Anyone knows how vista RAM usage works?

I'm just wondering. I'm actually thinking it is proportional but still. I'd like to know if someone knows.... I have 3 computers on Vista

1. Ultimate X86. 1.5GB RAM total = 650-800 MB used
2. Ultimate X86. 1GB Total= 630MB used
3. Ultimate X64. 2GB total= 900MB used.

Computer 1 has MANY apps running, computer 2 has almost nothing and computer 3 is between them.

Comp 2 & 3 have NIS 2008 and comp 1 has no anti-virus & uses windows defender

 

its a mystery! something ive always wondered is why does it not use 100% of the ram all the time and eliminate as much page file as possible?

 

Do you mean Ultimate 32 and Ultimate 64? 86 refers to the CPU and I believe all those are 86. Vista likes to use about 1/2 your RAM. It has a feature where to speed things up it keeps certain things available in RAM. Computer #2 is making the least use of this feature because it is on the light side w/amount of RAM. I think the difference is all about amount of RAM not applications.

 

Answer: Yeah, it takes all the RAM and caches the programs you use often using an algorithm.

 

It's likely because computer 1 has lots of background apps running that you do not see. Also different hardware means different drivers with varying RAM consumption.

 

Vists says 30% physical memory utilized. But why do I see only 7/8 MB of physical memory free?. Is this because of superfetch?

 

Google vista memory management and stick to the hits from the microsoft.com domain.

 

Yeah i know it's x86 for 32bits and x86-64 for 64bits


I'll google itthen. Right now comp 3 is using 700MB with 1343mb page file

 

I'm glad it doesn't, because if it did, everytime someone started a game or something, not only would we have to wait for the game to load, but also for the RAM to be cleared into the page file..

 

That depends on what it'd use the RAM for. If it was simply a non-essential cache (for example recently used files), it could just be overwritten without having to dump it to a pagefile first.
And Vista does actually do pretty much that exact thing.

 

Remember, processes managed by the 64-bit Vista OS (or any 64-bit OS) will also have higher memory consumption due to the longer memory addresses.

 

But the same performance (or increased).

 

Not necessarily. Pointers take up more space, yes, on the other hand the code itself is typically more compact (fewer instructions are needed because of other improvements in the 64-bit instruction set)

In any case, the difference either way is going to be rather small.

 

I agree it's pretty small. However, from what I'm seeing right now, the consumption drops with the time windows has been open. I mean, when I open my session, I might be using 1.3GB but 2 hours later, I'm at 740MB

I haven't seen that in 32bits.

 

does anyone leave Vista's SuperFetch utility on?

 

Yes, anyone who understands what it does and gives it a few days to sort out the usage patterns it needs to make it helpful.

Gary

 

Yes. On my Vista PC, both Prefetch and Superfetch are on.

 

i reformatted my laptop a few days ago and i've left superfetch on since then because i know it's still trying to learn my usage patterns. before the reformat, i left superfetch off.