Why Does Windows Vista Consume All My RAM?

[joey_182]

If you have been using Windows Vista and were curious to check the CPU and RAM usage, then you have
surely made your way to the Performance tab in the Windows Task Manager. Here, you may have come
across readings similar to those in the screen shot. Forget about all the data displayed and just focus on Physical Memory (MB). It reads Total: 2,045, Cached: 1,277 and Free: 6. 6 MB of free RAM? Why did my memory go? You can see that the CPU is at 3% so I'm really almost doing nothing at all. Then why does Windows Vista consume all the system memory?



Windows XP did not eat up this much RAM. Checking the same Performance tab in Windows XP will always reveal a consistent amount of free physical memory. Is this another case of what XP did better than Vista? Well, to put it simply, no! This is in fact an example of the way Windows XP inefficiently manages the system resources available, wasting them.

This is because the role of RAM is to be cached memory. If it's free, then it only is a piece of unused hardware. This is where Windows Vista and the SuperFetch feature come in. SuperFetch is a memory management technology introduced in Windows Vista to optimize the RAM usage.

“Windows SuperFetch prioritizes the programs you're currently using over background tasks and adapts to the way you work by tracking the programs you use most often and preloading these into memory. With SuperFetch, background tasks still run when the computer is idle. However, when the background task is finished, SuperFetch repopulates system memory with the data you were working with before the background task ran,” Microsoft revealed.

peace

[dOm1naTOr]

Is this a doubt or a newz???? It shud be in some tech newz or even in s/w section.
Anyways in my PC with 1024 MB ram i always see more than 600MB free in Vista ultimate while idle. I seriously say there is some problem in ur PC so that OS is EATING UP around 2GB ram while idle. And ur saying it as a FEATURE??

Have u tried running some apps or games???while loging the details in task manager??

[ravi_9793]

I don't think that it is issue eith vista.However I have read smthing that 32 bit vista version eats RAM.
32-bit Windows Vista Eats Up RAM

[tarey_g]

Originally Posted by aravind_n20

Is this a doubt or a newz???? It shud be in some tech newz or even in s/w section.
Anyways in my PC with 1024 MB ram i always see more than 600MB free in Vista ultimate while idle. I seriously say there is some problem in ur PC so that OS is EATING UP around 2GB ram while idle. And ur saying it as a FEATURE??

Have u tried running some apps or games???while loging the details in task manager??

Yes its a feature of vista , and its very useful . This has already been posted in the forum twice. Posting a link third time, read it , its informative

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

Pls search before you post.

[koolbluez]

B'cause Vista is made for eatin RAM... & then Readywhatever eats some more USB space

[shantanu]

Yes, its a feature and it does not eat up, it just link memory to processor and that particular 400-600 mb is in direct management state, and its for better performance of applications..

[dOm1naTOr]

I dun mean Vista dun have such feature, but its not that feature that ate up bout 2GB of @'s ram. It is surelly some bug or problem that he has only 6MB ram free when idle.
That feature is built to optimise the use of memory for system and apps and not to simply eat up all the ram not considering how much ram the system has.

[gxsaurav]

Here is the thing. When you are idle or using Apps, it copies itself in the RAM. now when u close it, it is not compleately flushed from the RAM unless needed by some other app

Just download any RAM optimizer application & you will see you have about 400 or 500 MB RAM free. The memory is used for caching & unless required it stays as a cahce. When an application asks for it, it flushes the RAM as required.

[alsiladka]

using a RAM optimizer would be unnecessary burden on Vista.
It uses the RAM according to your need and use.
It is best to let the superfetch keep working the way it wants to.