Vista RAM Hotfix

I came across this in forum elsewhere and thought you guys might want to know about it:

It is a hotfix which has been released by micro$oft, but is not officially supported. It is reputed to lower the OS ram usage and increase user performance:

"(KB940105 Hotfix)
Microsoft classifies this as a hotfix which may still be undergoing further testing, which means they aren't recommending that most users install this fix, nor are they even making the fix easy to get. Microsoft's official recommendation is that users not severely affected wait until the fix is delivered as part of a service pack, which would mean that it will not be normally distributed until Vista SP1 in late 2007 or early 2008"

There is a download link here:
http://thehotfixshare.net/board/ind...ds&req=download&code=confirm_download&id=2830

 

I'll wait for SP1.

 

Aww. I went ahead and installed it already. Seems to have lower my ram usage by a bit, nothing significant.

So when SP1 does come out, do I just go ahead and download it again or must I uninstall this hotfix then download SP1?

 

You should be fine installing SP1 w/o removing the fix. Anytime you have a hotfix (unless it's a Beta) and install a service pack, the service pack will install fixes that have not already been applied.

However, if they do tweak this before "officially" releasing this via WinUpdate you will probably want to install the adjusted version.

 

The effect seems to be pretty big. (and task manager won't show you the relevant statistics. The difference is a lot bigger)

Read parts 1, 2 and 3 of this article to see what the problem is, and how much the hotfix helps.

In short, under Vista, up to 500MB excess memory may be allocated in games, which might cause the game to hit the 2GB limit, and crash horribly.

Applying this hotfix seems to be a very good idea if you plan to run performance-heavy games under Vista.

Edit
This is of course assuming that we're actually talking about the same hotfix. It seems that way, but I haven't compared the KB number, and you didn't provide a link to a proper description of what it did.

 

does this work with 64bit Vista also, or is it 32bit only?

 

The hotfix, you mean?
I think it works for both (or rather, the problem exists for both, at least when running 32-bit applications), so I'd assume the hotfix can be applied to both versions as well.

 

ill give it a go when i get home then.

 

Wow, 420MB improvement for RAM usage while running STALKER

Glad MS fixed this one. I am sure it affects areas other than games.

 

I just installed the hotfixed, and my Vista uses 5-10% less memory than it was. Thanks!!!

 

Keep in mind that the difference is a lot bigger than what you can see in task manager. (The anandtech article goes into a lot more detail)

 

i just tried to install it on vista 64 and it said "this update does not apply to your system"

 

You can grab the x64 version from:

The Hotfix Share

 

System restore should uninstall the fix ?

 

This is a big improvement.

Usually when I play CoH via Steam (Kill me), I hit 1.79GB of RAM usage and that was for level 2 only! After applying this patch, it is consistently at 1.5x. It still kinda high, but at least it stays in the 1.5x region, nothing higher, nothing lower.

So far so good. Now for version two of this patch and SP1.

 

I'll wait until the update appears in Windows Update. I don't trust downloads from other sites than Microsoft.

 

MS will release the hotfix on their website for DL on August 23, but if you want to wait until it shows up on Windows Update, then that is with SP1 which will be released who knows when.

(a)Now
(b)August 23 2007
(c)Somewhere in 2008

You decide

 

i really dont play games but while im a work i use autcad, itunes, Firefox and aim usually open all at once. i dont lag at all bu wold this hotfix make a difference?

 

Possibly AutoCAD since it stresses the GPU to render you work. Maybe not a huge change for small projects, but maybe when its a large project with lots of elements.

 

not really rendering anything at this point i bought this laptop for college which starts in a few weeks but right now i'm in an engineering firm drawing floor plans. but since this is cad 08 it does take alot to run ill install it for future use thanks

 

give it a shot..not really anything to lose (i dont think.. )

 

This is awsome. If you go over the article you get the impression that these "Hotfixes" and patches tend to undo things that was designed in to Vista that help make it different from XP. Considering most people disable a lot of Vista, it looks like SP1 will just make Vista back in to XP.

 

This hotfix doesn't "undo" anything.
The changes to the graphics driver model are still the same. It simply minimizes the impact of one issue:
Under XP, games have had to keep copies of everything they uploaded to the GPU themselves, because sometimes, they'd lose the GPU, so they had to be able to reupload everything. So they set aside a good chunk of memory to store a backup of all these resources in system memory.

Vista handles all this for you. But the DX9 games aren't aware of that, so they still keep backups of all their assets. So now both Vista and the application keep backups of the same data.

Fairly straightforward consequence of the improvements Vista has made in this area (and yes, this feature in particular is an improvement). The solution is not to "undo" it, but simply to alter how and when resources are stored by the OS in DX9 games.

 

http://thehotfixshare.net/board/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=download&code=confirm_download&id=2840 KB940105 x64

 

How to install this file on vista 32 bit ultimate...?

 

I think I'll wait for the SP1, I'm not using anywhere near a disturbing amount of RAM right now. Nothing noticeable, at least.

 

ooh nice find. I'll install this when I get home. WoW uses up a TON of my 2GB, though it has leveled out a bit.

 

As already said a couple of times in this thread, you can't rely on what task manager tells you. The problem is that the application uses quite a bit more memory than you see in task manager.

If you have any applications that use more than 1.2GB of RAM according to task manager, I'd definitely install the hotfix.

It's not in beta or anything, after all. It is official, fully supported, and should work just fine.