DCS use of Pagefile

Mr sukebe I'd say if you use virtual memory, than windows will use it for pagefile instead of free ram because that way pagefile can be saved in case of crash. So if you were working and didn't save before crash you are able to restore this valuable worktime you spent. (you're unable to restore it if only ram is used for pagefile) And as a bonus virtual memory can relay your ram if you run out of. Than it will run slower but still run instead of crashing.

That is for the good effect of using virtual memory. The bad effect is that if access to pagefile is needed in DCS than it will be slower to access it from your SSD instead of your ram (80 times faster if ram is used instead of SSD). But honestly I don't see a sensible benefit from this.

In terms of pagefile's size .... I'd say as long as the trashcan has room, it can still grows up continuously...

Having read a little about Pagefile, currently I'm using 2, each sized at 40GB, on my 2 internal SSD drives. Apparently, spreading the size across drives, might speed up data access/right speeds as you're doubling the bandwidth that can be accessed.

From the comments above, are we saying that Pagefile is there to facilitate "nice" crashes of applications running on Windows in the event of an issue. The implication being that the Pagefile is vaguely mirroring what we have running in RAM. If so, would certainly explain the sizes of the Pagefiles that we're seeing. It would be interesting to know if we could ask Windows to NOT write to Pagefile DCS game data, as by implications, it's slowing down our game.

Thoughts?

Revisted this thread after solving a memory issue on another multiplayer server (that was running out of memory due to limited swap file space).

Cannot believe there are still people who recommend turning it off.

Have you seen the amount of memory that DCS tries to use? 16GB servers are now crashing and exiting the DCS app because Windows wants to save the system. If you can run inside 16GB memory without a swap file then you aren't really using DCS in any hard way, like as a server for many hours.

If you aren't crashing, then do what you want. But if you are, get the swapfile to a system managed size, stop limiting it and give it the dedicated IOPS it needs for smoothness. All this tinkering and encouraging people to run their OS in a way other than default, creates a testing and QA issue for Eagle Dynamics which is absorbed into the community user base. It's just creating dcs.log's with no handled exception to litter the forums and confused people that will try anything to get DCS working well. People then start tinkering with things they should not. Windows 10 has an excellent memory manager, use it and use as it was designed. Don't post recommendations to use this tool or that tool, the internet generation is just using Google for silver bullet quick wins and not using their heads.

My advice is don't overthink it. If you have lots of RAM and PF bothers you try how it works w/o PF. If it's ok or even better then good for you. But if you ever encounter a crash remember to turn it back on before crying on the ED forum.

Remember that any Windows application (like DCS) is written so that it uses memory. It's up to system how it is managed so DCS (and devs) has no control over it. Then if you want to learn about how Windows manages its memory and PF this is not a good place to ask.

The stutters usually come from pagefile size change "on the fly" when set on Auto...

I have pagefiles always on fast drives, fixed size, double the size of available RAM...

There were times, in Windows 7 and Core2Duo era, when DCS was not such a hungry beast, when I kept a minimal pagefile in a dummy "Ramdisk" inside RAM, for the sake of Windows memory usage logic...

I think the only true solution is 32GB of RAM, as of now...

Cannot believe there are still people who recommend turning it off.

It clearly depends on your system. DCS runs quite a lot better for me with page file disabled.

Having read a little about Pagefile, currently I'm using 2, each sized at 40GB, on my 2 internal SSD drives. Apparently, spreading the size across drives, might speed up data access/right speeds as you're doubling the bandwidth that can be accessed.

 

From the comments above, are we saying that Pagefile is there to facilitate "nice" crashes of applications running on Windows in the event of an issue. The implication being that the Pagefile is vaguely mirroring what we have running in RAM. If so, would certainly explain the sizes of the Pagefiles that we're seeing. It would be interesting to know if we could ask Windows to NOT write to Pagefile DCS game data, as by implications, it's slowing down our game.

 

Thoughts?

No, not at all, it's not a vague mirror of RAM, the size is a reservation, it's not really that big, most of it isn't used that much, the paged out stuff wouldn't be much unless your hitting RAM limits.

The idea of it is that it puts inactive data and various reservations there ... I feel like deja-vu, I think at least once per month I have some kind of a rant about pagefile on these forums lately hehe, I actually posted on this in a recent post, just like ... days ago I think, might try to find it.

