Vista x64 4gb users, turn off Superfetch!

i am going to have to agree with flipfire's logic here.

the bottom line is this, i have had superfetch and indexing turned off for well over 2 weeks and my system is running just as fast as when those features were turned on. the only thing that has changed is the annoying 3-4 minute period at start up that made my computer almost unusable with superfetch turned on.

you guys can argue all day and night if you want, i am talking real world results here.

 

well it didn't "enhance" my systems performance at all. the only thing it did do was make my system performance very sluggish for the first 4 minutes of use after start up.

explain.

 

Im guessing you didnt read the previous threads, and just posted your opinion anyway..

No it might not kill your HD but it will affect it make your HD run more thus more heat and power consumption. and NO superfetch isnt just at bootup, it will thrash the HD everytime RAM is free'd up. (eg. after playing games)

Would you rather load up every program into your RAM? or load up the programs you are actually gonna use? Again no performance difference with either. Which do you think is more efficient?

lol, read above.

have you actually tried disabling it? or are you just going against it because MS said its the bestest thing ever?

 

Your hard drive is always spinning regardless. There isn't going to be a change either way. The 'thrashing' is just your hard drive being read.

 

Well said.

Well played. Your argument was sound from the getgo. Thanks for the insight.

 

No change...

You actually think the HD consumes the same power in idle as it does under full load? you might wanna research about HD power consumption first. Yes the hard drive is gonna be spinning that the same speed, but do you actually think thats the only thing thats using power in the HD?

What about the heat? We all know that the HD heats up when it gets used more. (eg. like playing games).

Again, SF isnt just at bootup, it will do it everytime the RAM is free'd up. That will add up overtime.

 

This is incorrect. SuperFetch does not load every program into RAM. It does the same thing your computer would normally do before you actually open the program. That way, most of the work is done before you open the program. It should make your computer more responsive, and it does for me.

Maybe my results are a-typical. I open Outlook, Opera, and WLM about 98% of the time when I am using my computer. I have no problem with them being ready to go for me. But it's not like Vista is priming FEAR (which I haven't played in 6 months) for possible use.

 

When i meant every program, i meant every program SF is going to predict you are going to use. Obviously you arent gonna fit every program you have into the RAM.

 

But I don't think it even open any program, otherwise I would see it opened in a window. So what exactly superfetch does?

 

Ill try simplify it. Normally when you launch a program, it will first read from the HD then get stored into the RAM for quicker access.

Superfetch puts ALL the predicted programs you are going to use, already into the RAM, in turn the HD gets thrashed.

Without Superfetch, It will only load the programs you ACTUALLY use.

 

So the program is sitting in the RAM waiting to be executed, is that right?

So, is there a way to see it in the RAM?

 

i was wondering... why can we not choose some programs ourselves to be 'fetched'?

 

Theres no way seeing the exact programs cached in the RAM. Though you will see that all your RAM is used up from superfetch.

We cannot choose the programs that it fetches AFAIK. Superfetch learns from your daily program habits and puts it priorities.

 

Now, if it learns and put the programs in the RAM, why does it continues interacting with the HDD?

 

Because unless you have an enormous amount of RAM things will be put in and taken out of your cache as your system sees the need.

 

i'm aware of that, but if we were able to choose, wouldn't that be something we'd ALL benefit from, without any discussion?

 

Put a pattent on it

That's beyond any doubt a great idea. Actually, a list of user preselected programs could be loaded into the RAM at booting, how is that?

 

yeah thats the problem. Superfetch will just stuff as much programs as it can into your RAM, even the ones you probably wont use. If you have alot of ram like me (4gb), it will fill it up at the expense of the HD

It stuffed about 2.3gb into my RAM from the HD. Im quite sure i wasnt gonna use all the 2.3gb worth of programs that it pre-loaded. The programs i normally used was already open and loaded in the RAM when i did that test too. (FF, MSN, Winamp, etc.)

If i was able to choose which programs to fetch then id keep it on, no questions asked.

 

a windows 7 feature that should be proposed.

 

Yep, I will send an e-mail to Gates tonight

 

something like this couldn't just be implemented in a potential service pack 2?

 

supposedly, windows 7 will be Vista SP2.

 

then what does that mean for current vista users? we won't have to pay for an upgrade if it's going to be relabeled?

 

windows 7 will be a new OS so we definitely will have to pay for that. i am not sure if there will be a vista sp2 or not. regardless, your vista system will be supported by microsoft for years to come.

 

There will definately be an SP2 for Vista, hopefully it will let us manually choose which program to pre-fetch. That way, the HD only needs to pre-load the actual programs we use.

