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Pagefile Virtual Memory



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 27th 16, 11:14 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
gargoyle60
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Posts: 10
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

For windows 98 is it possible to have the pagefile split across different drives in the same way as
for Windows XP?
  #2  
Old September 27th 16, 12:51 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
JJ[_2_]
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Posts: 36
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

On Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:14:26 +0100, gargoyle60 wrote:
For windows 98 is it possible to have the pagefile split across different drives in the same way as
for Windows XP?


No. It's not possible because Windows 9x/ME doesn't have that capability
yet.
  #3  
Old September 27th 16, 05:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
VanguardLH
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Posts: 25
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

gargoyle60 wrote:

For windows 98 is it possible to have the pagefile split across
different drives in the same way as for Windows XP?


http://blog.zwiegnet.com/windows-ser...drive-windows/
(Found by an online search on: +"windows 98" +pagefile configuration).

Make sure the drive letters selected for splitting the pagefile are on
two physically different hard disks. You'll gain no performance if the
drives are on the same hard disk (e.g., C: and D: are 2 partitions on
the same HDD). Each drive must be a partition on a DIFFERENT hard disk.

This is to reduce overlap between disk writes on the samd HDD by having
writes from the OS files into one partition on one disk while writes for
the pagefile are into a partition on a different disk. Only if two
different disks are used for the partitions for the OS and [some of] the
pagefile can there be overlapped write file I/O.

As I recall, Windows will try to first use the pagefile space on the
non-OS drive. So make the non-OS partition on the 2nd HDD as big as you
want to encompass your worst-case scenario of paging. Do not set the
pagefile in the OS partition on the 1st HDD to zero. Instead set it to
1 to 1.5 times your system RAM size. That way, if your 2nd HDD fails
and gets disabled in the BIOS or removed then you still have sufficient
pagefile space back in the OS partition. The pagefile in the partition
on the 2nd HDD gets used first, if available, and then the pagefile in
the partition on the 1st HDD gets used second, if the other HDD's
pagefile is not usable or available.

Never set the pagefile to zero despite articles telling you to do so if
you have gobs of memory. The OS and some apps will still issue calls to
reserve some pagefile space even if there is more than enough system RAM
to accomodate all loaded programs in system memory. If there is zero
pagefile space, the OS and apps will error on those pagefile API calls
and error/crash or behave unexpectedly.

Remember: To split the pagefile requires two, or more, physically
separate hard disks (so the partitions containing the pagefile parts are
on different hard disks). "Drives" are lettering assignments to
partitions aka volumes. Some users equate drives with disks but they
are not the same. That's because the full name for disks is HDDs (Hard
Disk Drive). There are hard disk, optical, removable, flash, and other
type of drives (physical storage media) and drives that are letters
assigned to partitions/volumes.

For example, you might want something like:
Drive C: = HDD 0, partn 1 = OS partn (standard sized pagefile here)
Drive D: = HDD 1, partn 1 = data partn (big split pagefile over here)
Hard disks are enumerated starting with zero. Partitions are enumerated
starting with 1.
  #4  
Old September 27th 16, 07:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lee
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Posts: 196
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

On Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 4:14:20 AM UTC-6, gargoyle60 wrote:
For windows 98 is it possible to have the pagefile split across different drives in the same way as
for Windows XP?


Yes and no. 9x doesn't have a pagefile named pagefile. But it does use it's own method which is similar, it's called C:\WINDOWS\WIN386.SWP file when you let Windows manage it automatically. It can be moved to another drive and/or partition. I found that when this was done that the swap file as it called in 9x doesn't get in the way of itself when defragmenting the windows drive.

In the early days when ram wasn't so cheap it was often recommended to set the swap file to a large minimum size, but almost every setting possible was easy to find on the web pushed out there by one pundit or another. Large minimum did help when ram was lacking, large ram was best of course. 512 MegaBytes of ram was 98's sweet spot and it would still use the swap file on occasion. I found that hard drive space was easier to afford so ran with 512 MByte swap file. Ram issues on my cheap box couldn't go that big, but would have if only I could have.

Get to the settings for Virtual Memory by pressing the Windows Key and the Pause/Break Key at the same time. Select Performance tab, click Virtual Memory and adjust as wanted there.

Pagefile is truly for NT machines, they will build one for your 9x partition if you are dual booting, but 9x does nothing with it. Split doesn't equate to 9x where you only have one swap file, it's always named WIN386.SWP.
  #5  
Old September 28th 16, 01:40 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
gargoyle60
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Posts: 10
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

On Tue, 27 Sep 2016 11:24:30 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

gargoyle60 wrote:

For windows 98 is it possible to have the pagefile split across
different drives in the same way as for Windows XP?


http://blog.zwiegnet.com/windows-ser...drive-windows/
(Found by an online search on: +"windows 98" +pagefile configuration).

Make sure the drive letters selected for splitting the pagefile are on
two physically different hard disks. You'll gain no performance if the
drives are on the same hard disk (e.g., C: and D: are 2 partitions on
the same HDD). Each drive must be a partition on a DIFFERENT hard disk.

This is to reduce overlap between disk writes on the samd HDD by having
writes from the OS files into one partition on one disk while writes for
the pagefile are into a partition on a different disk. Only if two
different disks are used for the partitions for the OS and [some of] the
pagefile can there be overlapped write file I/O.

