Virtual Memory Settings

jhelms

How much does it help (if at all) to increase virtual memory settings?

I got a new computer last month - Intel core2quad 6600 processor, 3gb RAM, Vista 32bit, BluRay, 28" monitor, HDMI, etc.

Here's some pics of the setup:

http://www.johntookmypicture.com/gallery/6861926_4VLEx/1/438920515_NUnMf




My default settings were only allocating the actual 3gb memory that are installed, but the 'recommended paging file' size was 4.6gb, so i made my minimum virtual memory 8gb and my max virtual memory 9.9gb, does that help at all?

I usually have a lot running at any given time, the TV tuner / DVR might be on and recording something while I'm editing and working on pictures and I'll usually have some Photomatix HDR batches processing in the background.


Any tips / suggestions? Thanks!

Pupator

Not really. At this point the best performance upgrades you could make would be 1) more RAM (which would require an upgrade to Vista Ultimate 64 bit; worthwhile in my experience) or 2) faster hard drive.

BUT -

Are you happy with the way it's performing now (I'd bet so). If so, let it ride!

jhelms

Pupator wrote:

Not really. At this point the best performance upgrades you could make would be 1) more RAM (which would require an upgrade to Vista Ultimate 64 bit; worthwhile in my experience) or 2) faster hard drive.

BUT -

Are you happy with the way it's performing now (I'd bet so). If so, let it ride!

Cool, the performance is pretty 'ok' for now. It does seem to max it out though when I have a few photomatix HDR batches running and I'm trying to stitch a panorama in Photoshop while also syncing my ipod and watching or recording TV in the background.

I think I usually multi-task my pc's to death...

Pupator

jhelms wrote:

Cool, the performance is pretty 'ok' for now. It does seem to max it out though when I have a few photomatix HDR batches running and I'm trying to stitch a panorama in Photoshop while also syncing my ipod and watching or recording TV in the background.

I think I usually multi-task my pc's to death...

Sounds like it. DVR function uses some serious resources. You might also want to go ahead and upgrade to 4GB of RAM. Your computer as is will be able to make use of at least 3.5GB and many (even 32 bit) can use the other .5 for helpful purposes.

Richard

jhelms wrote:

It does seem to max it out though when I have a few photomatix HDR batches running and I'm trying to stitch a panorama in Photoshop while also syncing my ipod and watching or recording TV in the background.

It's sometimes hard to tell whether people are serious or not. So I'll just ask...are you kidding? I would sure hate to be your PC. :yikes

jhelms

Richard wrote:

It's sometimes hard to tell whether people are serious or not. So I'll just ask...are you kidding? I would sure hate to be your PC. :yikes

I know what you mean (hard to tell when people are joking, etc.).

I'm pretty serious though! I've been doing a TON of bracketed series's lately and then just dumping them in an "HDR PROCESS" folder, then at some point I'll open up 2 or 3 sessions of photomatix and process them (usually 5 shot brackets) with 8 different tone mapping presets that I've come up with and run them through the H&S adjustment batch options as well.

I keep a watch on the processor and RAM sidebar and 3 photomatix batches is about the limit before it starts to hover near 100% on the processor (4 photomatix batches at one time and it's definitely pegging 100%).

I'm better about trying to balance my tasks lately though - now that I'm using the DVR a good bit I might just have one photomatix batch running almost all the time. If I'm actually at the computer working then I'll have itunes open and PSE7 editing pictures in addition to photomatix running in the background.

Internet surfing on this computer is very rare, most of the time when I'm on it I try to actually be working.

Richard

jhelms wrote:

I'm pretty serious though!

Whew. OK. So you are doing a pile of heavy duty processing, and the original question is, will increasing virtual memory help? It's not easy to answer that sort of question without seeing actual system performance metrics, but I would guess that it would not help you much unless you are getting "Out of memory" errors. You are pegging the cpu on a four processor machine. If you are doing a lot of paging (and I would think you are), you might see some benefit from increasing physical memory and switching to a 64 bit version of the OS. Maybe. You may be limited by the bus speed of your system.

