Plenty of reading material --- http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... Computer Speed and Performance May Decrease When you open, then close programs, programs may not free up RAM memory. That is called "Memory Leak". Restarting computer will clear out its RAM memory. http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... HOWTO: Set Performance Options in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... How to Configure Paging Files for Optimization and Recovery in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... How to Clear the Windows Paging File at Shutdown http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... How To Move the Paging File in Windows XP

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So I'm assuming, that your system hasn't used the pagefile in the past. Look the taskmanager / systemperformance. There are several things like physical memory usage, paged kernal aso. Btw. aren't you happy with your system speed? You can get your system speed up by optimizing the windows services. Google for windows unnecessary services and read the tips mindful. There are so many services started and running and things the world never needs.

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Greatgamer, you are wasting your time worrying about the page file usage. For some unknown reason the OS puts stuff that he rarely uses out on the page file. Reset your page file back to the way you originally had it and look for other ways to speed up your system.

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"I shouldn't be using the PF hardly at all if I have unused physical RAM?" There is no such thing as unused RAM. All ram is allocated by the OS "I set the initial and max virtual memory settings to 4096MB btw." That was a mistake. You accomplish nothing with a larger then need be pagefile except waste disk space. At most your pagefile should be 3gig. You really should leave it at system managed. "I just dont understand that people say pagefile is used when you do not have enough RAM but it looks like I have enough RAM but PF is still being used" The pagefile is always used. It has to grow dynamically and is used more when there is a shortage of RAM. "and I want to make sure that I am getting the most out of my computer's performance." Then you should set your pagefile to system managed and go on to other activities. BTW you can set your xp pagefile to zero to force the system not to use a pagefile. My experience was this worked well until I used like Office 97 which wasn't happy with no pagefile. Another optimization technique is to leave your system up and well used for awhile then look at the max pagefile used [means your pagefile has to be "system managed" or set with a lower min and higher max values] and then set the pagefile static to that max used + 10%. You set it static by making the min and max values the same. Before setting the pagefile min/max the same set the pagefile to zero, reboot, run disk cleanup and then defrag the drive. Now set the pagefile min and max values. Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

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Why are you worrying about using hard drive-based pagfile? Gaming requires constant flushing of memory. This is one way you are doing a stress test, may reduce RAM life span, unless you are properly cooling your system. ---------' Just set RAM x 1.5 the size of pagefile. Use Pagedefrg (Sysinternals.com) to defrag all system files, defrag hard drive using JKdefrag/PerfectDisk from Raxco.

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Ok then yes my PC is already fast however I recently learned about the importance of partitions so I figured perhaps I wasn't getting the most out of my system since when I read reviews of PC owners who have setups similar to mine they say "OMG my PC is so fast!" however mine is not jaw dropping fast so I assumed I had some configs setup wrong. Yeah I have already done other tweaks in the past but never messed with the Page File until recently.

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"The importance of partitions" Some folks have some wild ideas of what partitioning can do for them. Might want to run by us what you mean about the importance of partitioning. Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

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Here is my topic here about that: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

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The only "importance" is how long it takes to run defrag or other disk maintenance programs. Larger means slower. The rest is personal preferance Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

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A static page file means also, no fragmentation of the page file. Because a fragmented page file also slows down the computer. A good idea is a seperate partition for the page file. Much better is to create a page file on a seperate partition at another physical harddisc.

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Yeah I also heard it is best to make that separate page file partition in FAT32 format do you agree?

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Yes, because there is no need of the file rights management. So it will work a bit faster. The trick is to don't let windows manage the size dynamically, because sometimes it't bigger sometimes smaller, and zack it's fragmented and this will make a page file much slower.

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"The trick is to don't let windows manage the size dynamically, because sometimes it't bigger sometimes smaller" That means set the initial and max size the same correct? Thanks.

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The weird thing is that I have setup another partition on my second harddrive FAT32 4GB for the paging file and have successfully moved the paging file onto it but the permformance doesn't seem faster and I can hear the second HD spinning on program loading when usually it is completely silent.

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That's the normal case, if the page file will not be used at that time. If you're running multiple programs, or you edit a large picture or something like that, windows will use the page file. In your case I think, windows pages only some parts of windows, that are really not used at that time and so there is no need to heavily touch the page file.

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