but with a different name (“pagefile.tlb” on Vista and later).
The pagefile is a reserved size and is divided into pages internally. This is the data format that RAM data is stored in for any operating system that uses RAM paging as a memory management method.
Windows keeps a record of which pages have its information, so when it wants that information, it requests the page from Pages. ..
When your apps need more RAM than your computer physically has, it needs to use virtual memory. This is exactly what the page file is. From the application’s point of view, it’s just more RAM. The only difference is that reading information from a hard drive is much slower than RAM. Which is rather the point of having RAM!
A page file is a file that stores data in RAM, which can help to reduce the amount of time your applications take to start up. Having a bit of slowdown when your applications need to access RAM is better than having the system go down as a whole.
OK, But Why Optimize The Paging File?
RAM paging is an ancient memory management method that is still in use on modern mainframe computers. It made a lot of sense when RAM was measured in dozens of kilobytes, and it still makes sense today when 640KB of memory is “enough for anyone”.
Adding more RAM to your computer can help you avoid running out of memory, especially if you use memory-hungry applications. ..
RAM is a type of computer memory that helps store data. It’s relatively cheap to buy and use, and can be used in many different computers.
If your computer has the right amount of RAM, it may still come a day when something makes it necessary to page through memory. At which time you’ll be thankful you had the presence of mind to make sure paging takes no longer than necessary. ..
General Tips To Improve Paging Performance
To improve the performance of RAM paging when it happens, one of the most common pieces of advice is to set your page file to a different drive than your operating system drive. ..
A recent study has shown that using an SSD as your primary disk can speed up your computer by orders of magnitude.
Windows tries to use the disk for other purposes when it is trying to swap information from your page file. If you put your page file on a separate hard drive, then this problem goes away. ..
If you have two SATA SSDs in your computer, it still makes sense to put your page file on the secondary drive. If you have a main drive that uses the NVMe over PCIe interface however, you gain nothing by moving the page file to that drive. That’s because NVMe over PCIe is parallel, which means read and write requests are handled simultaneously. ..
When it comes to mechanical hard drives, fragmentation can be an issue. Files are not stored continuously, but written into any available gaps left by deleted files. This means that over time as files are written and deleted, a specific file might exist in bits and pieces all over the drive.
When you defragment your hard drive, it’s important to make sure all the data is physically in the same location. If you’re using a mechanical drive, creating a dedicated partition after first defragmenting the drive can be a good way around this. By putting the page file on a defragmented partition, you’ll ensure all the data is physically in the same location.
How To Optimize Your Paging File In Windows 10
Now that you have a good understanding of the context and rules to optimize the paging file, it’s time to actually dig into the settings themselves. It’s up to you to decide what specific settings to use based on your specific configuration. ..
Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows You can adjust the appearance and performance of Windows by clicking on the Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows link in the settings category. This will open a window where you can make various changes to how Windows looks and performs. ..
The Performance Options window should now open. On the advanced tab, you can change how your computer behaves when it’s idle, using options like “Max Idle Time” and “CPU Frequency”.
Under the Change virtual memory settings heading, click on the Add button. In the Add virtual memory window, type in the size of your new virtual memory and click on OK. Your computer will now restart to apply your changes. ..
The Virtual Memory window will now open. All of the options are greyed out by default. So first we have to check Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. ..
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Each drive has its own individual settings. Click on the desired drive in the window to change its specific settings. Logical partitions will also show up as independent drives. Select custom size to specify your own minimum and maximum paging file size. Select No Paging File if you don’t want a particular drive to have one at all. The default automatic behavior is to have a minimum size of 1.5 times the amount of actual RAM, but we don’t recommend you choose a minimum size below this. Once you have set a particular drive the way you like it, remember to click Set to lock those choices in.
How To Optimize Your Paging File In Older Versions Of Windows
Windows 10 has a new virtual memory interface that is different from how it works on older versions of Windows. Specifically, Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 still have the same virtual memory interface.
We’re not going to include anything older than Windows 7 in this discussion because there are no extant machines still running these unsupported operating systems anymore.
First, open the Performance Options window by pressing the Windows key and then clicking on the Settings button. Then, under the System tab, select “Performance.” Next, under “Task Manager,” click on the “Task Manager” icon and then select “Processes.” Under “Processes,” click on the name of the process that you want to change its performance level to low. Now, under “Performance,” change the performance level to low and click on OK.
In the System Properties window, click on Settings.
Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft and will not receive any updates or support after 2020. It is important to upgrade as soon as possible to avoid any potential problems. ..
Paging Dr. Performance
If you’re on a low-end computer with limited RAM, changing the paging settings can make a big difference. Even on high-end machines that occasionally need to punch above their weight in terms of memory, changing the paging settings can make a big difference.
If you next encounter a computer that is grinding to a halt, it might very well be because it needs a visit from the paging file doctor.
