Hiding Fragmentation

[Toppack]

I was trying to find more Info on Virtual-memory on this page:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

 

And I found this Statement:

 

"Systems that employ virtual memory: make the programming of applications easier by: hiding fragmentation."

 

Anyone know what they mean by "hiding fragmentation"? :shock:

Does Windows Hide fragmentation of the Pagefile (virtual memory) somehow?

If so, does SD UN-Hide it? ;-)

 

Note - I've asked this question on other forum sites and have not got an answer there either.

I hate it when they throw out terminology without a good explination.

[enoskype]

Hi Toppack,

 

-------------------------------------

 

I would like to make a comment on that virtual memory hiding fragmentation thing, but it will only be a guess.

 

Pagefile being in one piece, hides the fragmentation of data normally would have been fragmented if they were not written to pagefile and written dircetly to HD.

This is the most logical explanation comes to my mind about that comment.

 

All the best and cheers.

 

That was my guess about the subject in another thread and the data in pagefile could most probably be fragmented.

 

Cheers.

[Toppack]

So, Instead of really Hideing anything, they may mean that there is Less fragmentation of data in virtual-memory format, on drive, correct?

[enoskype]

I would say, fragmented data in pagefile.sys file is seen as one file (without any fragmentation) if the pagefile.sys file is defragmented. :mrgreen:

 

So the actual fragmentation in pagefile.sys file is not seen.

 

It could be similar to a fragmented virtual XP pro seen as non-fragmented couple of files in a Windows7 Pro OS.

 

Please have a look to the attachment.

 

Cheers.

[Toppack]

Yes, That seems logical. It Must be something like that.

The word 'Hide' is misleading and is most certainly Not what is actually happening.

 

I'm wondering how much Physical-RAM is Needed to allow the Pagefile to be completely disabled, by setting it's size to zero?

And if that would speed things up any on a computer with 8GB or so of RAM?

(I have changed the size before, to see what would happen, but never taken it to zero)

[enoskype]

It is not advisable to make the size of pagefile as zero if you have small amount of RAM, but with 1GB of RAM in my XP, and 2 GB of RAM in my Win7, I have zeroed it couple of times on both to change the location of the pagefile on the disk without any problems.

 

If you have 2 hard drives, keeping the pagefile in non system drive gives you the same effect of zero pagefile in system drive, but gives the ability to be used if the necessity arises.

 

With my PC usage style, I wouldn't need any pagefile if I had even 4GB of RAM today.

 

Cheers.

[Toppack]

Thanks for the Info.

I think I'll experiment on my test computer, which has 4.GB of RAM,

and 'See What Happens'. :-D

[Toppack]

In W-7 there is a button to Turn-off Pagefileing, on the advanced-settings page, so there's no need to reset the size to zero.

I disabled it this morning and so far I see No differences in operation.

I suppose the best test would be a Game program, so I'll try that today.

[Toppack]

Well, I tried 2 games, Crysis-2 and Flight-simulator, with No problems.

So, I suppose we don't really Need a Pagefile on hard-drive. :wink:

Since all of our systems have 4GB or more now.

Surprize! Surprize! :-D

 

But I'll do some more testing first, before disabling it on all our computers.

[Toppack]

By opening many different programs at the same,

such as 2 Browsers, Photoshop, Adobe-reader, 2 email programs and others,

I got the RAM usage up to 3.2 GB, with No problems. :-D

(using Task-manager to monitor)

That's many more than I would normally have running at same time,

so it seems that 'I'm Good to Go' with Disableing Pagefile. :grin: