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Bringing down Vista's memory use
- Thread starter OmniOck
- Start date
BlueAcolyte
Platinum Member
Vista is SUPPOSED to be using that much RAM. It will give up the RAM when an application needs it.
soonerproud
Golden Member
There is no need to try to cut memory usage on Vista due to technologies Microsoft has included to better manage memory. If you have a program that needs part or all of that memory, Vista will automatically free all that RAM for you. Then Vista will repopulate that memory, using Superfetch to help improve the responsiveness of your programs and the operating system. Here is a quick rundown on the two technologies that make memory management a hands off item in Vista.
1. SuperFetch - This is an improved version of prefetch that is in XP. It monitors your usage patterns and populates your memory with the programs you use the most for faster startup times.
2. Priority IO - This technology assigns processes a priority from low to high, with user initiated programs always rated at high and low level processes like indexing, anti-virus and defragmenting a low priority. That means that your programs will always have all the system resources they need and that these other processes will have to wait until those processes are freed to continue.
Because of these two processes there is nothing you can do to tweak the system that is going to improve upon memory management under Vista.
1. SuperFetch - This is an improved version of prefetch that is in XP. It monitors your usage patterns and populates your memory with the programs you use the most for faster startup times.
2. Priority IO - This technology assigns processes a priority from low to high, with user initiated programs always rated at high and low level processes like indexing, anti-virus and defragmenting a low priority. That means that your programs will always have all the system resources they need and that these other processes will have to wait until those processes are freed to continue.
Because of these two processes there is nothing you can do to tweak the system that is going to improve upon memory management under Vista.
Jeff7181
Lifer
Actually, he has a legitimate question. He's not talking about seeing 2 MB of free memory due to Superfetch... he's talking about high memory usage.
To answer the OP's question... the Sidebar tends to be a memory hog so you can turn that off. Aside from that I haven't looked into it much because to be honest, I have 4 GB of RAM and I don't really care that Windows is using just over a gig.
One thing you could do is go through the list of services and find things you KNOW for sure you don't need, like printing support if you don't have a printer.
To answer the OP's question... the Sidebar tends to be a memory hog so you can turn that off. Aside from that I haven't looked into it much because to be honest, I have 4 GB of RAM and I don't really care that Windows is using just over a gig.
One thing you could do is go through the list of services and find things you KNOW for sure you don't need, like printing support if you don't have a printer.
ViRGE
Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Vista 64 likes RAM, even more so than Vista 32. It boils down to the fact that there are a lot of duplicate libraries that need to be loaded, one for 64bit applications and one for 32bit applications. As long as you have at least 4GB of RAM though, it's not really an issue.
soonerproud
Golden Member
This raises alarm bells for power users coming from XP because most are unaware of the memory handling changes in Vista. What matters most is that Vista freely gives that RAM back to your applications, if they need it. I know it is hard to comprehend coming from XP, but Vista for the most part really is a hands off operating system.
Nothinman
Elite Member
XP does the same thing just like Win2K did, NT4 before that and even Win9X and it's predecessors. The filesystem cache has always been essentially free memory, the only difference with Vista is some internal prioritization and the fact that SuperFetch now tries to preload that cache with things it thinks you'll need instead of waiting for you explicitly to ask for it.
Griffinhart
Golden Member
Memory usage in Vista can't be compared to usage in XP.
Vista will use the RAM you have as stated earlier.
I have several Vista machines here and they all have different memory footprints because they all have different amounts of physical RAM.
My 1GB desktop uses about 600MB
My 2GB laptop uses about 1.1GB
My 4GB desktop uses about 2GB
Vista will use the RAM you have as stated earlier.
I have several Vista machines here and they all have different memory footprints because they all have different amounts of physical RAM.
My 1GB desktop uses about 600MB
My 2GB laptop uses about 1.1GB
My 4GB desktop uses about 2GB
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