As I recall, Windows will try to first use the pagefile space on the
non-OS drive. So make the non-OS partition on the 2nd HDD as big as you
want to encompass your worst-case scenario of paging. Do not set the
pagefile in the OS partition on the 1st HDD to zero. Instead set it to
1 to 1.5 times your system RAM size. That way, if your 2nd HDD fails
and gets disabled in the BIOS or removed then you still have sufficient
pagefile space back in the OS partition. The pagefile in the partition
on the 2nd HDD gets used first, if available, and then the pagefile in
the partition on the 1st HDD gets used second, if the other HDD's
pagefile is not usable or available.

Never set the pagefile to zero despite articles telling you to do so if
you have gobs of memory. The OS and some apps will still issue calls to
reserve some pagefile space even if there is more than enough system RAM
to accomodate all loaded programs in system memory. If there is zero
pagefile space, the OS and apps will error on those pagefile API calls
and error/crash or behave unexpectedly.

Remember: To split the pagefile requires two, or more, physically
separate hard disks (so the partitions containing the pagefile parts are
on different hard disks). "Drives" are lettering assignments to
partitions aka volumes. Some users equate drives with disks but they
are not the same. That's because the full name for disks is HDDs (Hard
Disk Drive). There are hard disk, optical, removable, flash, and other
type of drives (physical storage media) and drives that are letters
assigned to partitions/volumes.

For example, you might want something like:
Drive C: = HDD 0, partn 1 = OS partn (standard sized pagefile here)
Drive D: = HDD 1, partn 1 = data partn (big split pagefile over here)
Hard disks are enumerated starting with zero. Partitions are enumerated
starting with 1.


Thanks for the information. My online searches identified very little, perhaps I wasn't patient
enough to check ALL the references.

To add extra info…
My machine is very old (circa 1999). Pentium II 350MHz.
It already has the maximum possible RAM installed (768MB).
It has two separate HDD (2 x 4GB) so I can have W98 on drive 0 and the pagefile/swap-area/virtual
memory as the first partition on drive 1.
I shall also be using part of drive 1 for a Linux swap partition.

I am not intending to actually use W98 on a regular basis, it's just to serve as a backup for
converted MS-Access97 files if my main machine goes down for any reason. So in terms of personal
data I won't be needing much storage and might as well leave the OS and my data together on a single
partition.

By the way I use GParted generally to set my partition arrangements, so no problems anticipated in
that respect.
  #6  
Old September 28th 16, 09:11 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
VanguardLH
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 25
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

For your use of Windows 98 and with old slow HDDs (and they are both
slow - not where one is much faster than the other), you will likely not
see any performance increase by moving a portion of the pagefile over to
drive 1. Might as well as keep it all together. It's not like you will
be doing huge video edits so the app could thrash in and out of pagefile
on drive 1 while the OS was working on drive 0.

Your Access files are probably not very large and you are not accessing
them as would a server handling multiple concurrent connections from
multiple users. Tis also likely the performance of your HDDs are very
close; that is, drive 1 is probably not much different than drive 0.
You probably won't see any performance gain from splitting the pagefile.
Usage and [better] hardware dictate if splitting the pagefile will do
anything to improve performance.

You would probably get better performance by running Access97 inside a
virtual machine (VMware Player, Virtualbox) on your newest and much
better and faster hardware boxes. Yes, virtualizing hardware makes
software run slower than when it runs on real hardware but if the real
hardware is a lot faster than the slowdown from virtualizing is likely a
lot less than using ancient hardware.

Also, it sounds like you will create one partition, say partn1, on drive
1 for the split pagefile and another partition, say part2, to use for
other purposes. If you run programs under your OS on drive 0 that read
and especially write files a lot on drive 1 partn2 then you obviate
having the partition over on drive 1 partn1. You want to NOT collide
concurrent writes into the pagefile, wherever it is, with writes by the
OS or other programs you run. If drive1 partn2 is just for storage,
like for downloaded files or data files not often accessed then there
won't [often] be collisions of writes with the pagefile in drive1
partn1. You're trying to not collide the OS writes to the pagefile with
writes by other processes onto the same media storage device.
  #7  
Old September 29th 16, 03:21 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
Lee
External Usenet User
 
Posts: 196
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

Of course the best articles concerning 98 have been taken down leaving behind a mix of 95 advice too easily confused to be useful for 98. And of course one always could believe everything found on the internet in the first place. So I won't fault you for not finding useful 98 information these days. It was hard enough way back in the good days.

With the ram patch from Loew the maximum ram allowed for 98 is now standing at 4 gigs. My dual boot dimension 2400 is maxed out at 2 gigs while the swap file remains at 0 bytes consistently. My limit is of course motherboard based just as your limit is, but with the paid for patch, it can be as high as 4 gigs. If you didn't know that now you do. There are other patches that allow terabyte hard drives and even SATA drives to be accessed via the lowly 98 these days as well just in case you thought you were trapped on really ancient hardware. Circa 2005 seems to be the cutoff point for available 98 drivers for such hardware which is the real stumbling point dictating the real end of 98.

My use for 98 includes methods and 16 bit apps that XP and higher don't want to play with anymore and otherwise interfere with my 'experience' that used to be a selling point. Along with 5.25 drive access via my original 233 MHz MMX box for Atari 8bit to PC direct disk to disk creations, 98 isn't ever going away here.
  #8  
Old January 12th 17, 02:04 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
[email protected]
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Posts: 3
Default Pagefile Virtual Memory

On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 13:40:27 +0100, gargoyle60
wrote:

Thanks for the information. My online searches identified very little, perhaps I wasn't patient
enough to check ALL the references.


That's because Win98 does NOT have a Pagefile. Instead it has a
SWAPFILE. Yea, pretty much the same sort of thing, but it's NOT called
Pagefile (that began in Windows 2000).

A search for SWAP FILE should work a lot better.


 




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