Any way to decrease Vista's memory usage?

[the Chase]

Dual booting between Vista Home Premium and XP64 right now. Even with 2GB of memory 2 or 3 multiplayer maps are unplayable slideshows in Vista while fine in XP64. The maps will use 1.5GB of memory themselves.

Any way to decrease Vista's backround memory usage? I have no other programs running at all. Have turned off hibernate and restore systems.

Would turning off Superfetch free up more memory and devote it to the game?

Would a USB stick for Readyboost eliminate this? I'm thinking no as the map will never settle down to playable even with a large pagefile on a Raptor drive, but would try one if peeps here said it would help.

 

[mechBgon]

You might want to slap in a couple more 512MB modules. Too bad DDR is almost twice the price of DDR2 right now, but in absolute terms that would still be only $75.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You might want to slap in a couple more 512MB modules. Too bad DDR is almost twice the price of DDR2 right now, but in absolute terms that would still be only $75.

That would probably be the best option. Thanks for the linkage.

Bad thing with this DFI board though is my other 2 DIMM slots REALLY limit ram speed/overclocking so I'm hoping to find a way around buying more memory.

 

[mechBgon]

Reducing textures in the games might help, if you want to try it and see what happens.

 

[SunnyD]

Superfetch isn't your problem. Superfetch will release memory as needed to applications that are requesting from the memory pool. Your "slideshow" issues are more likely stemming from something else, like whatever game you're trying to play being incompatible with Vista or more likely Vista's graphics or audio subsystems. I would take the time to verify your drivers are up to date before adding any memory.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Reducing textures in the games might help, if you want to try it and see what happens.

Yeah when I reduce the textures to medium all is good. Not even a stutter. But who wants to run medium textures?

I've been spoiled and medium textures look kinda blah.

 

[the Chase]

Hey stash - any ideas?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Reducing textures in the games might help, if you want to try it and see what happens.

Yeah when I reduce the textures to medium all is good. Not even a stutter. But who wants to run medium textures?

I've been spoiled and medium textures look kinda blah.

But as a fact-finding step, that serves its purpose. Sounds like you need more RAM. That was what people were saying about running games with just 1GB on WinXP... with textures maxed out, they found benefits in going beyond 1GB of RAM.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Reducing textures in the games might help, if you want to try it and see what happens.

Yeah when I reduce the textures to medium all is good. Not even a stutter. But who wants to run medium textures?

I've been spoiled and medium textures look kinda blah.

But as a fact-finding step, that serves its purpose. Sounds like you need more RAM. That was what people were saying about running games with just 1GB on WinXP... with textures maxed out, they found benefits in going beyond 1GB of RAM.

Precisely - I either need more ram or get Vista to use less memory somehow thus freeing more up for running the game.

But would Readyboost help solve this? I'm guessing not really...but..anyone?

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Superfetch isn't your problem. Superfetch will release memory as needed to applications that are requesting from the memory pool. Your "slideshow" issues are more likely stemming from something else, like whatever game you're trying to play being incompatible with Vista or more likely Vista's graphics or audio subsystems. I would take the time to verify your drivers are up to date before adding any memory.

Thanks for the insight. I thought that's how it worked but does Superfetch really clear out everything for the game or is it still caching some stuff regardless?

 

[Nothinman]

Thanks for the insight. I thought that's how it worked but does Superfetch really clear out everything for the game or is it still caching some stuff regardless?

SuperFetch just intelligently fills the filesystem cache, it doesn't use the memory itself. And yes the filesystem cache is essentially free and will be discarded when necessary.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: the Chase
Dual booting between Vista Home Premium and XP64 right now. Even with 2GB of memory 2 or 3 multiplayer maps are unplayable slideshows in Vista while fine in XP64. The maps will use 1.5GB of memory themselves.

Any way to decrease Vista's backround memory usage? I have no other programs running at all. Have turned off hibernate and restore systems.

Would turning off Superfetch free up more memory and devote it to the game?

Would a USB stick for Readyboost eliminate this? I'm thinking no as the map will never settle down to playable even with a large pagefile on a Raptor drive, but would try one if peeps here said it would help.

Wow what game is this ?

 

[brotj7]

Are your video card drivers up to date??? That's what happened when I was using Window's drivers instead of ati's in my rig.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: the Chase
Dual booting between Vista Home Premium and XP64 right now. Even with 2GB of memory 2 or 3 multiplayer maps are unplayable slideshows in Vista while fine in XP64. The maps will use 1.5GB of memory themselves.

Any way to decrease Vista's backround memory usage? I have no other programs running at all. Have turned off hibernate and restore systems.

Would turning off Superfetch free up more memory and devote it to the game?

Would a USB stick for Readyboost eliminate this? I'm thinking no as the map will never settle down to playable even with a large pagefile on a Raptor drive, but would try one if peeps here said it would help.

