Increasing SWAP file->thigns work faster?

Dimitri

Member
I recently transitioned from Windows XP to Win10 and things work quite slow in some areas.

When I open a folder that has a large number of pictures in it (not showing thumbnails) it takes a remarkably long time for it to load everything and settle down. Or if I want to change the way it sorts things in such a large folder, same thing.

I'm trying to think of how I might improve performance and one difference is that in XP I had a 4 GB SWAP file, while now on Win10 I didn't fiddle with its size. Could increasing the size of the page file mitigate some of this?

Of course, quite possible the difference is due to change in OS, but beyond that, generally speaking, could increasing swap size lead to faster performance?
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
How much system ram do you have? While XP ran efficiently on 2gb of ram, newer versions of windows require at least 4-8 gb of ram to run efficiently.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Increasing swap would actually decrease performance as you're loading more data into the HDD as 'cached RAM'.
 

Dimitri

Member
Increasing swap would actually decrease performance as you're loading more data into the HDD as 'cached RAM'.

But doesn't it only put things into the swap file when it runs out of RAM?

How much system ram do you have? While XP ran efficiently on 2gb of ram, newer versions of windows require at least 4-8 gb of ram to run efficiently.

I have 4
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
What cpu do you have? How old is the hard drive? I really wouldn't have upgraded an XP machine to windows 10. Way to old and taking a chance on incompatibility and other things. Or do you have all new hardware?
 

Dimitri

Member
The cpu is Athlon II x2 250 3 Ghz.

As for how old the HDD, I can't remember, ancient.

The drivers have all installed fine, tho.
 

Cromewell

Administrator
Staff member
But doesn't it only put things into the swap file when it runs out of RAM?
Not necessarily. It's not windows 98 or XP anymore, the paging mechanisms are fairly smart. It will page things out that haven't been used in a long time (and are unlikely to be used). It can give you space to drop stuff from ram when a program asks for a whole bunch. It's generally an OK thing to have.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
How many gigabyte of photos are we talking about? You probably have a 2 or 8mb cache drive and its slowing you down.
 

Dimitri

Member
How many gigabyte of photos are we talking about? You probably have a 2 or 8mb cache drive and its slowing you down.

2,73 GB. But its really the diff btw XP vs 10 performance. However many pics it is it ran fine in XP.

Not necessarily. It's not windows 98 or XP anymore, the paging mechanisms are fairly smart. It will page things out that haven't been used in a long time (and are unlikely to be used). It can give you space to drop stuff from ram when a program asks for a whole bunch. It's generally an OK thing to have.

So then if I increased its size it might be of help?


What are you getting at?
 
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