Swap FIle size.

Discuss software and how to tweak more performance out of your system.
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BENCHMARKMAN
K6'er
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2001 7:02 am

Swap FIle size.

Post by BENCHMARKMAN »

I am writing a tweak and I would like to know what is the best swap file size for 128mb, 256mb, and 512mb ram. Thanks <p></p><i></i>
DrBob
Newbie K6'er
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2001 7:23 am

Swap File Size

Post by DrBob »

The swap file uses your hard drive as RAM. If you have a large enough hard drive (most people have at least a few gig free) you can set the swap file to as large as you like. But remember, using a swap file is slow compared to using physical RAM.<br><br>Also, with 128 MB or more of RAM you really don't need a swap file of any size. That is, unless you're running some application or using data that takes up many MB of RAM -video editing might be an example. Even in this case, you are better off adding more RAM, especially since it is so cheep these days. <br><br>I recommend setting the min and max swap file size to 64MB as long as you have the disk space. This is really only a safety measure. For example, if your RAM goes bad, or your motherboard cannot access it, or you have a BIOS setting set wrong for your memory and you want to use your computer for trouble shooting or emergency use. People might rightly consider this scenario a bit far fetched. <br><br>Setting the min and max to the same size will prevent trashing of the hard drive. If they are different sizes, the operating system tries to adjust the size to an optimum setting taking up computer resources.<br><br>Finally, you should experiment with cacheman 4.1 to set your Vcache to an optimum size. I recommend 12 or 16 MB min=max but others will have different opinions. It depends a bit on your system and applications. People have written about this on another thread.<br><br>Good Luck! <p></p><i></i>
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