Memory Question

[Guest]

Alright, When I start up vista and let it run idle for a bit do random
searching and stuff, the RAM is at about 75-80% usage, no problem. When i
play a game, no problems, but when I turn off the game and and do the same
random stuff the RAM is at a max. of 60%. Im thinking my shared Graphics card
may be the sourse. I have a GeForce Go 6150, its 64 mb dedicated and 224mb
shared, so 288 total. Now I can see it loading all 224 mb from the ram and
then realizes it doesnt need it in the games, so cuts it back some. If or it
isnt the source, is there anything I can do to help solve this, like I would
really like 60% all the time so that it doesnt overheat and can run faster.

Thanks, Tyler

 

[Adam Albright]

Alright, When I start up vista and let it run idle for a bit do random
searching and stuff, the RAM is at about 75-80% usage, no problem. When i
play a game, no problems, but when I turn off the game and and do the same
random stuff the RAM is at a max. of 60%. Im thinking my shared Graphics card
may be the sourse. I have a GeForce Go 6150, its 64 mb dedicated and 224mb
shared, so 288 total. Now I can see it loading all 224 mb from the ram and
then realizes it doesnt need it in the games, so cuts it back some. If or it
isnt the source, is there anything I can do to help solve this, like I would
really like 60% all the time so that it doesnt overheat and can run faster.

Thanks, Tyler

How much RAM you have? Sounds like your system is starving. Right now
I got 9 applications running, including Vegas with is rendering a
video, an intensive tast that puts a load on both memory and the CPU
and right now according to Task Manager my CPU is loafing along at
just 54% load and I'm using a tad less then half my memory which is
only 1 GB installed.

How big is your Virtual Memory allocation? Windows ever since XP (by
design) will use large gobs of Virtual Memory regardless how much
actual RAM you have installed. A big performance hit can be a too
small Paging or Swap file or one that's corrupted.

Turn EVERYTHING off including programs that start automatically at
startup, do nothing else, then immediately go to Task Manager
(Ctrl-Alt-Del) and see what your baseline readings are to get a idea
what's going on.

For example right now even under considerable load for all I'm doing
Task Manager is telling me its only using about 40% of the capacity of
my Paging file. That means Vista has lots of room to switch memory
pages in and out of physical memory. If you see a lot of your Page
File's space allocation used up when Windows isn't just idling, then
something isn't setup right if the Paging file is big enough.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

How big is your Virtual Memory allocation? Windows ever since XP (by
design) will use large gobs of Virtual Memory regardless how much
actual RAM you have installed.

No, you're confusing page file *allocations* with page file use. Windows
preallocates virtual memory in anticipation of a possible need for it, even
though that allocated virtual memory may never be used. Without a page file,
that allocation has to be made in real memory, thus tying up that memory and
preventing it from being used for any purpose.

 

[Guest]

I have 1gb and have the vista preset for the "virtual" , havent tried messing
around with it yet

 

[Guest]

I don't know which programs in start-up to edit. I don't know if my system
needs them or not. and about 68 processes running on average