Why does windows 7 use so much ram?

I'm on my laptop with 4GB of RAM, and am actually disappointed that I've got 1.9GB free.

Common 7, keep up!
 
Hmm truth is there won't be 8GB of data to superfetch especially when you factor in the only 64bit memory hungry apps people will be using are photo and video editing really.

That 8GB memory is still being superfetched internally though:

memuse.jpg


* Total is the amount of RAM installed on your computer, listed in megabytes (MB).
* Cached refers to the amount of physical memory used recently for system resources.
* Available is the total of standby and free memory from the Resource Monitor.
* Free is the amount of memory that is currently unused or doesn't contain useful information (unlike cached files, which do contain useful information).

So using that information it's clear my average day to day usage of Win7 results in 3.2GB of RAM utilisation so I could get away with having just 6GB but since I have DDR2 only might as well go the extra 2GB and not lose dual channel.
 
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Windows 7s RAM allocation methods really are excellent - on my PC with 2 days of uptime it's still using the same 1GB of memory, i'm currently running two instances of Opera and an episode of CSI on the 2nd screen.

i've had it at 45 days uptime and it was still using the same amount of memory.

back when i was on Vista (*shudder*) after about three or four days the ram would be clogged with cached data i no-longer needed or was using and the OS would grind to a standstill.
 
Aod said:
Windows 7s RAM allocation methods really are excellent - on my PC with 2 days of uptime it's still using the same 1GB of memory, i'm currently running two instances of Opera and an episode of CSI on the 2nd screen.

i've had it at 45 days uptime and it was still using the same amount of memory.

back when i was on Vista (*shudder*) after about three or four days the ram would be clogged with cached data i no-longer needed or was using and the OS would grind to a standstill.
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BS. Vista and W7's memory models are almost identical.

"Cached" memory doesn't slow a PC down. It speeds it up whilst costing nothing.
 
Aod, are you sure it just wasn't a memory leak with something running under Vista that may have been fixed/dealt with by Windows 7?
 
SiriusB said:
Aod, are you sure it just wasn't a memory leak with something running under Vista that may have been fixed/dealt with by Windows 7?
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Possibly, but it wasn't any one program gobbling all the memory, it was the system.

ManCuBuS said:
I found Vista's memory allocation to be just as good as Windows 7 tbh.
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NathanE said:
BS. Vista and W7's memory models are almost identical.

"Cached" memory doesn't slow a PC down. It speeds it up whilst costing nothing.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: My Experience differed. is it really so hard to accept that some people didn't have the picture-perfect experience with Vista that you did?
 
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I wasn't specifically refering to something you installed. Could have been a service or some other background processes. But I get what you are saying.

My Vista experience wasn't always great, but it wasn't nearly as awful as a lot of people would have you believe!
 
I had quite a good time with Vista 64, I think the main difference is superfetch has been tweaked slightly, so it feels more responsive because it deals with the HD access and usage a little better.
They're both good OS however.
 
At the moment I have a q6600 (I think thats the one) processor and 4gb of ram running win 7 ultimate and I have 0 free ram.

then again I am listening to music through itunes, Encoding a dvd , encoding a hd-dvd and browsing the internet :p system still feels quite nippy :)
 
1gb is about right if you've got 4gb or more.

Vista & Win7 are clever with ram usage, the more RAM you have - the more is loaded into it - rather than it being saved to the paging file.

A good idea if you're running 4gb or more is to enable 'open folders in a seperate process' which helps avoid explorer crashes and makes use out of the extra mem.
 
I love the way 7 utalise ram, it may seem drastic the amount you use it, but its jsut there, so when its needed its already loaded, makes life a lot smoother.
 
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