Wow what game is this ?

It's the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. The AL Bashra map uses that much memory in XP. Other maps are not as big but a few are close.

@ Nothinman- Thanks for the clarity.

@ brotj7- yep running the 158.43 right now I believe. Was running the 158.18 WHQL divers before with the same result. It's just that this game(1-3 maps of it anyway) and the Vista OS will not fit in 2GB of memory.

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint? There has to be some way to slim it down....

 

[mechBgon]

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: the Chase
It's the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. The AL Bashra map uses that much memory in XP. Other maps are not as big but a few are close.

That's the problem. I play BF2 (no mods) under Vista and I can tell you BF2 itself has some pretty hefty "issues" to begin with. For example - I have 4GB ram and an 8800GTS... I can only play about 2 or 3 maps before BF2 throws an error "Can not create texture... the system is out of texture memory." This is on Vista 64 with the 158.24 drivers.

To top it off, I've tried mods like PoE and Desert Conflict, which use arguably larger textures, and both play like absolute crap, similar to what you describe.

It's not Vista per say, it's a poorly written memory manager and incompatibility of BF2 with Vista.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: the Chase
It's the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. The AL Bashra map uses that much memory in XP. Other maps are not as big but a few are close.

That's the problem. I play BF2 (no mods) under Vista and I can tell you BF2 itself has some pretty hefty "issues" to begin with. For example - I have 4GB ram and an 8800GTS... I can only play about 2 or 3 maps before BF2 throws an error "Can not create texture... the system is out of texture memory." This is on Vista 64 with the 158.24 drivers.

To top it off, I've tried mods like PoE and Desert Conflict, which use arguably larger textures, and both play like absolute crap, similar to what you describe.

It's not Vista per say, it's a poorly written memory manager and incompatibility of BF2 with Vista.

:thumbsup:

Like I said EA Games are ram hogs. Simcity 4, BF2

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

Heh- you got me there. That would be too easy. Just boot the XP version to play this game? Nah, rather try to rewrite Vista code. But yeah I have been dual booting and running game on XP64 which is smooth as silk.

But I'm on the trail version of XP64 so in 3 more months or so.....gulp.

And yeah I agree that Bf2 is a ram hog in general. It's what initially caused me to go to 2GB from 1GB. But Vista does play generic bf2 fine for me- no probs. It's just these giant, texture laden maps in this mod (which unfortunately is my favorite) that cause this in Vista.

 

[lxskllr]

You could try freeing memory the old school way, it'll be a pain in the ass though. Shut down all unnecessary background programs before playing eg. sidebar, antivirus, web browser, anything like that. It might help, but that's a crappy way to do it.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

Heh- you got me there. That would be too easy. Just boot the XP version to play this game? Nah, rather try to rewrite Vista code. But yeah I have been dual booting and running game on XP64 which is smooth as silk.

But I'm on the trail version of XP64 so in 3 more months or so.....gulp.

And yeah I agree that Bf2 is a ram hog in general. It's what initially caused me to go to 2GB from 1GB. But Vista does play generic bf2 fine for me- no probs. It's just these giant, texture laden maps in this mod (which unfortunately is my favorite) that cause this in Vista.

So BF2 and that same large texture map with all your details on maximum gaming at the same resolution run very smoothly on windows xp 64 bit but not windows vista 64 bit ?

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
You could try freeing memory the old school way, it'll be a pain in the ass though. Shut down all unnecessary background programs before playing eg. sidebar, antivirus, web browser, anything like that. It might help, but that's a crappy way to do it.

Yep- tried all that basic stuff to shut down. Even shut down Superfetch just to see....didn't make a difference. Could just be the basic memory needs of Vista is larger enough than XP that makes 2GB not quite enough for these maps.

Also Circuit City had the Kingston 2GB optimized for Readyboost flash drive on sale for $25 so I tried that tonight. No difference that I could tell with it.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

Heh- you got me there. That would be too easy. Just boot the XP version to play this game? Nah, rather try to rewrite Vista code. But yeah I have been dual booting and running game on XP64 which is smooth as silk.

But I'm on the trail version of XP64 so in 3 more months or so.....gulp.

And yeah I agree that Bf2 is a ram hog in general. It's what initially caused me to go to 2GB from 1GB. But Vista does play generic bf2 fine for me- no probs. It's just these giant, texture laden maps in this mod (which unfortunately is my favorite) that cause this in Vista.

So BF2 and that same large texture map with all your details on maximum gaming at the same resolution run very smoothly on windows xp 64 bit but not windows vista 64 bit ?

Yep- (Vista 32 bit). But as I have only 2GB of memory I would assume the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista would act the same.

