WinXP pagefile with 16GB RAM

[Asp]

I have 16GB RAM now with my WinXP3 PC. It also boots to Linux, where I can use all the RAM, but XP, where I still spend most of my time, is limited to 4GB.

I know there are hacks to increase that, but I doubt the apps I use would be improved.

But space is getting tight on my boot SSD, and I do have a 2GB pagefile. So:

1) Do I actually need a pagefile?

2) If I do, can this be put into "high RAM", in the 12GB WinXP can't use anyway?

 

 

EDIT: found this suggestion on Reddit that seems promising.:

 

Edited November 7 by Asp

[j7n]

You need a swap file if your memory gets close to being full, which with modern bloated applications it probably will. I'd say with 8 GB you might not. But it depends on what you do with the PC. I belong to the school of thought that the paging file belongs in the past when memory was scarce. I would never put a paging file on an SSD to save it from wear.

There is a Gavotte RamDisk that can be put in high PAE RAM. I had some experience trying to use it. The option to load a formatted partition from the registry would become corrupted after shutdown. I could only use it in the default mode where it automaticaly fills with a FAT32 file system. It seems that Windows likes to use the swap file a lot when minimizing big applications. There was a pause and mechanical squeal. File copy speed to the ram disk was not as fast as expected. There seemed to be a considerable overhead.

I would try to install Server 2003 with normal PAE memory. There are only a few older drivers that don't work, most notably from Creative Labs and likely some older multimedia cards. If you have bad drivers, you can revert to the crippled behaviour of WinXP with the /MAXMEM switch in boot-ini.

[user57]

there are basicly 4 things that can pass the 4 GB limit

1 PAE physical address extention 
2 PSE page size extension
3 the PDBR (page directory base register)
4 segments 

also worth to mention is setting the userspace to 3 GB instead of 2 GB
with normal settings windows xp use 0-7FFFFFFF (usespace of 2 GB) the rest for kernel mode
this can be changed with /3GB
then the userspace is going up to BFFFFFFF (3 GB)
its only 1 GB more, but it is considerable to some extend

to not explain it to a long story text i try to make it short

PSE can extend the page size - a page is a certain amount of memory like 4KB PSE can increase that to 2 MB or 4 MB each page

PAE this can use more address bits and therefore using more then the 32 bit limit

the PDBR is something that points to a "APP/Executable" memory
these are filled with PDE (PAGE DIRECTORY ENTRY(s)) and (Page Table Entry(s))
these can address a different spot in memory, therefore you can have an APP each time for 4 GB address room
this dont extend the memory for 1 app to more then 4 GB ram, but allows you to have many APP´s with each having 4 GB address room

segments: a segment was a known thing in 8 or 16 bit mode
a segment point to a fraction of memory like for 16 bit it would be 64 KB (per segment)
the next segment is then a next segment of 64 KB (for that example it would be
0-65535 kB then 65536-131070 (that makes a segment 0 and a segment 1 - aka 2 segments)

also worth to mention is what you called out the normal harddrive
what today is a SSD (flash memory) 
xp use that as memory too(yes it can use a HDD or SSD as ram)
since we have SSD now this isnt a bad thing SSD´s are fast
in the past you used up a slow harddrive and the loadtime was like terrible
this is called the PAGEFILE

so storing data to the disc is also an option that we can mention

also worth to mention is that 32 bit can calculate with at least 64 bit (its the FPU unit or so called XMM registers)
if you have AVX 32 bit can even handle 512 bit 
since these are made speed if if you are on x64 bit, MMX/SSE/AVX are faster then normal opcodes ...
so if someone gonna challenge SSE or AVX with normal 64 bit opcodes he still gonna lose very hard against this hardware speed registers by far
they not 1 times faster often 50 or 500 times faster

in short story first was MMX then got the name SSE then SSE version X-X then SSE was called AVX (so basily its the same nature)

i could write more detail, but its like complicated stuff and would fill to much of text now

2 more things are also important to remember: the hardware has to be able to do so (an example would be that there are only 32 wires or the cpu dont got the PAE or PSE mode - so lets just say cpu and bus/ram have to be capable to do so), the software has to have it supported/programmed (aka windows in our case)

[UCyborg]

All disabling page file or being smart about its size ever did for me was cause crashes and instabilities. System-managed option is the only one I find acceptable.

[j7n]

I have 8 GB of RAM in my main computer. I've reached the limit only on a few occasions when I did something stupid like simultaneously  opening a big game (3.5G), and a web browser (1.5G) with a long uptime, plus everything else. One of the programs just says that it is out of memory like in days before swap files, and you can correct the situation (close the web browser) and continue as normal. On WinXP/2003 you get an exclamation mark in the systray when memory is almost full.

My other computer has 20 GB of RAM and I couldn't even figure out how to fill it up to fully test it. I paid for it maybe 25 or 30, so I decided how cool would it be just give win2003 so much. In the end I launched many copies of IrfanView.

