Creating pagefile For BL...

Lil'LinaptkSix

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I run SSDs and disable pagefile as I feel memory is adequate... and is as everything runs great until I hit a video laden thread here at BL. Halfway through posting a video laptop would run out of memory and ff would basically crash.. and reopen last tabs when FF was called on... crash again... out of memory again.
I use half of the RAM for ramdisk with no pagefile so I get it.
Figured create 1GB virtual memory on ramdisk and now no issues. :) Quick as hell, too.
Don't know if this interests anyone else but thought I'd share a small victory.
I will see about adding more RAM but I think it's maxed.... We'll see.
What is it about BL that requires so much memory on video threads? Doesn't happen with any other video sites (not naming but most legit) even with multiple tabs open.
 
Seems unlikely it'd be anything directly related to bluelight.

Bluelight doesn't have any tech for playing videos, far as I know it only embeds them from other providers.

Something to note though, software in windows sometimes reserves far more memory than it actually uses.

As a result you can wind up appearing to run out of memory long before you're actually out of memory.

Dunno if that info helps, but I thought it worth mentioning.
 
Hey ptahtek, I've shifted this to our Site Technical Help forum where you should maybe get more relevant responses.
 
I use half of the RAM for ramdisk with no pagefile so I get it.
Figured create 1GB virtual memory on ramdisk and now no issues.
i am confused. you're using half your ram as a ramdisk but you are using that ramdisk as virtual memory? isn't that completely redundant? why not do none of that and use your ram as ram?

alasdair
 
i am confused. you're using half your ram as a ramdisk but you are using that ramdisk as virtual memory? isn't that completely redundant?
Maybe... IKD. lol
I use ramdisk for downloads (writes), extractions (writes x 2), conversions (video and/or photo) (writes) and other mundane uses that keep writess to SSD to a minimum and it is a lot faster (RAM VS. SSD). Pagefile (as noted ) is disabled to "optimize" SSD(s) in all machines and never have an issue with RAM but with video threads here and on this machine with ramdisk. I don't think I have been on Vid Thread on another machine but it eat's at ~4GB to successfully post a video (via firefox). I understand pagefile is basically swap partition but instead of relatively slow disk - where pagefile is often stored - (whatever mechanism) RAM is always faster.

I have FF temp files
IE temp files
And now a pagefile on the ramdisk.
It all goes to scratch on reboot.

Maybe I will do a bit more research on pagefile but if needed (and it seems to be here) why not have the fastest PF possible? ;)
I do know that some decent games (PC) require one to create a virtual partition (pagefile) twice as large as installed RAM.

Seems unlikely it'd be anything directly related to bluelight.
Bluelight doesn't have any tech for playing videos, far as I know it only embeds them from other providers.
Something to note though, software in windows sometimes reserves far more memory than it actually uses.
As a result you can wind up appearing to run out of memory long before you're actually out of memory.
Dunno if that info helps, but I thought it worth mentioning.
You know, this has also been in the back of my mind. I will try other browsers and see if it can be reproduced and monitor RAM usage with and without pagepile.
Will play around a little and see what the deal is... may be an extension of FF or a trillion other possibilities.
Will report any findings. May take a few days....
And the machine does in fact run out of memory and FF crashes. Real-time monitoring of usage when it all goes boom.
 
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Yeah but there's little point in creating a page file on a ram disk. You might be able to use it to trick the system into thinking it has more ram than it does, which might be useful in the situation I mentioned where it's reserving more memory than it's using.

But outside that obscure reason, it doesn't make any sense.

A pagefile is just like a swap partition, only as a file instead of a partition. It's purpose is to swap out pages of memory from ram onto storage like hdd or ssd.

But there's no point in having the system swap out pages of ram for storage.. In ram. That's just a waste of time.

There are good reasons not to swap to ssd, or not swap at all if you have lots of memory. Swapping is slow, and for ssd it involves a lot of writes to the drive. And ssd writes are finite.

But if you're gonna disable it, you gotta make sure you have enough memory for however much the system might reserve at any given time.

And if you're not gonna disable it, those pages need somewhere to go outside of memory. So storing them in memory is pointless. Ssds are pretty fast for persistent storage, so they're a good choice provided you take into account that Ssds have an upper limit to their writes, after which they can start to fail.
 
seems like you have ram which you're setting up as a disk which you're setting up as virtual ram. it seems convoluted and unnecessary.

how much physical ram do you have?

alasdair
 
Worse still, the ram you reserve for a ram disk will be taken out of how much ram you have in total. Meaning you're more likely to have processes page fault and start swapping.. to memory again.

That's a lot of wasted time.
 
Get all of the above.
swap/page
4gb is allocated to ramsisk out of 8gb
i use this for a fairly bit of "stuff" for a better word.
Guess I could disable it when not in need but if I wanna post a pic or video somewhere the editing is fast. And I use it. Yes SSDs are fast... hence the installed.
Why swap from memory to disk to memory when all can be kept in memory (faster) and less read/writes on SSD or HD?
a ramdisk works as any other fixed disk.
It may convoluted but it was just a workaround to post a video here once in a while. Just need a little swap to make it happen and figure I could use a gb of RAM for it and worked.
I love ramdisks (just in case it is not obvious). Just fu**ing fast and extracting a 1 gb file on a HDD or SSD can be done in a fraction of the time in RAM. And temp files are a thing of the past.
I know there is the anti-ramdisk crew but I actually get usage from it and can give some positives.
Yeah... I need more RAM.
Or get on a different machine for BL posting which is not gonna happen.
This is my baby and I get her to do as I wish.
Gotta 40gb SSD
8gb RAM - 4gb for ramdisk
128gb sd card

It is not my powerhouse... it is what I pick up when I need something done not too hardware intensive. Nothing but programs and apps are permanent... the content of each disk (other than OS) is modified/migrated/wiped constantly.
 
why not just add more ram? obviously i don't know the specifics of your machine but you can add another 8gb of ram for about $50 these days...

alasdair
 
why not just add more ram? obviously i don't know the specifics of your machine but you can add another 8gb of ram for about $50 these days...
alasdair
Planning on it, alasdair.
Just needed a workaround until time presented itself to do the research and purchase. Days are chaotic/busy/tiring (both physically and mentally).
This purchase will also allow me to create a larger ramdisk... prolly 8gb. lol :p
Hope your day is peaceful and life is good.
One

Edit: 16gb max. will more than likely settle for 12gb > 4+8
 
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why settle for 12gb when upgrading to 16gb takes 10s longer and the incremental cost is negligible?

why are you so determined to use a ramdisk anyway? and if you're going to create a ramdisk to use it as virtual memory, we're going to spiral down a hole from which we may never emerge :)

alasdair
 
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