I think you need a bigger paging file. I've never run out of recources (at least not for the past couple years...) Mine is 3gb.

>The memory is cheap now so get as much as you can afford<
Unfortunatly not RDRram. unless somebody knows a secret place to get quality RDR in 512 pairs for cheap.

How do i get a bigger Paging File?
Is there a setting i need to set??

I plan on getting some more Rambus...eventually. I was gonna get another 512 for a total of 1 gig. Is that still a bit lite for vegas?

How do i increase my Paging File?

Dennis

To increase your paging file size:

1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties.

2. Click the Advanced tab.

3. Under Performance, click the Advanced tab.

4. In the Performance area, click Settings.

5. Click the Advanced tab.

6. In the Virtual memory area, click Change.

7. Select the drive where your virtual file resides.

If you have "System managed size" selected, then you have real problems. Otherwise, set a custom size that quadruples your installed memory. Some people will tell you not to do this, but they don't understand that XP doesn't use virtual memory unless "it" feels that it is in your best interest. XP ain't all that bright, but it is really good at utilizing virtual memory.

In earlier times, like right after the Windows 95 stone age, I would have recommended that you set definite values. Now, I recommend letting the system manage the size. That way, Windows XP is able to grab space when required. I never experience a problem when I let XP handle virtual memory.

Right click My Computer, Right click properties, Click advanced (I think), performance, then advanced again, then type in the lower and upper limit and hit set. Its somewhere in that mess of clicks.

JJK

Most people recommend that you send your minimum and your maximum to the same number. This way Windows doesn't have to resize it constantly and it will not get defragmented.

so if you wanted to set in at 1024 just set both to the same number.
min 1024
max 1024

XP is better at using memory than earlier versions of Windows, but by design it still makes heavy use of the swap file (paging file) regardless how much RAM (memory) you have.

If you do the 3 finger salute (Ctrl/Alt/Delete) in XP you bring up the Task Manger which is vastly different than in earlier versions of Windows.

The first tab (Applications) shows what's running that's considered an application like your spreadsheet, word processor, Vegas.

The second tab (Processes) gives a clear picture. Its shows all the applications, plus what files THEY spawn to run plus what Windows itself is doing. At the bottom is the real time updated CPU useage expressed as a percentage. Lower is better.

The third tab (Performance) Has 4 real time graphs that show the CPU and Page file useage. Below it, is the key to understanding what's going on

Totals:

Handles are the number of (hooks) to do whatever is happening. The less the better. Threads that are running the processes in the previous tab also show on this tab. Again lower is better

Commit Charge

Total is memory useage right now in real time. Limit is the combination of your physical memory and your paging file. Peak is the highest amount of memory in use since you last booted. The bigger the difference between total (what you're using) and Limit (the max you can use) the better

Physical Memory

Total is max in use. Available and System Cache will change as various parts of the Windows operating system is swiched in and out of physical memory. The higher the avaliable number the better.

Kernel Memory

Is a representation of how agressive Windows is putting itself in and out of physical memory to run its core elements (the kernel) GEnerally the less nonpaged (actually physical memory used) the faster a process will run.

How to understand

Do a cold reboot. Important to not skew values.

Watch the values under physical memory under the performance tab. Have the typical applications you use at the same time up and running. and just don't open them, do with them what you usually do THEN open Task Manger.

Example I have 1 GB of memory. RIght now Task Manager is showing a total of 1047276 (K) as total memory. It also showing 698408 avaliable with 47 processes running, including Vegas, Flash, Agent, Word and several other things. That tells me Window is just loafing along. About 2/3 of my memory is unused. So I got plenty. Just for fun, I started a render of a MPEG-2 project as I'm writing this. That according to Task Manager took 88480K more of memory and CPU useage jumped to 95%. Shuting down several application I'm not using further reduced CPU uages to 68%. If I had only 512MB of physical memory and was running the same applications and started to do a render by actual physical memory in use would be close to 90% of all I have forcing the the available number to approach total. That of course would also effect the other numbers and Windows would have no choice but to start using the paging file much more, slowing things down because it no longer had much wiggle room in actual physical memory.

Since Windows will use the paging file regardless how much physical memory you have, it makes sense to size it to your needs. Too big its just takes up space and robs your hard drive its on. Too small it means Windows needs to do more shuffling between it and physical memory.

The paging file

To be the most effective the paging file needs to be consecutive or a series of disk sectors one after the other. The problem is once you create a paging file (unless you tell it not to, Windows makes one automatically) and it gets fragemened, there is no way to fix it since if in use it can't be changed without special applications. So you first need to delete any paging file you have, set Windows to run WITHOUT on, then defrag your drive it was one. Then reboot, then make a new paging file. How to do that and how to size it, move it, etc. is well explained in the Windows Help section under 'change the size of the virtual memory paging file'.

You'll get a lot of different views on how to size your paging file. You can make the min/max the same size, or let Windows grow and shrink it according to its needs. As a genral rule of thumb the paging file should be between 1.5 and 2 times the size of your physical memory. It isn't carved in stone, but a good ball park starting point.