If there is something that Microsoft has added, it maybe is present in Windows 10 or 11 only. Usually people bring up debug information for a BSOD to justify the existence of a paging file. But most people can't read that or have anybody to ask to read it for them. They say that the paging file wouldn't be used if enough RAM was available, but it cleary is used.

[NotHereToPlayGames]

9 hours ago, UCyborg said:

All disabling page file or being smart about its size ever did for me was cause crashes and instabilities. System-managed option is the only one I find acceptable.

I have never used a paging file.  I have never had any stability issues with not using one.

My XP only runs 12 processes (the screencap shows 14 to include one from launching Task Manager and two for launching System Properties that dropped to one by time I screencap'd).

 

Edited November 9 by NotHereToPlayGames

[reboot12]

4 hours ago, j7n said:

I have 8 GB of RAM in my main computer. I've reached the limit only on a few occasions when I did something stupid like simultaneously  opening a big game (3.5G), and a web browser (1.5G) with a long uptime, plus everything else.

I agree exactly. I have 4GB RAM on WinXP 64-bit, pagefile disabled. I've reached the limit only on a few occasions: virtual machine 1GB RAM, Internet Browser with 10-12 tabs, other Internet Browser with some tabs

Once, when I had 1GB of RAM, I set pagefile to 320MB. If we have 4GB of RAM and more, you can easily turn off the pagefile.

It also depends on what we do on the computer - when we play only in a solitaire, pagefile it is not needed at 512 MB or less.

It's best to install twice as much memory than we need e.g. we need 3-4GB so install 8GB

Edited November 9 by reboot12

[UCyborg]

I used to have fixed 2 GB page file on size restricted XP partition, it was enough for simple things. Used to have fixed page file on 10 (I think 4 GB, how much RAM I used to have year ago) as well until Firefox started causing havoc (DWM crashes) and didn't play any game exceeding or just on the brink of minimal system requirements.

Filling RAM is easy, Rust compiler when building Firefox easily goes over 12 GB, 16 GB or preferably more physical memory is recommended for building Chromium backed by at least as much page file. There is a difference between having physical memory backed by page file and not having it backed by page file. I am not willing to compromise that safety anymore, few GB is nothing these days, storage is cheap, my nerves however are more delicate.

It's easier to get away with less swap on Linux, though when I built long out-of-support LineageOS 14.1 on it, still filled up 100% of 2 GB swap partition and most of 6 GB of physical RAM that I have.

[user57]

hmmm maybe we should ask Dibya about the 128 GB ram patch for XP (there is a such thing - do i know if it works - no i do not know if that 128 gb ram patch works - but i know 32 bit can pass the 32 bit address room)

from what i remember he said he tested that and it works, when i first seen the 128 GB patch i had doubts

Dibya should be still around, he may know better about that 128 GB patch for XP, maybe others also know some details, geoffchappell also has mentioned that 128 GB ram somewhere 

 

if there is nobody at least it seems that we have people that want to test that out

a problem could be that it maybe is app/executable-wise, but thats still ok then you have 4 GB RAM each app, only 2 APP´s would already use 8 GB of ram - what sound ok to me

i say this because i remember a problem with the PDE/PTE´s windows had it calced for exactly 4 GB ram, so going past might overwrite one of the entrys (they follow up directly)

i do not know if windows has a different way to handle this if more then 4 GB are present, this is not a problem if that PDBR (that i mentioned is involved) - because that exactly leads to 4 GB / per app

[j7n]

I think the limit is 64 GB which is more than everyone will ever need, lol. Windows 2003 works flawlessly with it, especially considering how web browsers today are broken up into multiple processes. Each process can use about 1.7 GB. That is not enough for giant, bloated games. With the /3GB switch they can use more, but that can cause instability when the system portion (1GB) is too small. A problem arises with direct memory access to the PCI bus, which have to be in the low memory. I recall that WinXP had one or two built-in drivers that were not safe.

[Mathwiz]

I don't know if this is possible, but could you set up (say) an 8GB RAMdisk and then put the page file there?

Obvious problem would be, how do you create the RAMdisk before the page file? Seems like you'd have to have XP boot without any page file, load the RAMdisk driver, then create a page file on the RAMdisk. Perhaps some sort of startup script could be used, IDK....

Edit: And if I'd just read two posts further down before posting this:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/173201-gavottes-ramdisk-automation-package/

Edited November 10 by Mathwiz

[D.Draker]

Pagefile is good, Chrome loves it. Many games simply won't start without it. A good example is Titan Quest (XP Era).

[D.Draker]

On 11/7/2024 at 2:31 AM, Asp said:

I have 16GB RAM

I run with 8GB page and 16 RAM, no issues, even with modern apps,

[user57]

https://msfn.org/board/topic/180669-two-questions-about-diyba-128gb-pae-patch/

dibya says it works, maybe good thing to test 

[j7n]

Are there any motherboards that can accept 128 GB of RAM and work satisfactory under Win NT 5?