RAM Usage

[Travis King]

This will probably be a generic question - hopefully I can make it more
detailed. When I first start my machine on Vista, and I let it start up
completely after Superfetch has loaded and so on, the RAM usage is only
around 27-30%. By the end of the day even on a blank desktop, my RAM usage
is around 40%.
I'm assuming a lot of the reasons are when I start programs perhaps more
services are started and a lot of behind the scenes stuff happens which
causes the RAM to increase, and then maybe Superfetch gets some programs
that I use frequently ready, but is there an easy explanation on why the RAM
usage increases so much by the end of the day on what appears to be the same
blank desktop I started with at the beginning of the day? Thanks.

System Specs (Windows Experience Index: 4.0):
AMD Sempron 64 (Socket 754) OC'd to 2GHz (4.0)
1.5GB PC-2700 RAM (Thanks to the slower 512MB module) (4.3)
Ati Radeon X1600PRO AGP8x with 256MB GDDR2 video RAM (4.4 & 4.8)
WD 120GB 7200RPM IDE 8MB cache HD (5.0)
WD 80GB 7200RPM IDE 2MB cache HD (slave)

 

[Rock]

This will probably be a generic question - hopefully I can make it more
detailed. When I first start my machine on Vista, and I let it start up
completely after Superfetch has loaded and so on, the RAM usage is only
around 27-30%. By the end of the day even on a blank desktop, my RAM
usage is around 40%.
I'm assuming a lot of the reasons are when I start programs perhaps
more services are started and a lot of behind the scenes stuff happens
which causes the RAM to increase, and then maybe Superfetch gets some
programs that I use frequently ready, but is there an easy explanation on
why the RAM usage increases so much by the end of the day on what appears
to be the same blank desktop I started with at the beginning of the day?
Thanks.

System Specs (Windows Experience Index: 4.0):
AMD Sempron 64 (Socket 754) OC'd to 2GHz (4.0)
1.5GB PC-2700 RAM (Thanks to the slower 512MB module) (4.3)
Ati Radeon X1600PRO AGP8x with 256MB GDDR2 video RAM (4.4 & 4.8)
WD 120GB 7200RPM IDE 8MB cache HD (5.0)
WD 80GB 7200RPM IDE 2MB cache HD (slave)

I'm not sure why you're worried about it. Going from 30% to 40% is not
much. Is the system experiencing problems? If you look in Task Manager on
the Performance tab it will probably show free Ram as close to 0 which is
what you want. Vista does a better job of managing memory. RAM is either
allocated to running programs or programs that have run or used for cache.
I have seen my system with 1 GB RAM vary from 30% to 70%, but there are no
problems with it.

 

[Travis King]

My "Free" RAM is going between 0 & 3. I just thought it felt like a big
jump in RAM usage (~150MB for a 10% jump) for nothing to "appear to change".

 

[Steve Thackery]

Vista preloads lots of stuff into RAM that it expects you to use. This is
good - it speeds things up considerably.

If a program needs it, it is instantly released.

Remember: empty RAM is wasted RAM.

Steve