Windows XP tweak: LargeSystemCache - Do or Don't for a normal PC
JLamy
UK
My questions is as title. I read on a few web pages that this registry setting loads the XP kernal into memory, while at the same time some other sites say that the [DisablePagingExec] (I think) setting is for kernal loading into memory, and that the LargeSystemCache is not recommended for non file servers as it would increase page file usage as stated in this site: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
Has anyone with 1GB RAM tried this LargeSystemCache tweak? Would you recommend it to anyone with 1GB or more RAM? I have already turned the [DisablePagingExec] to 1, as this seems to be universally agreed to improve performance for systems with 256MB+ RAM.
Has anyone with 1GB RAM tried this LargeSystemCache tweak? Would you recommend it to anyone with 1GB or more RAM? I have already turned the [DisablePagingExec] to 1, as this seems to be universally agreed to improve performance for systems with 256MB+ RAM.
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However on a home machine where you often have multiple applications running and especially if you are playing games or any other application that loves RAM all you are doing it wasting ram. You don't have constant disk access like on a file server so you are loosing ram and gaining a minor advantage in less disk writes.
Pretty much useless.
Are the tweaks and their descriptions accurate on this site: http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html as from their description, LargeSystemCache is worth having turned on.
Any other tweaks you can think of to make XP more responsive? Or is there any online guide or tweak program you can point me in the direction of.
But as I understand it here's what it does. It forces programs to load into physical ram before they load into virtual ram. The issue is that some programs even if you have 4gb of RAM still want to load into virtual mem. The theory behind this tweak is that Physical RAM is faster and that is true. The problem is that some programs are specifically designed to dump to the paging file like Adobe for example. The page file is also unlimited in size (if you let XP handle it). So some programs even at start up will want do create a huge pagefile just incase. So if you tell it that it can't do this it'll fill your RAM and can cause program/computer crashes.
So. In some cases depending on your software having no pagefile will definitely increase speed. In other cases just fixing the pagefile size will also have speed improvement. But in other cases not allowing XP to do whatever it wants with the pagefile can cause problems.
So as to if this is a worthwile Tweak to do. Just depends on your system. Best way is to turn it on see if it's causing issues. If it does turn it off. It's really a trial and error based entirely on your computer and what programs you are using.
One other thing to consider is that by keeping data locked to RAM any temp data, should you crash won't be saved. Where as programs that use the paging file for temp storage will usually recover the data after a crash.
Generally when tweaking out windows I stick with dissabling services and some of the gui features to get my speed increases. There are some good reg hacks that work but more often then not they only work well in specific instances.
This is a pretty good site to check out
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks1.htm