Infact it's even worse, you don't even need a pagefile for crash dump, there is a registry key to create a "dedicated crash dump file" without any need of a pagefile, but it's only meant for the developer master-race ofcourse, treatment of users as pesants by MS gives me a nice headache every time I think about it.

Just an example of what would happen if you turn it off. I will use a game with loading screens since I can't explain using DCS as example.

So lets say you have 16 GB of RAM. Your playing a very new MMORPG that has instanced dungeons. In the resource meter the working set for memory is 12GB. Other resources are using roughly 2GB so total RAM used is roughly 14GB. But lets say you go into a loading screen to enter the instanced dungeon. The game suddenly needs to load a ton more things into memory, more than you have available. So either A) your game will move some data out of memory and put it in a page file / virtual memory location on your SSD/HDD. But if you turned page files off the game just crashes.

Big thing is, the game works just fine when your not in a loading screen, so you don't need more RAM. However, having more RAM would increase loading screen times. But at least having the page file enabled prevents crashes.

Second good reason to have it is enabled is if a game crashes you know it probably isn't because it ran out of memory. If you have it disabled and a game crashes you might report the game crashing issue and its not because the game has a bug but because virtual memory is disabled.

So it is very nice to have tons of memory and never really need to use virtual memory. Not everyone can afford to go to 32 GB of RAM and should know that page files can still be your friends. However, if say your playing on the Persian Gulf map and experiencing stutters due to running out of memory, your only option is to either a) buy more memory or b) play on an older map that uses less memory. Page Files are slow and you will experience stutters. Having an SSD makes these stutters seem minor. An old spinner is going to very noticeable.

I say it again:

you CANNOT forbid Windows to use and create a PageFile !!!

You can tell it use NONE and it will still create one that can at least gobble 31.5GB as it did on me yesterday. Yes, I tried no PageFile to test if I am still right with what I say...and yes...Windows takes what it wants and you cannot stop it doing that.

MSI AFterburner for example will show you PageFile usage, so do many other monitoring apps.

After this test, I reverted back to a fixed 38GB of PF on a SSD. When I loaded BF last night, ca. 10 players, server ON for 5 min, I ended up with 31.5GB swap and 18GB RAM...on the menue...before choosing a slot !!!

Actually I dont think that pagefile is being properly report my MSI, just a simple example : in my OS win 10 pro latest built the pagefile is automatically managed by the OS itslef and it setup a pagefile of about 5gb, but despite being set to a maximum of 5gb , pagefile usage in MSI afterburner shows 20-25gb.

So how is it possible that despite maximum dedicated pagefile size is 5gb , it consumes 25gb??

I think it is a bug.

Just an example of what would happen if you turn it off. I will use a game with loading screens since I can't explain using DCS as example.

 

So lets say you have 16 GB of RAM. Your playing a very new MMORPG that has instanced dungeons. In the resource meter the working set for memory is 12GB. Other resources are using roughly 2GB so total RAM used is roughly 14GB. But lets say you go into a loading screen to enter the instanced dungeon. The game suddenly needs to load a ton more things into memory, more than you have available. So either A) your game will move some data out of memory and put it in a page file / virtual memory location on your SSD/HDD. But if you turned page files off the game just crashes.

 

Big thing is, the game works just fine when your not in a loading screen, so you don't need more RAM. However, having more RAM would increase loading screen times. But at least having the page file enabled prevents crashes.

 

Second good reason to have it is enabled is if a game crashes you know it probably isn't because it ran out of memory. If you have it disabled and a game crashes you might report the game crashing issue and its not because the game has a bug but because virtual memory is disabled.

 

So it is very nice to have tons of memory and never really need to use virtual memory. Not everyone can afford to go to 32 GB of RAM and should know that page files can still be your friends. However, if say your playing on the Persian Gulf map and experiencing stutters due to running out of memory, your only option is to either a) buy more memory or b) play on an older map that uses less memory. Page Files are slow and you will experience stutters. Having an SSD makes these stutters seem minor. An old spinner is going to very noticeable.

No it's not a 100% crash prevention, if some key data gets on pagefile it will crash too.

A few 100 megs probably not ... once you get over 1GB and more things will get worse and worse, your game will grind to a halt, it will be totally unplayable, the only thing you can do is to save an quit and hope it doesn't crash while doing that.

