How do I clamp down on vista and memory usage?

[aceO07]

Vista has been ok for me so far, but it's memory usage issues are driving me nuts. I have 3gb on my tablet with Vista Business 32bit and only 2gb on my desktop with XP. Vista is the only one that tells me that I need to close my programs to free up memory.

On both machines, I might have firefox and Vmware open. However, Vista will be the one with only ~50MB of memory left.

How do I make it use as little memory as XP? It seems like 1300MB is Cached according to task manager. I don't want Vista to give me prompt again or to automatically close my programs.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: aceO07
How do I make it use as little memory as XP? It seems like 1300MB is Cached according to task manager. I don't want Vista to give me prompt again or to automatically close my programs.

It sounds like you turned off the page file. If that's the case, turn the page file back on and this will stop happening.

I'm surprised how many people turn the page file off and expect performance to increase. That "out of memory" error is all that ever happens.

 

[aceO07]

You are right, I am turned off the page file. Though according to task manager, I'm still using a 3gb page file.

For the most part, it has worked fine with page file 'off'. I'll try it with page file on and see how it goes. I rarely see the prompt anyways. VMware and firefox should only really be using up 1.5GB of memory anyways. I can't believe that Vista is using up the rest.

 

[ShawnD1]

What a page file does is pre-allocate space that may or may not be used. When you fire up Grand Theft Auto 4, it will tell the system that it needs 2gb of space set aside. Windows will mark 2gb of the page file as used and start the game. Without a page file, Windows will consume 2gb of physical memory before the game will start. You can see how running more than maybe 2 or 3 programs would cause the computer to run out of memory even if 90% of that allocated ram is filled with nothing.

Steam (the game purchasing system) is probably the best example of why a page file is important. Right now Steam has a commit size on my computer of 414mb, so 414mb of his set aside as "may or may not be used", but the working set for Steam is only 15mb. This means Steam can use up to 414mb of ram if it wants to, but it's currently using only 15mb. If I remove the page file, Steam actually will use the full 414mb in physical memory. In this example, disabling the page file increases the ram requirement by a factor of 27. Right now as I'm typing this, my computer has a larger page file (in use) than it has physical memory. My computer would crash if I turned off the page file right now.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: aceO07
How do I make it use as little memory as XP? It seems like 1300MB is Cached according to task manager. I don't want Vista to give me prompt again or to automatically close my programs.

It sounds like you turned off the page file. If that's the case, turn the page file back on and this will stop happening.

I'm surprised how many people turn the page file off and expect performance to increase. That "out of memory" error is all that ever happens.

Agreed,let Vista manage page file also I don't see why people actually turn it off,as to memory Vista will make good use of your memory,unused memory is a waste as they say.

 

[RebateMonger]

Thinking of tacking this post at the top of the "Operating Systems" Forum as one reason why not to disable the page file in Vista. 😉

 

[aceO07]

Seems strange to me that Vista has 3GB of ram to play with AND apparently 3GB of page file, according to task manager (though it should be disabled), and it's still giving me problems. While on XP, it only have 2GB ram and 2gb page file and it can run 2 VMware sessions and my regular firefox.

Anyways, I turned page file back on.

 

[Nothinman]

You are right, I am turned off the page file.

Stop that. Despite how it may seem sometimes the Windows dev team really does understand memory management pretty well.

Seems strange to me that Vista has 3GB of ram to play with AND apparently 3GB of page file,

That's because the wording in task manager is wrong. Where it says PF Usage it should just say Commit Charge.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: aceO07
Seems strange to me that Vista has 3GB of ram to play with AND apparently 3GB of page file, according to task manager (though it should be disabled), and it's still giving me problems. While on XP, it only have 2GB ram and 2gb page file and it can run 2 VMware sessions and my regular firefox.

Anyways, I turned page file back on.

thats because you dont understand what page file is and how its used.