Re: page fault

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"George" <George@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:F975E3F1-F47E-4F1F-AE66-4D5A3D7D9483@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I can understand hard page fault is we need to load from page file
into working set (RAM). But what is a soft page fault? I am confused.

I found this in my copy of January 2006 MSDN. This article doesn't seem
to be in MSDN Online. See if this helps.

<quote>
page fault

In the processor, a page fault occurs when a process refers to a virtual
memory page that is not in its working set in main memory.

A hard page fault occurs when data that a program needs is not found in
its working set (the physical memory visible to the program) or
elsewhere in physical memory, and must be retrieved from disk.

A page fault will not cause the page to be fetched from disk if that
page is on the standby list, and hence already in main memory, or if it
is in use by another process with which the page is shared. In this
case, a soft page fault occurs.
</quote>

For example, if you load a DLL that is already loaded and in use by
another process, the DLL's code doesn't need to be retrieved from disk
as it's already in memory. Physical memory pages holding the code just
need to be mapped into your process' address space. That's what soft
page fault does.
--
With best wishes,
Igor Tandetnik

With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not
necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to
land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly
overhead. -- RFC 1925


.

Relevant Pages

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