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[Maxxwire]

"If your media player supports memory playback it will load the song in memory to avoid access to the HD during playback.
As Win has a mind of its own, it might decide to swap this chunk of memory to the page file. When your media player starts playing it will read the file form ‘memory’ so the page file is accessed. In case you don’t know a page file is a file and files are stored on your HD.

Obvious you can’t get proper memory playback without disabling the page file".

© Vincent Kars April 2012

After reading this I decided to disabled the page file in my computer which uses MC memory playback and the music immediately sounded better with a depth and a level of detail retrieval that it never had before so I felt that I had heard evidence of what Vincent Kars had said about proper memory playback not being possible without disabling the page file was true. What I am hoping to understand is why although the page file now currently has 0 MB allocated for all drives task manager continues to show the page file as containing over 1.8 GB and raising or lowering its content in tandem with the content of the memory as MC with memory playback switches tracks which these two consecuitive screenshots of process explorer and the task manager during MC memory playback show...





As I said MC memory playback on my computer with 8 GB of RAM sounds much better with the page file disabled, but that is my only evidence that MC is indeed using memory playback since task manager shows the page file to be alive and well and I would like to understand why this is so.

~Maxxwire

[6233638]

You shouldn't disable the page file - especially if you only have 8GB RAM. Bad things can happen.

And it won't make any difference to music playback.

[Matt]

The graphs show that memory playback does what it says it does -- reads from disk in a quick burst as a song starts, then uses memory.

They also show that your system has lots of free physical memory, so the page file is not relevant.  There's nothing to be gained by monkeying with it, in my opinion.

[kstuart]

You shouldn't disable the page file - especially if you only have 8GB RAM. Bad things can happen.

And it won't make any difference to music playback.

None of that has anything to do with what he posted, which was that:

* His system has 6.4GB of physical memory space available, so there is no reason for Windows to page anything.

* He already verified a difference in music playback, and wasn't asking about that.

To the OP:
" ...task manager continues to show the page file as containing over 1.8 GB ... "

None of the pictures shows the page file usage, only the physical memory usage.

[JimH]

None of that has anything to do with what he posted, which was that:

* His system has 6.4GB of physical space available, so there is no reason for Windows to page anything.

* He already verified a difference in music playback, and wasn't asking about that.

To the OP:
" ...task manager continues to show the page file as containing over 1.8 GB ... "

None of the pictures shows the page file usage, only the physical memory usage.

Just for clarity, JRiver recommends that you let Windows manage its own processes, and not make changes like the one proposed.

The time it takes for Windows to swap something to memory is not significant and can easily be handled by modest buffering.  There is no need to try to outsmart Windows.

But if you believe otherwise, you may of course do whatever you want.

[Maxxwire]

You shouldn't disable the page file - especially if you only have 8GB RAM. Bad things can happen.

And it won't make any difference to music playback.

My computer must be very different from the one you assume it is because as you can see from the screenshots above there is more than plenty of unused RAM in that there has never been less than 5.5 GB of unused RAM available at any time over the last 3 years so what does my computer need a page file for except to degrade the quality of the amazing sound of MC memory playback or to accommodate software that was designed to use a page file which type of software I have never found on my computer?

[Maxxwire]

The graphs show that memory playback does what it says it does -- reads from disk in a quick burst as a song starts, then uses memory.

They also show that your system has lots of free physical memory, so the page file is not relevant.

Matt- Thank you for addressing my questions about MC memory playback so directly. I have some additional screenshots from my stripped down music only computer on which JRiver Media Center v18 is the only elective software that is used showing the task manager display of the page file containing 499 MB and another screenshot taken just before showing the pagefile.sys with the minimum 16 MB allocation and I am wondering how this could be and why the page file keeps growing in size even after its been disabled? My MC music playback is sounding the best ever and all I'm seeking is some answers as to why the virtual memory is now working this way when MC memory playback is working so obviously well...

     

[Matt]

I believe the page file number you're looking at is basically the total size of committed memory on the system and not related to the page file on disk (source).

In other words, the operating system is working.  In my opinion, you're only going to drive yourself crazy trying to second guess things like this.

[Maxxwire]

I believe the page file number you're looking at is basically the total size of committed memory on the system and not related to the page file on disk (source).

Thanks Matt for solving this dilemma. That makes perfect sense as to how to reconcile the huge task manager committed page file numbers with the miniscule 16 MB disc allocation.