Re: [SLUG] winswap as linux swap

From: Mike (mars03@mail15.com)
Date: Sun Aug 24 2003 - 21:00:17 EDT


On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 15:53:34 -0400
Steve <steve@szmidt.org> wrote:

> On Sunday 24 August 2003 12:20 pm, you wrote:
> > On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 02:41:19 -0400
> >
> > Steve <steve@szmidt.org> wrote:
> > > On Sunday 24 August 2003 02:28 am, you wrote:
> > > > On Saturday 23 August 2003 09:49 pm, you wrote:
> > > > > There's a way to use windows swap as your linux swap??
> > > > > I have a 1 gig swap partition (yeah i know that huge, but i have
> > > > > the space and use graphics/music/video apps ;) ) I also have a
> > > > > seperate linux swap partition. Anyone have a link on how to do
> > > > > this. I have a seperate partition for photoshops swap, and am going
> > > > > to try to use this as swap for the gimp as well. It's fat32. Thanx
> > > >
> > > > No no no! This is NUTS! I mean I've never tried it but it sounds
> > > > crazy!
> > >
> > > Maybe I got this wrong. Are you talking about swap for GIMP? Why have a
> > > special partition for that? What's the benefits? I've never looked into
> > > that for GIMP, but ext2/ext3 is very efficient with not letting files
> > > get defragged.
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Steve
> >
> > I have a seperate swap partition already for photoshop in windows. I
> > figure Since I already have this partition, i might as well try it for
> > the gimp. I haven't tried it yet though. So your saying that if my swap
> > file is too big it will actually degrade performance? I'v never heard
> > that. No i really don't swap that much, and have actually had an install
> > that had no swap at all. Both seemed to run about the same. iirc i did
> > run into a problem once or twice when I had no swap though, but on
> > average it was like butter. I have 512MB of pc2700 ddr ram btw.
>
> No not your swap file, though that is true too. (The reason you're not
> noticing too much difference is due to the slowness of windows in general.)
>
> To paraphrase what I said; to the degree that a swap partition is used, to
> that degree the computer will run slower. The reason is obvious. RAM speed
> is measured in ns (nano seconds - 1,000,000,000 parts of a second) versus a
> disk technology which is measured in ms (milli seconds 100 parts of a
> second). To extend RAM into swap means a delay of a million times slower
> per instruction or data.
>
> You can test it by removing half your RAM. Load photoshop up as you did
> before. If you have w2k (it really wants 256M for it self) you should
> notice a difference pretty fast.
>
> It may not seem that much due to 1) human inability to tell milli seconds
> apart from nano seconds 2) there is more going on than just reading RAM.
>
> The computer accessing a swap disk to process data may still need to read it
> from the data partition. So we are only adding the million times lag on
> processing instructions not reading the disk for data. It quickly does add
> up to a visiable lag the more it needs to do it.
>
> Under windows it has a less efficient swap system, i.e. the file which is
> under a non swap optimized filesystem. Whereas a swap partition is
> optimized to only extend RAM.
>
> I have on occation setup a partition that I decided to only use for
> photoshops swap file too (under windows now). Photoshop (unlike windows)
> supports placing the swap file on different drives.
>
> At this point we have three different swap areas. We have two operating
> systems swap systems and an application swap file. They are not the same.
>
> Photoshop is not directly swapping RAM. It is saying that when I cannot get
> more RAM to hold my images to start reading and writing to a swap file
> instead. It is probably controlled by the app not the O/S. (I really don't
> know this for sure but is my educated guess. Theoretically the app could be
> calling on windows to do the swapping. Though it does not seem too likely
> that you can or would want that. Windows have enough problems managing
> memory without adding another thing to it. But again that's just my guess.)
>
>
> --
>
> Steve

Windows does support having it swap on a different partition. I've had my swap on a different partition for about 2 years and on a different harddrive for probably about a year. Photoshop does mangage it's own "scratch disk" (what photoshop calls it's swap) It actually support 3. For windows go into system properties, advanced tab, click settings for performance, the advanced tab again, then under virtual memory goto change. Whew, that's alot of bs to get there ain't it lol. Under there you can change the drive, and specify the size. I have mine set to the frist partition on one of my other drives, and I also set the min and max to the same size. No dynamic resizing, and alot less fragmentation going this route.
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