If this is really a serious problem--that is, you are making money from what you are doing--then I would seriously consider getting a second machine and configuring eSATA drives that can connect to both machines. If not, then before spending money on anything, I would look at how you could change your workflow to distribute the load over time. Could some things be done with unattended batch processes that run overnight? You are really pushing the limits of personal systems, I think. Even if you were to get a second machine, you would still need to rethink the workflow, so I would start there.

jhelms

Richard wrote:

If this is really a serious problem--that is, you are making money from what you are doing--then I would seriously consider getting a second machine and configuring eSATA drives that can connect to both machines. If not, then before spending money on anything, I would look at how you could change your workflow to distribute the load over time. Could some things be done with unattended batch processes that run overnight? You are really pushing the limits of personal systems, I think. Even if you were to get a second machine, you would still need to rethink the workflow, so I would start there.

Cool - that's exactly the way I've approached it so far, the past few days I've been running just one photomatix batch while I'm actually working on the computer and then running the extras or longer ones over night or during the day while I'm at my real job.

Since this is a new computer, I may have been 'testing the limits' a little bit, and changing up the workflow a little bit has been no problem at all so far.

moe

jhelms wrote:

Cool - that's exactly the way I've approached it so far, the past few days I've been running just one photomatix batch while I'm actually working on the computer and then running the extras or longer ones over night or during the day while I'm at my real job.

Since this is a new computer, I may have been 'testing the limits' a little bit, and changing up the workflow a little bit has been no problem at all so far.

I'm willing to bet that you don't require a 9GB pagefile. For most, a pagefile slightly larger than physical RAM is more than sufficient.

You can use the built-in PERFMON tool in Vista (or XP for that matter) to monitor the amount of pagefile bytes allocated. Load up PERFMON, (called Reliability and Performance Monitor in Vista). On the left-hand pane select Performance Monitor. Click the green PLUS symbol to add a performance counter. In the Available Counters list, scroll to "Process" (not Processor). Double click "Process" (or click the little down arrow to the right of the counter name). Scroll down further in the subcounters under process and select "Page File Bytes" and in the Instances window, select "_Total". Then click Add and click OK. Now you have a running monitor of your total pagefile allocation in bytes.

Fire up everything you could ever want to do at the same time and determine how much pagefile is actually allocated. It's not as much as you'd think.

I have 3GB of RAM and a 3GB page file. Even under fairly heavy load I rarely exceed 50% of my pagefile allocated.

So having a larger pagefile isn't necessarily helpful, you're just wasting disk space. Now if you don't miss that disk space, then don't worry about it!

sirsloop

I've got 8GB on my workstation here... windows xp 64bit. I set the pagefile to like 25MB on the C drive, then have a 4GB ramdisk setup that hosts the rest of the page file. IDK... seems to work pretty good.

cmason

jhelms wrote:

My default settings were only allocating the actual 3gb memory that are installed, but the 'recommended paging file' size was 4.6gb, so i made my minimum virtual memory 8gb and my max virtual memory 9.9gb, does that help at all?

Any tips / suggestions? Thanks!

I would personally recommend that you let Windows manage the pagefiles and virtual memory. In this way they become dynamic, and apps that don't require them are not penalized by the OS having to maintain them, and your harddrive gets a breather.

Physical memory is far faster than virtual, so the less you can use virtual, the better IMHO. Letting Windows manage this will mean virtual is utilized only when really needed.

moe

sirsloop wrote:

I've got 8GB on my workstation here... windows xp 64bit. I set the pagefile to like 25MB on the C drive, then have a 4GB ramdisk setup that hosts the rest of the page file. IDK... seems to work pretty good.

With 8GB of RAM, your pagefile becomes largely irrelevant. That 4GB of RAM that your allocating to the RAMDISK would actually be far better utilized as system RAM than for pagefile. Your wasting that fast RAM on the pagefile!!! Let your apps have that RAM and you won't need to access the pagefile as often.

moe

cmason wrote:

I would personally recommend that you let Windows manage the pagefiles and virtual memory. In this way they become dynamic, and apps that don't require them are not penalized by the OS having to maintain them, and your harddrive gets a breather.

Physical memory is far faster than virtual, so the less you can use virtual, the better IMHO. Letting Windows manage this will mean virtual is utilized only when really needed.

I totally agree. However, even if you manually configure a large pagefile, it will still only be used as needed so your hard disk won't suffer unless the pagefile is actually being used. On systems with large amounts of RAM the pagefile just isn't that important. The practice of making your pagefile much larger than physical memory just makes no sense. On my 4GB system, under a moderate workload my 4GB pagefile is usually less than 4% utilized.

Regardless, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a massive pagefile. Disk space is cheap afterall. But I agree with cmason just let Windows manage it.

sirsloop

I dont think I've ever used 4GB of physical memory..... at least on my workstation...