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Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?
codinghorror.com — Windows Vista has a radically different approach to memory management. Check out the "Physical Memory, Free" column in my Task Manager...
- Submitted:
- 1 year 74 days ago, made popular 1 year 74 days ago
- Submitter:
mattman12345
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It's great to see someone who has a good understanding of memory usage, and who is able to write an easy-to-undertand article has done so, hopefully this will stop all the 'LOL VISTA IS A M$ M3MORY h0GG!1!!11shiftone' comments. So, what's left to be debunked ? The price, memory hog, DRM problems, metadata problems, etc have been.
Here are 2 other interesting articles about memory usage in Vista vs OS X:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=266
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=267 -
Did M$ have to copy all of the OS X feature??
agh! -
Why does everything on this site have to come back to OS X? Seriously, my memory is better used than free, I'd rather the OS use it than leave it. It makes space when another app opens anyway.
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so you will go out and buy my memory??
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They should just renamed "Free Memory" to "Wasted Memory, please use pagein/pageout ratio for a better indication of if you have enough memory installed"
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Yup. It's funny to see people saying; "zomg Vista uses 600Mb of RAM on startup lololololo".
Microsoft just learned what *nix has known for years, free RAM is wasted RAM. -
Take a look at my desktop... i tweaked Vista a bit to use lesser RAM and now its like really really fast... :)
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/4051/desktop1ff9.png
I have this running on a :
1.6ghz AMD
1.25gigs of RAM
128 ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
and it runs smooth.. :) -
eh..i am keeping off vista. feisty faun ubuntu is coming soon, and you won't get teh hax0r3d.
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Question: Why does Vista "hog" all of your memory?
Answer: Cuz it Can Can Can! Cuz it Can Can Can Can Can Can! *music melody*
And when other stuff needs it... it gladly yields the required memory for the programs that require it. So calm down Apple fan boys... no bad news to make you feel better about the fact that you have a Mac. -
If I bought 2 Gigs of RAM, I definitely want it being used at all times-no use just sitting around :p
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I wondered the same thing when I first upgraded to Vista as well, I read an article, realized the potential of it, and haven't looked back, its fast and effcient and I only had one program run into an issue once, and a quick change to the settings fixed it. It was Photoshop by the way but it was a settings error.
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The Vista kernel is designed to use all memory so that applications open quickly.
Anand does a great job explaining it.
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=2
I find it makes Vista snappy. :) -
Apple Fanboy here. I'm digging this article.
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Q: Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?
A: Where else is Bill Gates going to store all his high def porno?
He has so much money that he bought so much pr0n that he needed a place to put it all. He knew if he put it all on one windows machine, it might crash like windows does and he couldn't bear to use linux. So he built a distributed storage network into his next version of Vista. That way his porno will live forever, somewhere on the internets. -
Wow, MS has finally implemented a useful feature that isn't copied from another OS!
Wait. . . -
I wish there was a way to track undiggs so that we can see how many anti Microsoft kids pre-emptively dugg this before they realized that it actually says something good about Vista.
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i think its cause if this: http://digg.com/software/How_To_Get_a_website_up_and_running_in_all_opensource_tools_software
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I can answer that... because it's a crappy software infested with DRM and it wasting
your computer precious resources on protecting th MPAA and their buddies...
;-)
for details about Vista's true cost on your computer see http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html -
This, or similar, has been on the front page of Digg several times already. Are people posting these just to start flame wars now, or what?
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Don't upgrade to vista, upgrade to Ubuntu or any Linux distribution for that matter. Download your copy for free right now at http://ubuntu.com . You won't have to worry about DRM or memory issues. You can just use your computer and be productive.
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Hasn't the linux kernel been doing this for a long ass time already?
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memories of comp sci 359... oh those were the days.
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Since my comment pre-edit was replied to here is what you all were missing ;) Figured I'd go for a smart ass edit that wouldn't get buried over a slightly insightful, helpful, but ultimately off-topic comment that would...
Hmmm, if you are going to recommend a linux distro, how about one that takes care of a lot of the little things that will really ***** off new users. I am using Linux Mint http://linuxmint.com/ right now, which is for all intensive purposes Ubuntu Edgy Eft with the following tweaks:
NTFS filesystem read and WRITE support
Ability to use Windows wifi drivers if needed
A sweet "start menu" and control panel
Flash 9 included
DVD playing codecs/programs included
Ability to install ATI/Nvidia drivers with a single command (Press Ctrl + Alt + F1 login then type "envy" and reboot, VIOLA your done)
While it may not be as well know as Ubuntu, there is a lot to like, especially for the new to Linux user. I find the more things "just work" the more work I can get done. Even the most hardcore Linux geek I am sure can appreciate ease of use in the long run. -
Unused Memory is wasted memory, the ironic thing is that the same FUD that is now being used against Vista has been used against Linux for a long time ( Yes, people accused Linux of all things of being a memory hog for making good use of all available memory ), just goes to show, FUD is FUD no matter who it's aimed at.
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No one else noticed it's a BUG/FLUKE!
YES, A BUG/FLUKE!
Look at the green memory graph, only 905MB is being used. Also, for clarification - look at the blue line graph, over 50% of the RAM free!
This article writer is a douche bag.
