Ridata SSD - Reads up to 128MB/s - fast enough for 5 boxing?

[Freddie]

In my rudimentary understanding, the swapfile is used when the PC is out of RAM (correct?).

Correct. Moreover, this is one of the very few things in your PC where you can easily see exactly when it's being used and exactly how much it's being used. Every single time the computer has to slow down for an instant due to lack of RAM, the operating system generates something called a hard page fault. You can watch the number of hard page faults per second on Resource Monitor. If it's zero while you're playing, then the page file isn't getting used. I think this will be the case with 12 GB of RAM. If it's not getting used then there's no point in adding RAM or worrying about which hard disk the file is on. And if it's not getting used there's no point in disabling it.

By the way I disagree with people who advise disabling the page file. If you want less paging, I think the best way to accomplish that is with more RAM and fewer programs running.

[Bovidae]

To further derail this thread, my system behaves quite peculiarly in the area of the Pagefile.

I run a Q6600 X38 system with 8gb of ram on Vista64, but while even running only 1 copy of wow for under 2gb of total memory used, I still see page faults and up to 2gb of pagefile usage while running only 1xWoW and Vista.... it's been pissing me off for over a year now. [/derail]

[Owltoid]

To further derail this thread, my system behaves quite peculiarly in the area of the Pagefile.

I run a Q6600 X38 system with 8gb of ram on Vista64, but while even running only 1 copy of wow for under 2gb of total memory used, I still see page faults and up to 2gb of pagefile usage while running only 1xWoW and Vista.... it's been pissing me off for over a year now. [/derail]

Heh, I don't think it's derailing at all since the real question is if a pagefile is needed. The SSD has poor write times and I'd assume if it's utilizing the pagefile then some of that time is spent in the writing phase. If Windows uses the pagefile regardless of if there is free RAM, then disabling it may increase performance on an MLC SSD (slow write time as opposed to an SLC SSD with fast write time).

Freddie, if it's true that the pagefile is still being written to even though there is available RAM, then would you still suggest keeping it enabled?

[Freddie]

I run a Q6600 X38 system with 8gb of ram on Vista64, but while even running only 1 copy of wow for under 2gb of total memory used, I still see page faults and up to 2gb of pagefile usage while running only 1xWoW and Vista.... it's been pissing me off for over a year now. [/derail]

Have you identified the programs that are using memory and causing paging? Windows gives you a few tools for that purpose -- Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and PerfMon. If you identify the programs you can probably shut them down.

[Freddie]

Freddie, if it's true that the pagefile is still being written to even though there is available RAM, then would you still suggest keeping it enabled?

I don't know why the operating system would do that, but if it does do that, I'd want to figure out the reason and see if it's slowing down the programs that I care about. Maybe it's doing it for some reason that doesn't involve page faults by WoW and has no effect on WoW's speed.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I dont see any disadvantage of keeping it on just put in on a hard drive. If it needs it its there. I have read that pagefile is used even though ram is available though, so I don't know I would try with off then if things seem not good I would turn on.

I use a single wow for all 5 my guys (times 5 computers) and have for years. I know that a lot of people use the symlink though but I've seen no need for it. If he is suggesting that you only have seperate wtf folders well thats fine, but I just dont see, with a low access time ssd drive why a single wow folder (interface and all the other folders) is slower then a symlink one but Im no expert at it and those who are say it is, at least on hard drives. I do know that if you make 5 fully seperate wow directories, its worse, according to Lax.

[Freddie]

I have read that pagefile is used even though ram is available though...

Do you happen to know what it's used for in that situation?

The reason I ask is that it's the faulting that slows things down, not the page file itself. Faulting means that the app asks to read a piece of its virtual memory but the contents of that memory aren't currently in RAM so the OS has to retrieve them from disk. It slows things down in the sense that if the data had already been in RAM, the retrieval would be much faster. (And it would have been even faster if the data had been cached in the CPU, in which case the CPU wouldn't have to retrieve anything from RAM.)

If what you've read is correct and the OS is reading and writing the page file with non-WoW threads for some reason while WoW is running, I don't see why that would necessarily affect WoW's speed unless the reads and writes happen while WoW is accessing the same disk to load new zones or something of that sort. Because it's WoW's faulting that slows WoW down, not the OS using the page file. In other words, if WoW faults then the OS has to read disk. But the converse isn't true. Just because the OS is reading or writing a file doesn't mean WoW is faulting or slowing down in any way.

so I don't know I would try with off then if things seem not good I would turn on.

I agree. It never hurts to try. That's the best thing really.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Probably a poorly written application may assume that there is less system ram then there is. Also under XP anyway a spicfic application cannot address mre then 2G I think it is. So even if the ram is available the programe cannot use it. 64 bit systems are better I am sure. but 32 bit OS its like 2G max for an application so ....

[Bovidae]

Yes, the poorly written application that is causing pagefaults when there is available ram is....WorldofWarcraft..dun dun dun

Maybe it's just my dated hardware, but when I disable pagefile, I get out of memory bluescreens after booting, nevermind actually running anything. With my budget, I'll be using this machine at least another year, so no experimenting for me.

[Owltoid]

When the new system arrives (3 weeks ;( ) I'm going to start with everything default and see how it runs. If it looks like there are any delays, then I may start tweaking depending on what the issue may be. I'll keep the pagefile enabled until there is a reason to disable.