Need help with configuring my virtual memory

[Wartogh]

I'm currently experiencing stuttering when playing some games like Quake Champions, GTA V and Star Wars Battlefront II. Also, when navigating on Edge Chromium and Google Chrome web browsers, my PC becomes very slow after opening several tabs.

I have only 8GB of RAM and right now adding more RAM is not an option, thus I want to know what is the best virtual memory setup to achieve the best performance on my PC and any help is appreciated.

I have 3 HDDs, which are the following:

First drive: C: & D: 3TB - 5400 RPM
Second drive: E: 2TB - 5900 RPM
Third drive: F: 2TB - 7200 RPM

C: is where the Windows 10 (x64) is installed;
D: is where I store pics, videos and documents;
E: is where I store emulators and ROMs, and also is the HDD that is less used;
F: is where I install PC games from Steam and Epic Store.

I've been researching virtual memory and haven't come to any conclusions. Some people say that if I have more than one HDD, I should move the page file to drive that doesn’t contain the Windows system; Some people say that the best option is to have multiple page files split over two or more physical disks, including the disk that is holding the Windows system.

My question is: Should I have the virtual memory on just one HDD (in this case, on F:, which is my faster HDD and the one holding my PC games), or should I have one page file on each HDD (C:, E: and F: ) or should I keep just two page files, one on C: (the primary partition) and the other on F:, or one on E: and the other on F:, keeping the primary partition without any page file?

And after that, what is the minimum and the maximum size I should set for each page file? I've read that the recommended size is 1.5 times the amount of physical RAM I have, in this case 8 x 1024 x 1.5 = 12288MB, but this should be the minimum or the maximum size? Some people say that the best option is to set both minimum and maximum to be the same, to avoid defragmentation. Some people say that the minimum should be the same as my RAM (8GB) and the maximum should be 3 times bigger (24GB)...

I'm sorry for the long post but I hope I have been as clear as possible with my question. Thanks in advance to everyone who has the patience to help me!

 

[Kshipper]

1.5 times system memory is correct. I would leave all that on auto settings. Your stuttering is likely coming from somewhere else. Spinning HDD are notorious for being slow. Systems that run a HDD feel slow to me now after years of running a computer with a SSD.

Some CPUs have fallen behind in performance so you should look at that too. Pop your Task Manager and look at that windows as you browse. Make note of which category is pegged at 100% when you feel the slowness.

 

[Wartogh]

Some CPUs have fallen behind in performance so you should look at that too. Pop your Task Manager and look at that windows as you browse. Make note of which category is pegged at 100% when you feel the slowness.

I did and it's because of the memory usage, which becomes red quite quickly. Also, I play games with MSI Afterburner opened so I can see some statistics like how much of the RAM, CPU and VGA I'm using while playing and specially on Star Wars, it's the RAM that is the problem because it's always on the limit. Two friends of mine that had the same problem solved it by adding more RAM, which is something I said I can't do now. I read that something I could do to lessen the problem was to make better use of the virtual memory and since I have a lot of free space on my HDDs, that's something I can try right now.