Windows XP tweak: LargeSystemCache - Do or Don't for a normal PC

JLamyJLamy UK
edited August 2006 in Science & Tech
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.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2005
    I would advice against doing that. Enabling largesystem cache means it will chew system memmory before it writes it to the drive. In a file server this is fine because the file server isn't really doing anything other then serving files. So in that application the ram requirememnts are low and having fewer disk writes will increase performance.

    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.
  • JLamyJLamy UK
    edited November 2005
    Thanks kryyst, you explained it in a way I can understand what the function does. Now, can you tell me what the [DisablePagingExec] does, seeing as I have put this setting to 1, and notice a little improvement? Is this the only setting that makes XP load its kernal and core files into RAM?

    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.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2005
    Personally I wouldn't bother with that tweak as the jury is out on if it's usefull or not.

    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
  • edited November 2005
    I don't know the exact registry settings, but I do know that my XP install is forbidden to page the kernal to pagefile. I honestly notice the speed difference, though it's a double edged sword. I have 1GB of RAM with a slimmed XP install and I rarely multitask, so it's often not an issue for me. But when I had 512MB XP was smokin' fast, but when you opened a program, it could take a longer time than usual, probably because it was paging to my HDD. As mentioned above, this is usually not an issue with me, so I've been very happy.
  • edited August 2006
    [DisablePagingExec] forces the kernal to stay as much unpaged as possible. This is not a good thing if you have any ram constraint, since it would make it spend all its time swapping parts of the shell back to disk. I have noticed some diffrence when loading large games with the sys cache tweak, but it eats too much memory to be excessively useful.
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