W7 is still far away...

 

i don't really consider 2009-2010 that far away. vista sp 2 could be 2-4 years away itself..

 

There probably will be a Vista SP2 at some point... but it might not be very exciting... it might basically just be a zillion updates all bundled up for you with some really minor extras, kind of like SP3 for XP.

 

well, i was curious, so i disabled superfetch.
i have a t9300, 3 gigs of ram. didn't notice any difference when opening firefox/openoffice/gimp.

 

So now, you're telling us that not only don't you want your hard drive being used, but you also have a problem with your RAM being used also. Right?

I see a trend emerging. I would respectfully recommend that you turn off your notebook now, and place it on a shelf somewhere my friend. This way, it will last you forever.

 

Do you actually read what i write or do you just like to type?

Where did i have a problem with it using my RAM? I couldnt care less if SF put the whole spanish armada into my RAM... aslong as it doesnt use my HD to do it.

I respectfully recommend you turn close this page and never post again.

 

No it won't. Corrosion will eat it eventually no matter what.

 

Ok,after a few days, I have noticed no change,neither in HDD usage nor temps.

Maybe Superfetch is nicer for 2Gb RAM...

 

That is pretty much the reason those of us that chose to disable have done so.
The only difference I see is my HD not getting contentiously accessed for minutes at a time when I'm not doing anything, and 1 less useless service taking up system resources.

 

For some reason my HDD seems to work more after I disabled superfetch

I don't see any deterioration so far, I'll keep it disabled for the moment.

One thing I noticed though, my RAM usage has gone down to 1.25GB from 1.67GB, nice!

 

Given your post count, and mine, I wouldn't be so quick to judge, if I were you.

Right. As you are a top expert in the inner workings of Microsoft operating systems, I will refrain from further posting to this thread and will leave the experts debate it amongst themselves.

 

nope, 2 Gb of ram here and superfetch was doing nothing in terms of a speed increase for me. my system is just as fast as with superfetch turned on.

 

have you tried turning superfetch off just to see? or is it that you would rather just watch yourself type worthless opinions without any real world test.

 

well something doesn't seem right there.

 

That's one thing some people see as a benefit that I don't really understand. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If the machine will release that 1/2 gb when needed, what does it matter if it uses it when you are not?

One interesting test would be to open 4 or 5 programs rapid fire with it turned off and then with it turned on. If it works as intended the programs should all start much faster with Superfetch turned on. With SF off, each program will need to be loaded to RAM from the HD individually, which takes more time.

I imagine this was what SF was designed for...preventing collisions when many programs fight to load into RAM.

 

Well, I'm back to 1.63GB. Which is normal because I have opened my usual programs. But here is the point, I don't see a big difference in speed as I load the applications.

 

Hi.

I have 4GB and i have over 3GB free on bootup.

regards

John.

 

i have done this exact test and the results were exactly the same with superfetch turned on and off.

 

A bigger RAM is certainly needed in case you have the need to have multiple applications running.

 

mini update on disabling superfetch - ram usage stays at about the same as it did while superfetch was on (around 40%)

 

Major update - Mine went down about 12-14% after disabling it.

 

Why oh why is this topic still alive? Seriously. Go install Ubuntu and then complain on the forums that the cache service is "using up" all your RAM and that they could "save RAM" by removing it. Then, after a couple people politely inform you why it works as it does, proceed to post pages and pages of disinformation about how evil caching is because it's "thrashing your HD" and "wasting RAM."

Go ahead. See what kind of reaction you get.

Disable Superfetch if you want, but you're not helping your system in any way. Less RAM used for cache != better performance. It works the other way around, because RAM is faster than your hard drive!

If you disable Superfetch don't come complain that your system didn't get faster, or that it got slower.

There's the little disclaimer. Now do what you want; it's your computer.

 

you are correct, turning off superfetch DID NOT make my system faster. BUT it did not get any slower either. the only thing that superfetch did was bog my computer down for the first 4 minutes after startup. so i ask you, why should i keep it turned on if the only thing superfetch does for me is slow my computer down at startup?

 

I do have ubuntu installed.

Everything i said had nothing to do with 'wasting' RAM. Like i said, i couldnt care less if Superfetch cached everything it could into my ram. aslong as what it doesnt use my HD and loads programs im actually gonna use.

Again, turning if off makes NO performance difference. So why should i let it use my HD to cache 2gb+ of programs im not gonna need?

We are not trying to make the performance any better. We arent making it any slower either.

 

mine was like that for a while, but then it eventually went to the way it was before, even after closing programs i had open

 

after opening programs it will stay loaded on the RAM unless something else needs to use it.