Question about Vista idling Memory usage

[Zenoth]

Hey,

I'm on Vista Ultimate SP2 x64, and I noticed that it's using 1,06GB of Memory while it's idling at the Desktop doing absolutely nothing, the only "extra" application running is RivaTuner, and nothing else, the rest is all Vista services and SVCHOST stuff. I usually have between 32 to 36 services running (most of the time it's 34 when Steam is open without playing games, and goes to 36 when I got a Steam game running plus something like Punkbuster kicking in with Crysis Warhead for instance, amongst others). I'm not complaining, by the way, I'm simply wondering if that's normal, if that is to be expected due to the way Vista operates and manages system resources. I'm not using the Aero theme if it matters to mention.

I just want to make sure that everything is well within the usual parameters and used resources (I'm still not used to Vista much, I'm switching often to XP, it's a dual-boot, but I'm "practicing" with Vista since a few months, trying a few days in a row, with some games, then going back to XP, then later going back to Vista, trying to get used to the interface and so on, I'm starting to like it, I just want to make it clear that I'm not bashing on it). And additionally I have installed SP1 and then SP2 in order, the installation for both went smooth and clean, also I had all Microsoft updates after SP1 and before SP2 (SP2 was the last "separate" update to show up after I installed the previous 45+ others).

I took pictures:

Services
Performance

Thanks.

 

[F1shF4t]

Its normal. I have 8 gig and sometimes even see more. Vista will use as much ram as you have. If you look at your second pic you'll see that 3.3 gig is cached and only 70mg is sitting there doing nothing. Unused ram is wasted ram, well as long as it doesn't cause you to hit the hdd 😛.

Any reason why you're not using Aero?

 

[Zenoth]

Ok good to know, thanks.

I'm not using Aero because it causes a bug in STALKER: Clear Sky, and the issue is fixed when I turn Aero off. The bug "blocks" the cursor in-game where the Taskbar starts on the Desktop, in other words the cursor cannot go "below" the horizontal "top" of the Taskbar, and because of that I cannot click on "Trade" when I want to do so with some NPCs because that button is at the bottom of the GUI, and there's other inconvenients. I do like Aero, and I used it all the time before I discovered that bug, I even used Dreamscene, but until that issue is fixed I won't use it because I play Clear Sky almost everyday.

 

[F1shF4t]

Thats fair enough. Don't know if it will help but worth trying. Go into the game exe properties, under compatibility select "dissable desktop composition".
That switches the display mode to vista basic whenever you execute it and switches back when you close the game.

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Thats fair enough. Don't know if it will help but worth trying. Go into the game exe properties, under compatibility select "dissable desktop composition".
That switches the display mode to vista basic whenever you execute it and switches back when you close the game.

Thanks for the trick, but I just tried and it didn't work, maybe it's a problem related to the graphics driver, I'm not sure, but at least it's the only game in which I'm getting such a stupid bug.