I have 2GB of RAM as well, and have NEVER gone over 1.25GB of RAM even with 30 Firefox Tabs open, Trillian, Opera, Thunderbird, and a full screen game like CS:S. -
Because it has kinda the same memory management as Linux systems
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Wow that's just clever.
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What happens when Vista and Firefox fight with each other to occupy more memory?
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I'm not particularly concerned about memory anyhow, even running Photoshop, because scratch-disks etc kick in transparently.
What DOES concern me with Vista is why the HELL is my hard-drive grinding constantly??? Is it Microsoft's "if you're not playing music we'll grind your hard-drive rhythmically just to give you some ambient musak" mode? Seriously, I don't mind the drive going if i'm working. Or downloading something. Or defragging. But I do NOTHING and it still grinds away.
Granted, it does it less since I switched off that pointless search indexing. But it still does it. My drive is going to die within weeks at this rate. -
So in summary: Microsoft tries to copy the Unix memory manager for Vista. Yet somehow still manages to muck up the performance.
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It took XP about a year before allot of bugs where ironed out and I suspect Vista will be about the same.
I'm running Vista Ultimate and the biggest issue is the gaming API issue... "that's it"
I've never came across any DRM problems and the world hasn't exploded yet. ;-) -
Caching the applications it thinks you may need.....
Does this include the BSOD and other error messages? -
An excellent article. It explains the issue at play consisely and simple enough for the average user.
If you were to level a criticism at Microsoft about this practice, it would have to be that the Physical Memory - Free is now a pretty useless stat. It should list Superfetch as a separate line. Good to see they have integrated some of the Sysinternals ideas into task manager. -
I AM A WINDOWS FANBOY. I have nothing against the other operating systems, they do what they do and they do it well. They have even gave windows some of its best features. But Windows has been there from the start and helped me learn everything i know about computers witch in turn has payed my bills and fed my kids. For this i will be forever greatfull (unless MS starts some big war that somehow gets us all killed).
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'cause it's a piece of crap?
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Could this be trying to copy what Linux does? Take all the memory to make it available quickly?
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Lets see, it take 400 megs just to run. My teacher just bought a brand new Toshiba with Vista home basic. She gives it to me to fix because it takes 15 minutes out of the box to start. I open up task manager to find 91 process running. This was brand new. It was taking up 88% of the ram to do nothing.
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Big deal... operating systems have been doing this for ages. Good to see Microsoft slowly catching up.
===============
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/qna/2327.html
Q:
When I boot up Linux, according to System Monitor, Linux almost immediately starts using 100% of my memory. Is this a bug?
A:
In general Linux uses as much of ram as it can sensibly get and use. So, at first glance it appears that Windows XP would use memory more efficiently, because more is reported to be free.
The truth is that by using all of your memory right from the start and shuffling this around as needed, Linux is much more efficent while Windows does not make use of all the free ram.
Linux just uses a fundamentally different, but more efficient memory management system.
===============
now, saying that, just because Windows Vista uses all available ram, doesn't mean its a memory hog, because it needs a lot of ram just to run decently...
in you face -
The statement "Windows Vista has a radically different approach to memory management" is somewhat misleading. There's nothing radical about it -- they've simply adopted a decades-old strategy already employed by most other contemporary operating systems.
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is this guy an idiot. has he not read anything about Vista. for one thing, only half of his memory is being used, and it is very well known that Vista uses a lot of memory to try to keep the speed of the operating system up.
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Two gigs is mainstream now?! Damnit.
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Why does linux take all my memory? BECAUSE IT USES THE REMAINER FOR DISK CACHE. :p
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Because Windows is full of two decades worth of spaghetti code?
Because Microsoft has not felt the need to be competitive in over 15 year?
Is this really news? Or a mystery? -
Here is the breakdown as I see it:
- Total of 2GB
- 1.2GB is cached
- leaving you with about 6MB left
I am thinking that to increase performance, Vista caches all your RAM. This is by no means using it. It is like buffering it so your cpu can access it quicker.
Sounds more like a band-aid trick that MS came up with do deal with low performance issues so they could rush Vista out the door. -
SuperFetch works wonders, even on a 1 gig system. Playing FEAR, I've seen my most oftenly played maps drop from 20-30 second load times to as little as 5 seconds, and it's very satisfying to have a game end, drop to the loading screen for the next map, and a couple of seconds later, pop into the next map ready to rock.
One thing I have to stress for anyone at 1 gig or less - READYBOOST. I have my 2 gig flash drive plugged in at all times with 1.5 gigs of ReadyBoost ready to serve as even more cache, and the difference is definitely noticeable when gaming - load times are faster, and the slight slowdown from SuperFetch preloading in the background seems to not hit ReadyBoost as badly. With the ReadyBoost/SuperFetch combo running, I find that FEAR tends to load much, much faster than XP and get about the same framerate. -
Cause it sucks
I just saved people from clicking on the article
It's not rocket science
It's computer science -
My windows server 2003 uses like 70 meg of ram.
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I said it before, and I'll say it again, Windows Vista is a resource whore.
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Hey Apple fanboys ***** OFF. This article is posted under the new Microsoft topic for a reason, don't need your pointless drivel to contaminate a very legit article. Go back into your Apple topic and your fantasy worlds.
Leave the rest of us the ***** alone. -
So that's what Fire-Fox is doing. Its caching the Internet just in case I want to see it.
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