Why does Vista cache so much ram?

an4rew

an4rew

an4rew

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12 Jan 2006
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57
Location
Northern Ireland
I have two systems with Vista ultimate and installed exactly the same apps.
Sidebar is turned on and they are just idling on the desktop with Firefox open.

The 1GB laptop uses 400mb (vista)
The 2GB desktop uses 800mb (vista)

thats like just under half of the total memory available and i'm thinking Vista handles memory a lot differently than XP did. When i had XP installed with 2GB ram it used around 250-300mb :)
 
now vista uses ram instead of having it sitting there doing nothing basically, the more you have -the more it'll use :)
 
I'm tempted to get Vista Home for my XPC 41g2 and I'm glad to here the RAM usage on the 1GB system is reduced as my current 2GB system consumes about 900MB-1GB
 
at first i was a bit worried and dissapointed in the massive RAM usage, however i started to notice the speed difference when u open office applications and programs like photoshop! They just pop up! Damn vista always one step ahead of me how does it know i want to open them programs!!
 
Vista normally munches at around 40% of my 2gb RAM, however, today its using 29% :o

Not so sure about this pre-caching business, most programs take the same time, if not longer to load than they did in XP. :confused:
 
It fills memory up with applications crap you might not even load up. :rolleyes: If I want to pre-load Photoshop I'll open it damn well up myself. I couldn't care less about saving a few seconds when loading up applications, rather have memory free all of the time, and only using memory as it's needed.
 
I think you're missing the point that it's using RAM that wouldn't be used. And then frees the space up for when you do need it....
Sure it doesn't look very nice when you ogle over your fancy sidebar with your hard drive graphs and cpu and ram usage bars. But so what.
 
KingAdora said:
I think you're missing the point that it's using RAM that wouldn't be used. And then frees the space up for when you do need it....
Sure it doesn't look very nice when you ogle over your fancy sidebar with your hard drive graphs and cpu and ram usage bars. But so what.
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Pretty stupid for the OS to pre-load, for only to clear it from memory when you do need it. :rolleyes: and what happens when you go back into Windows, does it decide to pre-load applications again! LOL!
 
squiffy said:
Pretty stupid for the OS to pre-load, for only to clear it from memory when you do need it. :rolleyes: and what happens when you go back into Windows, does it decide to pre-load applications again! LOL!
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What's so stupid about it? It caches applications that it thinks you will use the most, and frees RAM for other applications automatically when needed. You don't lose anything.
 
Thinks you uses the most
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Rather have a OS that I tell it what to do, not fill memory with everything under the sun.

Nero opens up in about half a second. Rather wait that "long" than filling memory with crap even though I might not even load Nero for a couple of weeks.
 
squiffy said:
Rather have a OS that I tell it what to do, not fill memory with everything under the sun.

Nero opens up in about half a second. Rather wait that "long" than filling memory with crap even though I might not even load Nero for a couple of weeks.
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Each to her own I suppose. Don't use Windows Vista, simple.
 
Or just disable pre-load, indexing and UAC. I'm on XP Pro SP2 and will be for quite some time.

Vista is just bloated version of XP with newer icons that you can see through.
 
squiffy said:
Or just disable pre-load, indexing and UAC. I'm on XP Pro SP2 and will be for quite some time.

Vista is just bloated version of XP with newer icons that you can see through.
Click to expand...
Yes years of development for simply newer icons, you are completely correct, I just don't see how no1 else has realised this yet.....

Empty memory is pointless, rather use it for something I might use on the off chance and have it load quicker rather than it do nothing.

You will notice other operating systems either already employ similar methods or will do soon so there won't be many places to turn if you are that stubborn. Plus the caching is probably quite intuitive, caching programs you are likely to use.
 
Empty memory is pointless, rather use it for something I might use on the off chance and have it load quicker rather than it do nothing.
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So clearing RAM of crap that you're not even going to load doesn't take up CPU cycles? Come off it.

I understand the theory of pre-loading, but if you just happen to be a power user not a lazy person you don't need it. What exactly does it pre-load? Calculator? Ooo that takes a millisecond to load. How useful.
 
I have to say I've found Vista's memory allocation odd, and in my case it certainly did not feel very fast, infact quite the opposite. It wants to use at least 800mb+ of the 1gb I have, and that's just at idle. I don't think I'll move over fully from XP until I have 2Gb installed. At first i thought I had accidentally installed sql server :p
 
squiffy said:
Or just disable pre-load, indexing and UAC. I'm on XP Pro SP2 and will be for quite some time.

Vista is just bloated version of XP with newer icons that you can see through.
Click to expand...

How long did you test Vista for?
 
Cob said:
How long did you test Vista for?
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Long enough to see performance issues. Currently driver supported is quite poor, especially on the HTPC (M-Audio) same for sig rig, Creative Labs vista drivers are poor.

It'll probably take around Vista SP1 for stable drivers equalling XP own to make it worthwhile, and MS need to look at performance issues. Although I doubt they will, probably just expect people to buy faster hardware.

Same for XP, I didn't switch from Windows 2000 to XP until SP1 came out.
 
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