Physical Memory usage never above ~52%, why?

[Wytze]

Hi,
I'm running ultimate with 2GB RAM (and 512 MB ReadyBoost). Yet Task Mngr
reports Physical Memory Usage (PMU) on average around 52%; I have never seen
it higher. On the other hand Physical Memory Free (PMF) is sometimes as low
as 0 MB. Is this optimal RAM usage? PMU suggest I'm having around 1 GB memory
doing nothing, PMF suggest even the last bit is participating. How should I
interprete PMU/PMF? And when should I rush out to the local Compute-O-Rama to
buy more memory?
Wytze

 

[Malke]

Hi,
I'm running ultimate with 2GB RAM (and 512 MB ReadyBoost). Yet Task Mngr
reports Physical Memory Usage (PMU) on average around 52%; I have never seen
it higher. On the other hand Physical Memory Free (PMF) is sometimes as low
as 0 MB. Is this optimal RAM usage? PMU suggest I'm having around 1 GB memory
doing nothing, PMF suggest even the last bit is participating. How should I
interprete PMU/PMF? And when should I rush out to the local Compute-O-Rama to
buy more memory?
Wytze

Modern operating systems - XP, Vista, Linux, Unix, OS X - will use all
the RAM available. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Are you having problems
with your computer? If yes, you need to see what is running. If no,
leave things alone. You need to buy more RAM when you use programs like
Photoshop, Matlab, etc. For "normal" usage, you probably have enough.


Malke

 

[Wytze]

Dear Malke,

Thanks for the reply. I have no related issues with my PC at the moment.

Yet, like to understand the relevance of- and the relation between
- Physical memory usage
- Physical memory cached
- Physical memory free
This information is displayed rather prominent, so I figured it is there
from some reason.

Would you know?

Wytze

 

[Malke]

Dear Malke,

Thanks for the reply. I have no related issues with my PC at the moment.

Yet, like to understand the relevance of- and the relation between
- Physical memory usage
- Physical memory cached
- Physical memory free
This information is displayed rather prominent, so I figured it is there
from some reason.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+Vista+uses+memory+TechNet+whitepaper&btnG=Google+Search

The link to download "Measuring Performance in Windows Vista" (a Word
document) from Microsoft looks useful as does "Advances In Memory
Management for Windows" on Page 2 of the above search. These are
whitepapers with detailed technical information. You should also do some
deep searching at TechNet.


Malke

 

[Chris A. Smith]

According to Microsoft's training docs Vista is also supposed to perform
"video ram paging" where data that would normally live in the video card's
memory is swapped out to system ram. So if you have a lot of open windows
you might also be using a lot of system ram.