[Kevin]

One way to increase the speed of your computer is to change the page cache size. To see more info on how big your page file should be see the info after the How To

Step 1: Start->My Computer->System Info



Step 2: Click on the Advanced tab, and click "Settings" button for performance.



Step 3: Click on the Advanced tab, then click "change" where it says Virtual Memory.



Then simple change the size and hit make sure to hit set.




How big should the page file be?

There is a great deal of myth surrounding this question. Two big fallacies are:

• The file should be a fixed size so that it does not get fragmented, with minimum and maximum set the same
• The file should be 2.5 times the size of RAM (or some other multiple)

For any given workload, the total need for virtual addresses wont depend on the size of RAM alone. It will be met by the sum of RAM and the page file. Therefore in a machine with small RAM, the extra amount represented by page file will need to be larger **not smaller** than that needed in a machine with big RAM. Unfortunately the default settings for system management of the file have not caught up with this: it will assign an initial amount that may be quite excessive for a large machine, while at the same leaving too little for contingencies on a small one.


How big a file will turn out to be needed depends very much on your work-load. Simple word processing and e-mail may need very little — large graphics and movie making may need a great deal. For a general workload, with only small dumps provided for, its suggested that a sensible start point for the initial size would be the greater of (a) 100 MB or (b) enough to bring RAM plus file to about 500 MB. EXAMPLE: Set the Initial page file size to 400 MB on a computer with 128 MB RAM; 250 on a 256 MB computer; or 100 MB for larger sizes.


But have a high Maximum size — 700 or 800 MB or even more if there is plenty of disk space. Having this high will do no harm. Then if you find the actual pagefile.sys gets larger (as seen in Explorer), adjust the initial size up accordingly. Such a need for more than a minimal initial page file is the best indicator of benefit from adding RAM: if an initial size set, for a trial, at 50MB never grows, then more RAM will do nothing for the machine's performance.