Swap Files

[sea69]

Hi,

looking to see how you manage your swap file running win98se. (or have when you used win98se)

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personal experiences only please- not links to somewhere!

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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[BigBlue66]

Hey Sea,

I have three systems running 98SE. One has 768mb of RAM, the other two have 512mb each, although I just ordered 1GB for one of them.

I used O'Reilley Utilities to tell me how much a fixed swap file size should be. It came up with around 500mb on each machine.

I read somewhere that a person should never go over 256mb, so I tried that, and Norton wanted me to change it back. So I did, haven't gotten brave enough to try it. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
- Pamela Vault Starr

[BigBlue66]

Oh, and I forgot.

I also use the ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1 statement in system.ini as well as [vcache] entries for minimum and maximum as 1/8 and 1/4 respectively of available RAM. Except for the system with 768mb of RAM, I used 512mb as the available RAM figure.

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
- Pamela Vault Starr

[sea69]

ok, tried setting mine to 190mbs (minimum)>> then went to 256Mbs (which is the amount of ram I have) put it to (D) partition.


"ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1"

this is a statement that you add correct ??

where ??

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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[sea69]

ok, tried setting mine to 190mbs (minimum)>> then went to 256Mbs (which is the amount of ram I have) put it to (D) partition.


"ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1"

this is a statement that you add correct ??

where ??

any particular area of system.ini ??


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thanks BB..

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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 12-12-2001).]

[mjc]

I have 192MB of RAM installed, minus 1MB for my onboard video that I can't completely disable, and 18MB for a RAM drive (IE cache is there), use the "ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1" line ins system.ini (386enh section)...which brings me down to 173 MB available to Windows. I have my swapfile set to 64MB and hardly ever use it and I have gotten one low memory error in six months, and it was when I openned something like 18 different programs, a dozen browser windows and then tried to load a large jpeg (some of the things running were MediaPlayer, and MS Works...).

I consider my system fairly stable, I know one or two programs that cause problems, but I haven't found a suitable replacement for them...I get times when IE trips over its own feet and won't do anything (IE needs to be put on SlimFast or something)...


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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[sea69]

mine: [386Enh]
LocalLoadHigh=0
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*dynapage
device=*vcd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
keyboard=*vkd
display=*vdd,*vflatd
EMMExclude=C000-CFFF,C000-CFFF
WPSLPT1=0
CacheBlockSize=00086EE05366C001D0
CacheLineSize=00C80F584280C001B2
MinSps=4
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1
PagingDrive=D:
MinPagingFileSize=262144

does this look ok ??

TIA

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Note: finally found a good use for compaq's D-system_save partition. It's where I put my swap file.

heh

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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)

[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 12-12-2001).]

[BigBlue66]

Hmmm, Sea, where is the MaxPagingFileSize statement?

What you have now suggests that you do not have a fixed size swap file. Otherwise, looks OK.

You maybe should use the above statement as well, and set it to the same numbers as the minimum.

BB 66


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Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
- Pamela Vault Starr

[BigBlue66]

Well then, I'm going to try setting my swap file size lower. To heck with Norton. I think I can bypass its recommendations. Think I'll try 128mb and then go lower if no problems.

Cheers,

BB 66

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Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
- Pamela Vault Starr

[sea69]

was advised to not set the max.

is that incorrect ??



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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[mjc]

With the max not set windows will still resize it as needed...the only problem with the constant resizing that Windows does is it takes time, Windows does tend to clean up after itself with this but it still uses time to do it....you can set a Max and no Min ...it will never go higher than the Max and if Win doesn't need it will drop it to a bare minimum amount and leave it at that until it needs it (which I very seldom ever need)

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[iisbob]

As i posted in a post on another question amount memory tweaking/usage-it's been a long time since i worried about the affects of running low on memory.

With today's systems regularly coming with 128MB's of RAM or more-i don't believe it's really an issue anymore. Most people now use 256> so i see no particular need to worry about the virtual memory setings anymore, as a matter of fact the only " tweaking " i did on my W98 partition was to set the conservative swap file line into the system.ini to force windows to use all available RAM before it uses the VM. I've eyeballed it now and agin, and even after the heaviest game/app usage i've rarely seen the swap file climb above 60MB's-this with 512MB's PC2100 OC's a little.

W2K ( and XP ) both use the NT kernel, so ther's never really a memory issue ( as long as you have at least 128MB's! ), because the NT kernel was designed for business apps it handles memory alocation much more intuitively-much better than the W9X kernel, especially it's ME iteration.

Honestly i'd say just let W98 handle the VM, and since you've set the conservative swap file line in your enhanced memory manager settings, i wouldn't worry about it too much.

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iisbob
""I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know."
Mark Twain

[sea69]

thanks for the replies


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homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


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[Paleo Pete]

I have two drives, 2.8GB and 2GB, about to swap back to a 2.5 for the secondary. I have the 2.8 partitioned into 2GB and 790MB or close, and keep the swap file on the smaller one. When the 2.5 goes back in it will be on the smaller partition on that drive. That puts it on a separate drive, so swap file access no longer means more head movement, it can read both at once.

Performance improvement? Not noticable. It might speed things up a tiny bit, but I haven't noticed a difference. I have it set for 16MB minimum, no maximum so it can use the entire partition if it wants to, it rarely gets larger than 50MB, and average is 40MB on a P-233MMX with 64MB DIMM and S3 PCI video with 2MB. Yeah, it's a dinosaur, but it still gets the job done.

Those figures are with 4-6 webpages open, mIRC and ICQ, Outlook Express open, Notepad, Zone Alarm, McAffee (in background), and sometimes a picture viewer or winamp playing a CD. No changes made to win.ini or system.ini files. I've seen the swap file get up to 90-100MB before but that's the exception rather than the rule. That's usually when I load this old thing up...I'm amazed at what it takes to bog it down sometimes...


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