RAM Optimizer -> Anything really work?

[bob4432]

is there any program that really works for optimizing ram, or does the os do the best job? win xp pro

 

[theAnimal]

Let Windows handle it.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: theAnimal
Let Windows handle it.

Yep.

 

[DaveSimmons]

OS. These things worked in Windows 3.1, but I've yet to see any benchmarks from reliable sources of them helping in real-world tasks.

People say "it feels snappier" as they take a break from connecting their $50-a-foot monster cable and pop a TV-ad herbal supplement and adjust the fit of their ionized bracelet.

 

[Sid59]

win XP Pro is pretty good at managing the RAM.

when i was on win98se, the only thing i'd use was RAMpage. Solid program. Check it out if you want.

 

[SagaLore]

Yea since the 2k/xp kernel, memory is best handled by the OS. Any 3rd party programs would only serve to hinder performance and stability.

 

[Nothinman]

They're worthless, all they do is allocate a ton of memory to trick the OS into releasing used memory which just increases disk activity as all of that data is paged back in slowly. In order to do any real work they would have to be kernel level drivers since userland processes can't see anything other than their allocated VM space.

 

[CTho9305]

trick the OS into releasing used memory

Poor choice of wording... the memory isn't released - data is just swapped out to disk. Someone could take your comment to mean that there is some benefit, but there isn't.

 

[Nothinman]

Poor choice of wording... the memory isn't released - data is just swapped out to disk. Someone could take your comment to mean that there is some benefit, but there isn't.

And technically it's not swapped out to disk either. I many cases it is just released because non-modified data is backed by the original file on disk so there's no reason to put it in the pagefile.

 

[JackMDS]

Though most of the comment in this tread is right and Windows does a very good job in managing memory, I do install FreeRAM on all of my computers, but not really let it mange Auto the memory.

My desktop computers have 500 ? 1000MB of RAM and most of the time there is no need for heavy Transfer of RAM from memeory. (I.e. Release RAM).

However I like Control the FreeRAM programs puts a little icon in the task bar that tells me what is going on.

I set the program do nothing but to ?Release 50MB of RAM if the RAM falls bellow 20MB. As a result as long as my system behaves normally FreeRAM does Nothing.

If FreeRAM does get into action in most cases it means that something is Not Right and I have "Processes going Amok". So in a way it is a Good diagnostic tool.

In addition the capacity to see (through the mem icon) the ongoing changes in the memory can help to fast find Memory Hogging application etc.

I also have few old Laptosp that are still useful but low in memory.

I found out that if the available memory is low and I need to start "Memory Hogging" application it works faster if I first "release" 50MB of RAM (takes one click on the mem icon) and then start the application. Windows will do it too, but it will take longer.

:sun:

 

[Rand]

For the most part their pretty much useless and your better off relying on Windows (or your OS of choice) to handle memory management exclusively.

The only time you may find their of benefit is if you only have 64-128MB of system memory or in a few rare cases 192MB, in which case your likely to be using virtually all of your physical memory at any given point in time.
If that's true and you then want to start an extremely memory hungry application such as PhotoShop CS
using a RAM Optimizer may yield you some benefit as it can more quickly free up RAM for Photoshop, Windoes can handle it bu not as quickly as a RAM Optimizer likely would.
Of course even in that example, using a RAM Optimizer would likely hurt performance in all the other applications that may be running simultaneously with PhotoShop as well as reduce OS responsiveness.

By and large, and any modern OS under a remotely modern system your not likely to want to use one.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Poor choice of wording... the memory isn't released - data is just swapped out to disk. Someone could take your comment to mean that there is some benefit, but there isn't.

And technically it's not swapped out to disk either. I many cases it is just released because non-modified data is backed by the original file on disk so there's no reason to put it in the pagefile.

I keep forgetting about that

 

[bob4432]

thanks for all the responses, this machine just might need more physical ram. it is running xp pro, apache 2x, php 4.x, mysql 4.x on a xp2000 chip. i have a "picture" site on it with over 14,000 pics on it and it runs mysql as the db. all is ok until i turn on the bf1942 server, which wants ~110MB for itself.