Thanks BB great info! I always wondered just what some of those things were Great explinantion!

I origionally had 256mb DDR ram when I started using Vegas. It ran fine even with Photoshop being used at the same time. Vegas is VERY memory friendly. 512 should be more then enough to do whatever you want.

WOW ! Thanks for all the informative answers.

Hopefully i can set this and all will be wonderful.

Dennis

BillyBoy,

Thanks for the great explanation. It raises a question I'm sure you may have encountered.

I have 3 physical spindles in my NLE, the system drive has four partitions on it, the other two are for video use, connected to a separate controller (on board RAID but not configured for RAID use). So all my hard drives are master devices on their own IDE channels. I've heard that it's a good idea to have the pagefile on a separate spindle, as it's heavily used during the rendering process. My goal is to reduce the amount of time the drives spend seeking. When rendering AVI to MPEG for example, I have the AVI on one of the video drives and the MPEG being created on another drive. The idea is to have one drive reading the data and nothing else, another drive is writing data and nothing else. My page file is currently on a separate partition on the system drive. I have 1GB of memory and a fixed pagefile of 4GB.

Does this sound reasonable?

Thats true until you start dumping 1 meg jpg's on the timeline then things get real dicy. Then you need all the ram you can stuff in the machine.

JJK

Billyboy,
Your saying turn it off, defrag, then turn it back on and set it accordingly??

So what happens if i just turned it on and started changing sizes with out defraging and turning it off??

Just wondering.

It just seems like going from memphis to nashville via chicago.........

Dennis

> So what happens if i just turned it on and started changing sizes with out defraging and turning it off??

Your swap file will continue to be fragmented and give you poor performance because Windows will spend more time searching for the next fragment to page to instead of having it all contiguously in one big place. Just follow Billy’s directions and you’ll optimize your swap file.

Here’s the problem: Your swap file is fragmented.

Deleting the swap file gets rid of the fragmented swap file. But if you just reallocate it without defragmenting your hard drive, Windows will just allocate another fragmented swapfile because there isn’t enough free contiguous space on your hard drive to fit it.

Rebooting is standard procedure after defragmenting. This is because all sorts of things that point to files are cached in windows memory and now you just moved everything around on disk so you should reboot after every time you defrag.

Reallocating the swapfile after defrag and reboot will now allocate a swapfile in the largest contiguous free disk space which, hopefully, will yield a contiguous swap file which is unfragmented.

So the reason you have to go from memphis to nashville via Chicago is because Windows isn’t smart enough to defrag its swapfile so you have to trick it into doing it manually. And besides, BillyBoy’s in Chicago and he can help you out. ;-)

~jr

Yep, I agree. Since Windows automatically starts up its Swap File at boot, you can't kill it or resize or REALLY defragement it (though some applicaitons claim they can) when its running, because its always running once Windows is. So that's the reasoning behind getting rid of it, first, then defragging, then making a new one.

What's kind of sneaky of Microsoft is them bowing to pressure, I forget when, I think it was starting with version ME, they stopped the system from automatically deleting the swap file on shutdown, which it did in eariler version of Windows, then a new one was created (automatically) everytime you booted. No longer doing it shaved off maybe 15 seconds from the time it takes to boot up.

From a security standpoint not a good idea. The way things are now in the later version of Windows the swap file remains unless you delete it. The plus side is Windows doesn't need to make a new one each boot, but file scraps remain in file slack. I'll explain that in a minute. Anyhow, the security hole is you can't control what's scrap, so anything could be lurking in sectors that are/were in your swap file. Anything. Just meaningless junk, your credit card numbers or passwords or your secret recipe for finger licking chicken.

Flie scap
In Windows files are stored is sectors on your hard drive. Rarely do files fill out a sector completely. The difference between the actual file size in bytes and the the last sector used to hold the file is called slack. The way Windows works, you can't have empty space in a sector, something needs to fill up the sector before Windows can write the block of data to your drive. This is where slack comes in.

Windows takes anything you discarded or the nastly part, any part of any file which may have been switched to the swap file anytime since you booted. Which of course could be anything. So, while you can't access this "junk" normally, its all over you hard drive as "slack scrap".

Normally, who cares. It doesn't waste hard drive space, but something got to be there to fill the sector out, but if you do sensentive work, or have something on your computer you don't want anyone else to be able to access its very easy to retrive with forensic software.

So if security is a concern for you, then you need to "wipe" your hard drives. Wiping scans all your hard drive's sectors, finds the slack and overwrite it typically with a pattern of zeros and ones, one or mulitple times. Then the scaps are truly meaningless and no more security hole. I assume most of you know the same thing happens to files you "delete". Even when you empty the trash bin, the files aren't deleted physically. They simply have a flag changed to say they are "deleted" files which means the data isstill all this there sitting there on your hard drive in thousands of sectors for any forensic software to find. Deleted files may get overwritten in time, but if or when is totally up to Windows and how much free space you have left on your hard drive. If you have a big drive and lots of free space, Windows may never get around to overwriting previous used space containing "deleted" files because it didn't have to. Another reason to defrag.

