No paging file...disadvantages???

[DealMaster]

I guess this is the right section to post this in. I just switched over to using no paging file and I can notice a pretty nice difference in performance...any disadvanteges to doing this?

EDIT: I do no graphic editing or stuff like that. I do /some/ gaming, mainly thief II and III...
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My comp:
p4c800 w/ 2.4 gig northwood pentium, 80 gig maxtor HD. Radeon pro 9800 (soon to be flashed to XT). 1024 dual channel samsung pc3200 ddr400 ram. Soundcard....something from Creative...5.1 something or other

[chatbox]

Hum...I don't really know.
Currently I set my pagefile to 32MB (fix size) even though I have 4GB RAM in my system. Just in case...you never know.

[jollyeskimo]

yeah i've got mine set at bare minimum to force everything onto the ram, makes everything feel speedy provided that you've got a good amount of ram.

there's always the odd program that might require the paging file, so that's why it's always safe to set at least a bit away just to be safe.

[Gee]

A swap file is required. Even if you have lots of RAM.

XP wants to swap even if there is plenty of available memory.

[PennyArcade]

Having no page file is a bad thing.

Page files are used for memory fetches that don't need to be quick for a program. Not having one forces the computer to use quicker memory (ie RAM). That's a good thing... until you run out of memory. Then having a page file system is useful.

I am interested in your findings of increased performance without a page file. Is it a qualitative or quantitative observation?

[IceMan77]

I'm running no pagefile now. Things are running fine and speedy. The only disadvantage is when you go over your physical RAM, then windows will crash, so make sure you have enough RAM!