How big pagefile do I need

vsub · 02 Feb 2022

I have 16gb of ram and I have it set to 2gb for a while but recently newer games started crashing with some kind of out of memory errors

When I increase it to 4gb,they stop crashing
When they were crashing the physical ram was barely above 50% used but the commit size was hitting the max which was around 18gb
Now when I increase it to 4gb the max is 20gb and the more things I start and close,the higher the commit size becomes and don't go down until I restart window
Currently it is at 9.35gb with nothing running and after restart it falls to 4.5gb

Why is this keep happening,16gb of ram is more than enough for almost anything but windows keeps old things in ram and don't release them.

When I use Process Hacker while the commit charge is close to 20gb,the pagefile usage is less than 1gb and the ram is less than 10gb but if I hit 20gb commit charge,things start to crash or misbehave

steve108 · 02 Feb 2022

Hello vsub,

I would set it to Automatic / System managed - then when your PC is working fine, you can try to break it again following some silly manual size recommendations.

zebal · 02 Feb 2022

you need 32 GB

formula is:
RAM x 2 where RAM <= 16 GB

Pejole2165 · 02 Feb 2022

As steve108 said, put it to system managed and leave it alone. If you do not understand the relation between commit, VM and RAM then do not mess around.
Read up on the subject if you must interfere with something that works perfectly fine at defaults for probably 97% of users, and asking in these sort of forums will get you as many different answers as there are ways to use a computer, many of which will not apply to your usage.

vsub · 02 Feb 2022

The problem is my main drive is 128gb SSD and it is already half full
I can't set it to 32gb or even 16gb...even 8gb is too much

I have 1TB external SSD but windows requires internal storage

steve108 · 02 Feb 2022

vsub said:

The problem is my main drive is 128gb SSD and it is already half full
I can't set it to 32gb or even 16gb...even 8gb is too much

I have 1TB external SSD but windows requires internal storage

Time to upgrade to a larger SSD, I'm afraid, if you want to maintain performance.

Find disk hogs using WizTree and see if you can move data files like music, videos, documents, etc to your external SSD to make space on your 128 SSD.

Pejole2165 · 02 Feb 2022

Well best suggestion, upgrade storage size.
Understand that is not always within peoples reach, so, have you tried going through your system and removing as many temporary, unnecessary files as possible to free up room? Multiple install packages for video drivers can take up gigabytes of space, unused games if using a launcher like Steam can be relocated to other storage using the Steam interface (Ubisoft launcher has the same feature) or even uninstalled then re installed when required.

steve108 · 02 Feb 2022

zebal said:

you need 32 GB

formula is:
RAM x 2 where RAM <= 16 GB

Do you set your size manually or let the system manage it? If manually, why, and have you tried System Managed? I'm trying to learn by asking these dumb questions

.

Where did your magic formula come from vs MS below?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...page-file-size

cereberus · 02 Feb 2022

vsub said:

The problem is my main drive is 128gb SSD and it is already half full
I can't set it to 32gb or even 16gb...even 8gb is too much

I have 1TB external SSD but windows requires internal storage

Why not install the 1 TB ssd internally instead of 128 gb ssd?

cereberus · 02 Feb 2022

zebal said:

you need 32 GB

formula is:
RAM x 2 where RAM <= 16 GB

I suppose Dave down the pub told you that?