Vista And Ram

L

lofty73

Im am properly pushing my luck running vista on a :-

2.8ghz processor

1gb ram

360 and a 80 Gb SATA hard drive

256 Video card

Soundblaster audigy ZS

The problem is when im on the desktop, I am using 57% of my memory on the
computer. I was wondering If anyone had any ideas on how i can lower this

Tom.
 
M

Mike Hall MVP

Vista uses as much RAM as it can for whatever processes, programs are
running.. if it gets close to running out, it rapidly reclaims whatever is
required..

Free RAM is wasted RAM..


lofty73 said:
Im am properly pushing my luck running vista on a :-

2.8ghz processor

1gb ram

360 and a 80 Gb SATA hard drive

256 Video card

Soundblaster audigy ZS

The problem is when im on the desktop, I am using 57% of my memory on the
computer. I was wondering If anyone had any ideas on how i can lower this

Tom.
Click to expand...

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/
 
J

Julian

lofty73 said:
Im am properly pushing my luck running vista on a :-

2.8ghz processor

1gb ram

360 and a 80 Gb SATA hard drive

256 Video card

Soundblaster audigy ZS

The problem is when im on the desktop, I am using 57% of my memory on the
computer. I was wondering If anyone had any ideas on how i can lower this
Click to expand...

57% still leaves a useful 400mb+ so it's not the end of the world.
What you could do is to have a look at what is running on your system.
I used...
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Autoruns.mspx
and found loads of crap just wasting RAM at boot up.

NB. It's worth taking your time over it because although there RAM to be
saved there are essential tasks that can be knackered too.

Start with any non Microsoft software you may have trialed since
they often leave their mark even after Install.
Also look out for crap your PC vendor may have installed but is of no use to
you.
Often you'll find ISP software other than your own which is wasting space.

Additionally you could get a freeware RAM defragmenter from Download.com.
 
J

Julian

Mike Hall MVP said:
Vista uses as much RAM as it can for whatever processes, programs are
running.. if it gets close to running out, it rapidly reclaims whatever is
required..

Free RAM is wasted RAM..
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it's still nice to have a lump.
 
J

Julian

Julian said:
Yeah, but it's still nice to have a lump.
Click to expand...


I know for sure that Vista with 2gb RAM running at 50%
runs quicker and smoother than with 1gb at 100%
 
R

Rock

lofty73 said:
Im am properly pushing my luck running vista on a :-

2.8ghz processor

1gb ram

360 and a 80 Gb SATA hard drive

256 Video card

Soundblaster audigy ZS

The problem is when im on the desktop, I am using 57% of my memory on the
computer. I was wondering If anyone had any ideas on how i can lower this
Click to expand...


Vista does a much better job of memory management than XP. It tries hard to
find a use for all memory, caching files and programs based on past history
so they are available in fast RAM if you need them. If another process
needs memory, it is freed from caching and available. The myth of having a
bunch of free RAM is just that, a meaningless myth.
 
R

Rock

Additionally you could get a freeware RAM defragmenter from Download.com.
Click to expand...

And what exactly is that supposed to do? Do you have any objective test
results to show this is anything but a snake oil product?
 
D

DanR

This makes me wonder... what happens to the stuff sitting in RAM when you
open a RAM hungry app. Is it moved to the page file? ("rapidly reclaims") If
Vista loads data into RAM on speculation and then has to move it to the hard
drive... doesn't that slow the whole process down?
 
M

Mike Hall MVP

That is the essence of a page file.. it allows for the programs that require
physical RAM most to get it, while not putting a limitation on what can be
opened up to and no more than the total physical RAM installed. While page
files are slower than RAM, the user would still not be sharp enough to
detect any difference in general use..

The page file/swap file system works very well, and is used on machines
above x86 architecture.


DanR said:
This makes me wonder... what happens to the stuff sitting in RAM when you
open a RAM hungry app. Is it moved to the page file? ("rapidly reclaims")
If Vista loads data into RAM on speculation and then has to move it to the
hard drive... doesn't that slow the whole process down?
Click to expand...

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/
 
R

Rock

So you can load more apps without knocking the current ones out of RAM.
Click to expand...

Sorry I hit send too soon. What Vista does it examine the use patterns to
see what programs are commonly run and what data is used. This reassessment
goes on regularly. It then caches the programs and data in currently unused
memory. If you then start one of these programs the data is already in RAM,
hence faster. When you start a program that is not cached and the program
needs some of the RAM that is being used for caching, Vista makes that RAM
available. There is no performance hit with this. Something has to be in
the RAM, whether it's all zeros or cached programs and data, there is no
difference if the RAM is "unused' or prepopulated as a cache.

What does take system resources is populating the RAM with the cached data.
You will see when Vista boots quite a bit of activity. You can watch it in
a way by opening task manager, go to the performance tab and watch the
numbers under free RAM change as data is being cached.

Vista periodically reassess and changes what's in the cache.

There is no advantage in having RAM unused.
 
J

Julian

Rock said:
Sorry I hit send too soon. What Vista does it examine the use patterns to
see what programs are commonly run and what data is used. This
reassessment goes on regularly. It then caches the programs and data in
currently unused memory. If you then start one of these programs the data
is already in RAM, hence faster. When you start a program that is not
cached and the program needs some of the RAM that is being used for
caching, Vista makes that RAM available. There is no performance hit with
this. Something has to be in the RAM, whether it's all zeros or cached
programs and data, there is no difference if the RAM is "unused' or
prepopulated as a cache.

What does take system resources is populating the RAM with the cached
data. You will see when Vista boots quite a bit of activity. You can
watch it in a way by opening task manager, go to the performance tab and
watch the numbers under free RAM change as data is being cached.

Vista periodically reassess and changes what's in the cache.

There is no advantage in having RAM unused.
Click to expand...

So adding RAM to a working system is pointless?
 
P

Pete Russell

NO because more RAM means more cache which means more speed and less reading
from disk.
 
P

Pete Russell

That is also the beauty of the genius "ReadyBoost". Instead of quickly
moving the cache to disk it can move it to the flash drive whichto 10x
faster than disk access. If not using readyboost,I would really suggest
doing so considering how cheap they are these days.
 
R

Rock

Julian said:
So adding RAM to a working system is pointless?
Click to expand...

No, I didn't say that. More RAM will allow more items to be cached for one
thing, but it doesn't matter how much RAM there is, there is no advantage to
having that RAM free. If it's free it's wasted.
 

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