-slp (Set Large Pages mode) switch

Sets Large Pages mode.

Syntax

-slp[-]
Switch Description
-slp Enables Large Pages mode.
-slp- Disables Large Pages mode. This option is default for all commands.

Large Pages mode increases the speed of compression. However, there is a pause at the start of compression while 7-Zip allocates the large pages in memory. If 7-Zip can't allocate large pages, it allocates usual small pages. Also, the Windows Task Manager doesn't show the real memory usage of the program, if 7-Zip uses large pages. This feature doesn't work on Windows 2000 / 32-bit Windows XP. Also, it can require administrator's rights for your system. The recommended size of RAM for this feature is 3 GB or more. To install this feature, you must run the 7-Zip File Manager with administrator's rights at least once, close it, and then reboot the system.

Notes: if you use -slp mode in old Windows version, your Windows system can hang for several seconds when 7-zip allocates memory blocks. Windows can hang other tasks for that time. It can look like full system hang, but then it resumes. It was so in old Windows versions. But modern Windows versions (Windows 7 / Windows 10) can allocate "Large pages" faster than previous Windows versions.

Also it's senseless to use -slp mode to compress small data sets (less than 100 MB). But if you compress big data sets (100 MB or more) with LZMA/LZMA2 method with large dictionary, you can get 5%-10% speed improvement with -slp mode.

Example

7z a archive.7z -slp a.iso

compresses a.iso file with Large Pages mode switched on.