Swap & 2GB

[woel]

Hi!

I get the new parts for my new computer today. Since I will have 2GB ram in the computer, do I need a swap in windows then?

/Leo

[agallag]

It's still a good idea to leave a swap file there. You can reduce it's size a bit if you must, but I've always had best results letting windows manage it for me, at least since W2K came out.

[Jammrock]

Technically yes, but you don't have to. I've had my page file shut off with as little as 512 MB of RAM (of course I had most of my services shut off and my boot-up memory footprint was only 75 MB), and with 1 GB the pagefile is rarely used anyway; however, there will always be programs that will nag and complain if you don't have a pagefile. Photoshop and video games being the key among these.

I would recommend setting your pagefile to 512 MB max/min. The only downside to doing this is if your computer crashes there won't be enough space in the pagefile to put the dump ... but when was the last time you send a error dump off to Microsoft for troubleshooting?

Jammrock

[spadnos]

[snip]... but when was the last time you send a error dump off to Microsoft for troubleshooting?

Jammrock

Especially a 2G error dump

- Steve

[VJ]

I have 1 GB, XP automatically configured a swap file between 512 MB and 3 GB.

I made it fixed size at 3 GB (fixed size on an empty disk: the pagefile never gets fragmented), the applications I run (i.e. Nikon Capture) tend to use a lot of memory, and the swap gets used quite a lot at times....
Without a doubt I could have made it smaller, but I figured: why risk it?


Jörg

[DGhost]

generally considered... 2k/XP can handle not having a swap file, unlike Win9X/ME. However, it is recommended to let it have the disk space because it will start acting.... wierd if you ever come close to maxing it out.