Optimizing Windows for Games

I would take the bit about disabling virtual memory with a grain of salt. It's actually a myth that doing that helps in any significant way. You may gain a fraction of a percent improvement in performance of memory-heavy workloads (due to background apps not getting swapped out while it runs), but if you reach a point where Windows feels it really needs that swapfile, the app is liable to just outright crash instead of slowing down. And we have seen a number of crash reports where folks had disabled virtual memory.

That said, if you have an SSD it's (IMO) not a bad idea to avoid putting the swapfile there, if only because it will cause unnecessary wear on the drive. If you run a shorter upgrade cycle or keep good backups though feel free to put it there (since it is faster than a conventional hard disk).

This is the first time I have seen someone question the idea of disabling virtual memory when one's computer has at least 16 gB memory.  Not understanding the windows process, I would venture to say that logically why wouldn't you add a swap file in that case...just in the (perhaps extremely rare, to be sure) instance that Windows calls more more memory than 16 gB, as a falll back.  I mean, if as is assumed by those who suggest turning VM off that memory past 16 gB is not going to be accessed, then how is there a performance hit if the swap file is never used?

But I suppose I am just betraying my lack of understanding of the Windows Monster.   Sheesh, I remember the 6508 processor.   I actually understood how that worked.  But then computers moved on and I gave up, it wasn't any fun any more.

Thanks for the heads up I will investigate this a bit more.

[EDIT]  There is a long article on this subject here:  

 http://tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/

I was directed to it from an article in How-To Geek.   It appears to completely agree with kyro!  Performance gains from disabling the page file, under extensive testing, are indicated to be a myth.

Well, I learn something new every day!

What I gather from at this point is that with 16gb ram, you don't need as large a paging file....your need goes down as your installed ram goes up.  I switched to 256 mb min and 2048 mb max (2 gb) which seemed to be a popular choice.

We'll see how that works.

Also, I discovered windows process explorer 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

which gives a LOT of info on what is happening as your computer runs.  In particular, it keeps track of the max committed RAM over the time it is running, which is quite interesting.   I am running Steam (in game overlay enabled), Microsoft Security Essentials, Malawarebytes Pro, and Malawarebytes Anti-Exploit (last three in real time) and Jing.    If I load an immense game at turn 250, process explorer shows a max Ram use at just under 12 gb.   I popped a chrome window and the max ram went over 13,000 mb.  

Not hard to figure why GC3 on immense runs a  lot better with 16 gB than with 8, although it certainly was playable with 8 gB.