The other poster, asking about multiple IDE channels. Agree with others said too. You can have multiple IDE controllers. By default all modern PC's have a primary and secondary IDE controller each with a master/slave channel. If you add an inexpensive IDE controller card like comes with some of the larger drives so they run at 133 speed, then you can add more channels. Its generally a good idea to have Windows and applictions on one physical drive and use another on a different IDE channel for video capturing, burnings DVD's, etc.. Thoush not as important as it once once. With today's faster systems should be that big a issue anymore.

Users of Norton Utilities should note that speed disk will do the contiguous swapfile trick itself, without the need for BillyBoy's procedure.

I kind of side with BB because System Works caused me so many problems I dumped it. If you want a good defragger buy Executive Software Diskeeper Professional for about 40 USD. It's set it and forget feature is very helpful. SW's contiguous file feature is nice but some of System Works' quirks obviate any adavantage derived therefrom.

Peter

I have both applications and sadly both can act up. Norton will say it defrags, then once done it leaves a bunch of sectors that weren't. I like Diskepper but it has the annoying habit of starting up on its own if I happen to switch my removable drives in and out, it thinks drive X is drive Y, then even though I have none setup to automatically do a scheduled defag it starts up on the drive it sees as new apparently. It did that about half a dozen times in the middle of me trying to render something and it corrupted the MPEG-2 files. Oh well. No application is perfect.

>>What's kind of sneaky of Microsoft is them bowing to pressure, I forget when, I think it was starting with version ME, they stopped the system from automatically deleting the swap file on shutdown

That's the way NT has always worked. It carried over into Win2k/XP/2003. I hadn't thought about the security risk before... scary!

btw - XP likes 1 GB of RAM at least. With Win2k I would have said 256MB is enough for straight forward video editing. But like someone was saying... if you get into adding high resolution stills to your timeline you can eat RAM for breakfast! :P```

Billyboy and Others.

I cant thank you enough for being beyond informative. THIS is what makes GREAT forums!

Sooooo....when i went to check out the PF on my drives..My C drive is then only one with settings. The other 2 (audio/Video) drives had NO setting what so ever.

If i have 512mb of Rambus memory what is the magic number to put in my Max and Min setting to make my world a nicer place to do the Vegas Dance.

And i thought the reply to my Nashville to memphis via Chicago quote was simply hilarious! What an odd coincidence!

Any thoughts on settings??

And to delete the PF, i just put in values of 0 in both the Max & Min and then reboot? Thats it? Seems too easy.

So these are the suggested steps?

1. So Defrag (all drives)
2. Put in vaues of zero (on all drives)
3. Reboot
4. Enter new values (on all drives)

Thanks for any input.
You guys have been wonderful in giving me this valuable info!

Dennis

Actually there is only one paging file. It generally on your root (C) drive but you can put it anywhere you want on any of your drives. Just tell Windows when it asks where you want it, then enter the path.

Anyhow, the first step is to delete your present paging file. Windows will nag, are you sure, say yes, then reboot. Then run your defrag application. Best to do overnight or when you don't need your PC for several hours depending on big/ how many drives you have, how badly fragemented they are, etc.. Once that's done, then make a new paging file.

You'll get lots of opinions on how big the paging file should be, if or not to set min/max and all that stuff. It really depends on how you use your PC and how much memory you have. I've tried all kinds of ways and don't really see much difference as long as you don't try to make the paging file too small or too large.

If you set the min too low, then you hamper Windows forcing it to switch memory pages more than it should. If you make it too big, you just are wasting hard drive space.

I've worked with some giant sized files (over 80GB) uncompress AVI and with 1GB memory and a paging file of 2 GB Windows seems happy. In fact if anything those setting are probably too high, but I have a big 200 GB drive at my root drive and I'm not missing the space.

So...

1 kill the current paging file, Windows will ask to reboot
2. defag the drive the old paging file was on
3. When finished, make a new paging file

The reason you want to defrag with no paging file is you insure whatevrer defrag tool you used defrags your whole drive. If you try to defrag while you have a paging file, then parts of it, even the whole thing is skipped. If the paging file itself is fragemented, then you in hurting performance, because Windows wants one huge continous chuck of sector after sector to play with for best performance. That's because if Windows has to hunt for fragements of files in a fragemented paging file tha may be scattered all over your drive that's really going to take a hit in any task that used the paging file extensively.

Billyboy,
My video files are generally 20-30 gig.

With 512mb of rambus what is the magic numbers you would put in Min and Max.

WWBBD (what would Billyboy Do?).

I am looking for specific numbers here. So please enlighten me oh Enlightend one.........

Thanx
Dennis

PS, so if i put a PF file on one of my other hard drives (now having 2 drives with PF on them) i should delete both then, right?

My C drive is a 120gig,
My audio Drives (2 each) are 160's ........ FYI