Sorry everything's from an application point of view is "virtual memory", it's a very specific internal programming terminology, the pipleine is very complex and specific to Windows memory management, virtual does not mean pagefile, yes I have been tricked by that as well in the past, many people get confused you're not alone at all , it's not meant to be used by users for practical means, if it works for them fine, but for practical use it's not an appropriate terminology.

Actually I dont think that pagefile is being properly report my MSI, just a simple example : in my OS win 10 pro latest built the pagefile is automatically managed by the OS itslef and it setup a pagefile of about 5gb, but despite being set to a maximum of 5gb , pagefile usage in MSI afterburner shows 20-25gb.

 

So how is it possible that despite maximum dedicated pagefile size is 5gb , it consumes 25gb??

 

I think it is a bug.

If they show MB then they must be using through some WIN32 or similar API call that I don't know about, the Diagnostics functions don't provide that, they only provide % Percent usage

You can access this with Performance Monitor, along with a ton of other counters, it's a standard Windows utility, no 3rd party utility needed.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3405977/pagefile-memory-usage-msi-afterburner.html

but then you could run into memory errors if windows wants more memory and it's not available.

If you have a reserve canister of fuel, it's the same fuel, it's smells the same, looks the same, burns the same. Pagefile sitting on HDD is not a reserve, it's something else. It is that simple.

Driving a car takes a training session and license, but using a computer people think they can do everything just fine with zero knowledge or effort and one big company is suppose to babysit all the settings.

I still couldn't find my big post on pagefile some time ago ... but don't have time for deep searching right now. In that post I've said that it's nothing wrong if a pagefile exists as long as it doesn't interfere with a big 3D application like DCS and any I/O between RAM and pagefile doesn't affect it's performance, as long as pagefile has some metadata and dummy memory from other applications and suspended background applications stored there then it's not a problem, but then this pagefile/memory management should be more smarter to actually allow per-process filtering so it doesn't include fullscreen 3D applications and doesn't mess with it's memory in any way.

I say it again:

 

 

you CANNOT forbid Windows to use and create a PageFile !!!

 

 

You can tell it use NONE and it will still create one that can at least gobble 31.5GB as it did on me yesterday. Yes, I tried no PageFile to test if I am still right with what I say...and yes...Windows takes what it wants and you cannot stop it doing that.

 

 

MSI AFterburner for example will show you PageFile usage, so do many other monitoring apps.

 

 

After this test, I reverted back to a fixed 38GB of PF on a SSD. When I loaded BF last night, ca. 10 players, server ON for 5 min, I ended up with 31.5GB swap and 18GB RAM...on the menue...before choosing a slot !!!

Which Windows? Because I have a feeling youre talking about Windows10. This is typical of the new OS, taking away user choice, and one of the reasons why I refuse to switch to it.

Explaining how it works wouldn't be worthwhile because it's very complicated and better use microsoft docs, but you would have to understand the whole windows memory management it self.

 

It's also quite an effort, microsoft uses their own internal semantics and it will take you days just to understand what do they mean with "virtual", as with all large scale programming projects you would also see inconsistencies as different programmers have their own context for the same terms, this is a problem all over the place in the IT world, the piss poor naming and semantics, extremely confusing and pulled out of their butts on a raining monday afternoon, in general programmers are heavily lacking in having a rich english language department, especially the modern script kiddies that universities pump out on a conveyor belt, the generations that grown up with smartphones and sms messaging.

 

If you ask me for my opinion, I'm not very fond of this system at all, the reason for the pagefile is RAM scarcity, which doesn't exist anymore. The way windows memory works is that it gives programs more RAM than there is, or programs can reserve but not actually use all the "allocated" memory, and the unused reserved stuff is suppose to go to pagefile, including some inactive memory, which is ridicolous for anything other than basic secertary office use, when some of that inactive memory has to change it has to first be loaded from a slow disk which is what can make a visible stutter in a demanding high-performance program.

 

The only 2 reasons to have a pagefile when not using all the RAM is first that you would get more virtual room to fit "more" stuff into RAM than you would on the same environment without one. And the second is that in the even RAM runs out, it would slow down, not immediately crash, which would give you some room to save and gracefully close the program, this however only works to some extent, a few hundred MBs more and some key memory would start to get trashed and it would still crash or generate errors.

 

Under the hood it may seem all nice, but practical world use is minimal to the end user, pagefile on windows is highly overrated in my opinion. I've been running without one for 10 years and had no problems.

 

 

 

I still have superfetch on Win10 1607 Anniversary. But yes I disabled it because it's part of steps for SSD optimization.

