I'm going through Software & Hardware Guide for FSX (Version 1.0.1 Date of Issue: January 22, 2013) and have found this:

 

Page File: A corrupted or a fragmented page file is a major source of “Out of Memory” errors -

(“OOM’s”), and by creating a fixed, “custom” size the chance of this can be minimized. To make this a

“Custom” size, enter the “My Computer”->”Properties”->”Advanced System Settings”->”Advanced”-

>Performance->”Settings”->”Advanced”->”Change”, and then, assuming three or more drives in the

PC and using these pics as a guide – set a “Custom size” for the C:-drive to 100 (MB) in each box,

and then press “Set”. Select the next drive – not the FSX drive, and make its Custom size 3072 (MB)

in each box, and press “Set”. I

 

The previous recommendation used to be just 3072 (MB) on C:\ drive. Now it's 100 (MB) on C: and 3072 on non-OS / non-FSX drive. What is the reason for this?

 

I'm setting up my new systems with the following drives:

- Corsair Force GT (250Gb) SSD for Windows 7x64

- OCZ-VERTEX4 (500Gb) SSD for FSX

- WD Velociraptor (600Gb) for other games

- WD Caviar Black (1500Gb) for backups and misc

 

Where should I put the page file to in respect to the above? My RAM is 4x2Gb, i7 3770k @4.8Ghz (65C max delidded).

 

Thanks,

Dirk.

An excellemt question:

This is the reason that you only put a nominal amount on your C: or system drive:

 

To enhance performance, it is good practice to put the paging file on a different partition and on a different physical hard disk drive. That way, Windows can handle multiple I/O requests more quickly. When the paging file is on the boot partition, Windows must perform disk reading and writing requests on both the system folder and the paging file. When the paging file is moved to a different partition, there is less competition between reading and writing requests.

 

 

and

The optimal solution is to create one paging file that is stored on the boot partition, and then create one paging file on another partition that is less frequently accessed on a different physical hard disk if a different physical hard disk is available. Additionally, it is optimal to create the second paging file so that it exists on its own partition, with no data or operating-system-specific files. By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management

 

from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482

With large amounts of RAM being installed these days the need for huge paging files has long gone unless you want to save a log/debug file for later analysis but who has ever done that.

 

 

I suspect that the advice about the larger PF on a separate HDD to FSX refers to a standard disk HDD but now you have 2 SSD's both of which ill be the best disk for the PF. Microsoft now recommend the PF be installed on a SSD for max performance as there are more reads than writes if a PF is used and it does not affect SSD performance.

In my rig I have set the PF on my C: drive SSD and have set it to 1GB above the Peak Commit charge which works out at 3072 MB so I set a min/max of 3072 and it works fine.

 

Regards

pH

Yup - good advice, and good explanations, pH! Thank you Sir!

 

1). The OS needs a small amount of pf when it starts, and it's usually less than 40MB, but I throw in a 100MB, as disk space is cheap nowadays.

2). The Unix practice is to always use a dedicated drive for the paging file. We don't have that luxury, nor do we need it, but the large paging file can go on another drive, just not on the FSX drive, that's all.

3). 3gig is more than enough for a modern system.

4). The principle behind a Custom setup is that setting 3072 (3gig) in both boxes, giving a minimum of three gig and a maximum of three gig - we have control over the size of it. Windows tends to splash pieces of page file all over the drive, and in any place it wants, without regard for the amount of 1 MB contiguous/consecutive blocks that it uses.. and it doesn't clean up well, so we have these segments of the drive which get progressively smaller as time goes on - eventually leading to a shortage of VAS space. By creating a single, large file - this point never gets reached, so there's always "contiguous" (don't you just love that word?) space available - and that means - no OOM's caused by running out of VAS.

 

Hope this helps,

 

All the best,

Good explanation. So I can leave 3072/3072 Mb page file on my non-FSX C:\ SSD where just OS is installed. Basically it's the same like I've always used.

 

Thanks,

Dirk.

Yes - just don't let it be system-managed. It's not HUGELY important, Dirk - just part of "best practice". :smile:

Pagefile references.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654

 

 

 

From Mark Russinovich down about 1/2 page or so..

 

http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx