some questions about disk partitioning and filesystems and booting

[yp at mm.st]

tech-lists wrote:
[...]
>>> Doesn't swap need to be 2x RAM on a fast disk?
>>
>> No, this is really an old assumption.
> 
> OK, but doesn't it need to be at least the size of RAM if for example a 
> panic
> happens? I thought the contents of RAM were written to swap.

Now this is something I wanted to ask as well, as I didn't find anything 
really describing what needs to be done for large (not really so this 
days, 32 and higher) RAM systems -- I have a system with 64GB RAM and 
adding a 64GB swap partition makes system unhappy (I don't remember the 
exact message).  With minidumps and all, what size it should be so that 
dump is guaranteed to be saved?