BRAVO !!!!!:clap_2::clap_2::clap_2::clap_2:

How do you disable the pagefile it’s been a while

windows is designed to use a swap file (see msdn and other docs for info). just let it do what it needs to do.

trying to prevent it from working the way it’s designed is asking for trouble.

Well I can say for a fact that if you have 8GB of memory and disable the Pagefile DCS will crash instantly upon running it and you will be met with a low memory message.. I guess it depends a lot on settings too..

I just tried it but I am on a backup PC and it only has 8GB ram.. So there is that.. If you have 16 or more you may get away with not having a pagefile.. When I get my gaming rig back and running I will try and see what happens..

I could have experimented with settings but I know 8GB is barely cutting it with DCS..

Which Windows? Because I have a feeling youre talking about Windows10. This is typical of the new OS, taking away user choice, and one of the reasons why I refuse to switch to it.

Win10 latest updates installed.

The pageFile indeed was reported to me by MSI OSD..but "iirc" it also showed it in HWinfo..but I am not 100% sure if that was the case...I may do it again and verify, guessing makes zero point here.

I agree, having MSI only as evidence is borderline authentic, we need more hard facts.

I do know that yesterday my RAM climbed to new heights, it went to 27.xGB RAM and 27.xGB swap during a Mi-8 flight, mostly over open water, low player count etc.. so not the FA18 and not 50 players and 2k bullets...an ordinary cargo flight :)

It lasted for about 3-5min and then settled back to 14-18GB RAM up&down, swap was in the high 20's .

My current swap setting is 36GB fixed on SSD

windows is designed to use a page file. why disable it?

windows is designed to use a page file. why disable it?

Because in fact you just don't disable it… even if the button is called "disable pagefile". When you click on it in fact you disable virtual memory usage. But when you have disabled it, in msi afterburner you can see a "virtual memory usage" …. wich in fact is pagefile, that of course you still have, because it's like you said a part of windows design…. It's just that now it's handled by ram instead of virtual ram.

It's a big mess even in windows terminology, or monitoring software terminology.

Well I can say for a fact that if you have 8GB of memory and disable the Pagefile DCS will crash instantly upon running it and you will be met with a low memory message.. I guess it depends a lot on settings too..

 

 

I just tried it but I am on a backup PC and it only has 8GB ram.. So there is that.. If you have 16 or more you may get away with not having a pagefile.. When I get my gaming rig back and running I will try and see what happens..

 

 

I could have experimented with settings but I know 8GB is barely cutting it with DCS..

Well I just tried disabling the Pagefile in Windows 10 with my system in Sig and it errorerd DCS out upon loading a mission and I was unable to recover I had to do a hard reboot..

I am unsure what these guys who say they disable their Pagefile are doing but I dont see how it is possible when both times I tried I had problems running DCS..

Well I just tried disabling the Pagefile in Windows 10 with my system in Sig and it errorerd DCS out upon loading a mission and I was unable to recover I had to do a hard reboot..

 

I am unsure what these guys who say they disable their Pagefile are doing but I dont see how it is possible when both times I tried I had problems running DCS..

My page file is normally 20+ Gigs for DCS. You might get away without a page file with 32 GB, that would also depend on how much windows is using in the background and if DCS starts to use more, boom. 64GB I'm guessing would give much more wiggle room with no page file. I just have it set to 32 GB.

With a capacity of 16Gb of ram I don't have better results without the swap file. Even to the time until I exhaust all the ram. I use the value of the 32Gb and it works steadily for several hours.

How do you disable the pagefile it’s been a while

windows is designed to use a swap file (see msdn and other docs for info). just let it do what it needs to do.

trying to prevent it from working the way it’s designed is asking for trouble.

In that case it would be bad design to heavily depend on it. I have it disabled completely for like 20 years now, just switched it on the first time after 2.5 came out and I needed to up from 16 to 32GB. I never had any problems that I could relate to it except for the random crashes when the system ran OOM since there is absolutely no protection against that case whatsoever. Even more so Windows starts shooting processes as soon as the mem usage is around 87-88ish % (it probably tries to keep 12.5% free and when it can't swap, it kills). Just keep it below that and all is fine.

DCS use of Pagefile

windows uses the “free” memory for buffers and various housekeeping duties to increase performance.

there is not a single modern operation system that is designed to not use a pagefile (even your phone uses one)

but of course as you know, you can turn it off.