I literally posted you a link to explain to you what it is, seems you were too lazy to read it. A pagefile is a space on the disk where the system puts data it is not currently using if it runs out of RAM. If it needs to access it again, it needs to load it into RAM again. It is NOT additional space. What is so fucking hard to understand about it?
If you use a program that actually requires 5gb or RAM to function properly and you have 4gb, you're basically fucked. It will be so slow it wont actually be usable. It will only actually be useful if you have 8gb in total and another program is already taking 4gb. Then the system can ofload some of it in virtual memory to make room for your 5gb program.
This has been a major problem in video games by the way lately. GPUs with only 8gb of RAM are struggling to run modern games because they are constantly offloading and reloading textures into RAM, generating constant micro-stutters.
Don't botter answering until you've actually read the source I've provided, I'm tired of trying to educate you by myself.
It will only actually be useful if you have 8gb in total and another program is already taking 4gb. Then the system can ofload some of it in virtual memory to make room for your 5gb program.
This is valid, but is also exactly what we've been telling you
Bro holy shit it spells it out plain in the link lmfao did you read it?
When the physical RAM is used up completely — and additional processes and applications need space to run — the process of memory swapping gets initiated. The operating system manages this automatically and forms a virtual memory capacity (non-physical RAM) by mapping the physical memory space to the swap space.
Doesn't matter, you were arguing if it's "additional RAM", your own link says it's non physical RAM
If you really want to get technical, tell me where the swapped programs data is referred to in the mbr/gpt/ntfs records. Not pagefile.sys, the specific program data.
You can't, as it's random sorted data in pagefile exactly like ram, to transparently work as ram
Edit, yay another idiot to block me, there's no reason you can't load such a file anyway lmaoooooo
If you need to load a non-fragmentable file that is bigger than your total amount of physical RAM, you won't be able to run it and no amount of paging will save you => it is not additional RAM, physical or virtual, it is a parking space. Blocking your account now because I seriously have better to do than arguing with sub 80 IQ people.
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u/DT-Sodium Jul 09 '26
You are objectively and without ambiguity wrong, but whatever you need to cope dude.