Hardware Decrease RAM usage.

[Dig Gil]

Today I've noticed this:

The weird is that my computer wasn't with any application opened.:blink::compbash2:
Can anyone help me to find out how is half of my RAM is being "eaten"?
I've started noticed this while playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. The game was being slow at rendering and crashed when opening inventory or trying to talk to any character.

 

[T.Neo]

What is your RAM?

 

[Dig Gil]

2046 Megabytes

 

[Bj]

Check to see what processes where open. (Ctrl-Alt-Delete) Select the list to be ordered by memory usage

BTW, what program is that? Looks interesting.

 

[Linguofreak]

Depending on how much RAM you have, and what your OS is (Vista?), it could well be that it's all being eaten by the OS. It might be a collection of background programs like virus scanners, etc, or it could even be a virus.

 

[T.Neo]

I'm no computer expert, but:
-RAM is defective
-Software for measuring RAM is not doing it's job right (yet, you said a game was rendering slow, unless that is unrelated)
-Malware :thumbsdown:. Try doing a system scan.:hunter:

 

[Dig Gil]

If Linguofreak's right, then how can I solve that? get a better antivirus?

BTW, what program is that? Looks interesting.

It's one of Vista's sidebar's mini-apps.

 

[Bj]

If Linguofreak's right, then how can I solve that? get a better antivirus?

What one are you using?

I use AVG and its only using about 2,000 K

 

[Urwumpe]

If Linguofreak's right, then how can I solve that? get a better antivirus?

Better go through your OS settings, like how many MB it allocates for cache memory and similar speed optimizations.

But 56% RAM used is not too bad, more important is how often the OS has to access the hard drive for swapping physical and virtual memory.

 

[computerex]

As far as I know, this is normal in Vista because of a background service known as "Superfetch". It pre-loads the most used programs on your machine so they load very quickly when you start them. But a side effect of that is that if you try to load a program that has not been cached, then it will take more time to load then it would without superfetch enabled, because then the OS has to swap to the disk.

Superfetch it seems is very un-friendly to games which require a lot of textures to be loaded. The reason being is that it starts caching even if the game is running, constantly keeping your harddrive active, and constantly requiring the OS to swap even if you have a lot of RAM.

You can disable Superfetch with "services.msc" or "msgconfig.exe".

 

[Dig Gil]

OK, I made my maths and out of the processes that used more than 1000 kilobytes (if that "K" stands for Kilobytes), which were 22, the maths indicated the equivalent of about 13500 Kilobytes used for each process (actually 13501,27272727....).


-----Post Added-----


My antivirus is Norton and a expired Symantec desperately asking for me to pay an upgrade.
And I ask you please to wait at least 10 seconds between posts, because this thread looks like a chat room hsnap:.


-----Post Added-----

Better go through your OS settings, like how many MB it allocates for cache memory and similar speed optimizations.

But 56% RAM used is not too bad, more important is how often the OS has to access the hard drive for swapping physical and virtual memory.

My OS is in portuguese, so I can't find these settings just by you saying so.

 

[Urwumpe]

My OS is in portuguese, so I can't find these settings just by saying so.

For what did you pay money, if not for a good voice input. :rofl:

 

[n72.75]

It's one of Vista's sidebar's mini-apps.

Turn off windows sidebar and see if that helps.

 

[Dig Gil]

No, and by the way, I usually keep the sidebar off. I've only switched on to check RAM usage.

---UPDATE---
As strangely it jumped to ~56%, it has now jumped to 34%! But instantly while writing this post it returned to about 40%...

 

[Bj]

Maybe you where using so much ram because you just started the sidebar app. Those Vista apps take a bit of power.
​

 

[Dig Gil]

Anyway that doesn't explain the game going wrong.

 

[computerex]

Anyway that doesn't explain the game going wrong.

Did you not read what I have posted above?

 

[Hielor]

As far as I know, this is normal in Vista because of a background service known as "Superfetch". It pre-loads the most used programs on your machine so they load very quickly when you start them. But a side effect of that is that if you try to load a program that has not been cached, then it will take more time to load then it would without superfetch enabled, because then the OS has to swap to the disk.

Superfetch it seems is very un-friendly to games which require a lot of textures to be loaded. The reason being is that it starts caching even if the game is running, constantly keeping your harddrive active, and constantly requiring the OS to swap even if you have a lot of RAM.

You can disable Superfetch with "services.msc" or "msgconfig.exe".

Superfetched memory doesn't actually show up as ram used when talking about free ram; if it did you'd always be at 98-99% usage.

The only way to "see" superfetch in action is to go to the performance monitor, where you'll noticed that ram used + ram free != total ram.

 

[tblaxland]

Superfetched memory doesn't actually show up as ram used when talking about free ram; if it did you'd always be at 98-99% usage.

The only way to "see" superfetch in action is to go to the performance monitor, where you'll noticed that ram used + ram free != total ram.

So does Dig Gil have:

1. ram_used = 0.56 * (ram_used + ram_free); or
2. ram_used = 0.56 * total_ram?

 

[Hielor]

So does Dig Gil have:

1. ram_used = 0.56 * (ram_used + ram_free); or
2. ram_used = 0.56 * total_ram?

He has 2. Indicators of ram used, if given as a percentage, are always given as a percentage of total ram.

If he has superfetch active (odds are good that he does since it's on by default) he probably only has 40-100mb of ram actually free, but all of that superfetched stuff can and will be swapped out if processes actually need to use that memory.