Also I DO like Vista in a lot of ways and it's a fast OS. So this isn't about bashing Vista or it's memory usage, just about how I could tweak it to run this game well without having to buy more memory. And maybe it can't be done. But many good ideas/thoughts so far...

 

[SunnyD]

Vista's memory footprint is only about 250-350MB more than XP's was without including superfetch. DWM accounts for a good 60-80MB of that amount. Other than that, the problems really lays in the rewritten DirectX layer and Video card drivers. Especially the NVIDIA drivers.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

Heh- you got me there. That would be too easy. Just boot the XP version to play this game? Nah, rather try to rewrite Vista code. But yeah I have been dual booting and running game on XP64 which is smooth as silk.

But I'm on the trail version of XP64 so in 3 more months or so.....gulp.

And yeah I agree that Bf2 is a ram hog in general. It's what initially caused me to go to 2GB from 1GB. But Vista does play generic bf2 fine for me- no probs. It's just these giant, texture laden maps in this mod (which unfortunately is my favorite) that cause this in Vista.

So BF2 and that same large texture map with all your details on maximum gaming at the same resolution run very smoothly on windows xp 64 bit but not windows vista 64 bit ?

Yep- (Vista 32 bit). But as I have only 2GB of memory I would assume the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista would act the same.

Also I DO like Vista in a lot of ways and it's a fast OS. So this isn't about bashing Vista or it's memory usage, just about how I could tweak it to run this game well without having to buy more memory. And maybe it can't be done. But many good ideas/thoughts so far...

I tried getting around ram requirements on my old system as well, that system only had 256 mb of sdram. Going to 2 gig of ram was a huge step forward. Had to redo the whole pc anyway because that pc was way to old. I never really could get around the ram requirements in windows xp for gaming. I know we are talking about 2 gigs of ram here though so you would think that would be enough for gaming today at least.

Its getting a little ridiculous of how much ram you need now a days just to be able to play games smoothly without any stuttering. To bad you can't run a windows OS that is dedicated to gaming so the only thing that is running is everything you need active for gaming only and nothing else. It would sorta be like a windows console OS. I am sure thats how consoles are able to have so little ram and have no stuttering. They are not running a OS in the background as well.

Now that i think of it I think there is a way to make a windows os strictly just for gaming only. I think it was only for windows xp though but maybe they updated it for windows vista ? I can't remember the url because I tried it a long while ago but its out there.

 

[the Chase]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: the Chase

Originally posted by: mechBgon

How much bigger is Vista than XP as far as the memory footprint?

My estimate is that Vista is about $25-$40 bigger, given the current RAM prices

There has to be some way to slim it down....

You could boot up XP for gaming instead, since you've already got it.

Heh- you got me there. That would be too easy. Just boot the XP version to play this game? Nah, rather try to rewrite Vista code. But yeah I have been dual booting and running game on XP64 which is smooth as silk.

But I'm on the trail version of XP64 so in 3 more months or so.....gulp.

And yeah I agree that Bf2 is a ram hog in general. It's what initially caused me to go to 2GB from 1GB. But Vista does play generic bf2 fine for me- no probs. It's just these giant, texture laden maps in this mod (which unfortunately is my favorite) that cause this in Vista.

So BF2 and that same large texture map with all your details on maximum gaming at the same resolution run very smoothly on windows xp 64 bit but not windows vista 64 bit ?

Yep- (Vista 32 bit). But as I have only 2GB of memory I would assume the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista would act the same.

Also I DO like Vista in a lot of ways and it's a fast OS. So this isn't about bashing Vista or it's memory usage, just about how I could tweak it to run this game well without having to buy more memory. And maybe it can't be done. But many good ideas/thoughts so far...

I tried getting around ram requirements on my old system as well, that system only had 256 mb of sdram. Going to 2 gig of ram was a huge step forward. Had to redo the whole pc anyway because that pc was way to old. I never really could get around the ram requirements in windows xp for gaming. I know we are talking about 2 gigs of ram here though so you would think that would be enough for gaming today at least.

Its getting a little ridiculous of how much ram you need now a days just to be able to play games smoothly without any stuttering. To bad you can't run a windows OS that is dedicated to gaming so the only thing that is running is everything you need active for gaming only and nothing else. It would sorta be like a windows console OS. I am sure thats how consoles are able to have so little ram and have no stuttering. They are not running a OS in the background as well.

Now that i think of it I think there is a way to make a windows os strictly just for gaming only. I think it was only for windows xp though but maybe they updated it for windows vista ? I can't remember the url because I tried it a long while ago but its out there.

That would be cool to have a gaming only version of Vista. It wouldn't take Microsoft much effort or time to do as it would be mostly just stripping down the original.

I think I know of the program your talking about...Some peeps have said to never use it or it doesn't work well or something if it's the same thing..May still search it out and research a little bit.

Thanks for the tip I had forgot all about that program.