Computer refuses to use full RAM available

[DaddyM0E]

I have a Dell Precision Workstation 690 running Win7 64-bit SP1 (and all current updates) with 16 GB of RAM. I have disabled hard drive caching due to the amount of RAM that have in hopes of making things run straight from RAM, which may not be the best idea, but, better, I think, than the 32GB swap file windows wants to create. I am *NOT*, repeat, *NOT* using this as a file-server, but rather a gaming machine. I got it for free, couldn't resist. <*grins*>
Anyhow, the applications, and especially the games load veeeery slow. One loaded they are fine and respond as expected. I took note, that the physical RAM, with no hard drive cache to write to, still refuses to budge above, say, 25 to 30%...ever....
Is there such a way as to tell Windows to stop being such a "must dump RAM to hard disk" system and actually *USE* the RAM I have more effectively?

Note to UNIX/ Linux users: Yes, I know your O/S Totally rocks, But I have no longer the time, nor attention to learn a new command-line driven o/s. Sorry.

 

[kunthakenthe]

You probably need to update to sp2.

 

[hunter315]

If you are only playing games on it you are limited in the amount of RAM it will use. 32 bit games generally can't use more than 2GB of RAM, only 64 bit games and a few 32 bit games can use more than 2GB of RAM at a time and even then they tend to use less than 4GB.

You can set up a RAM disk and have it store things in there, but there is a finite amount of RAM standard applications will use, if you really want to use all 16GB of RAM you are going to need to use a heavy engineering application or some video editing applications.

 

[bignastyid]

I think you have write caching and virtual memory confused. Write caching will increase the performance of a HDD(not needed for SSDs). What you are describing is called virtual memory(swap file also called a page file) not write caching. If programs are taking along time to load then run just fibe after they load that is a issue with the HDDs speed not the amount of memory the system has. With 16Gb of ram you probably be just fine disabling virtual memory. Re-enable write caching on the HDD to try and increase it's performance. What HDD are you using in the system? Here is a link with more info a write caching.

 

[bignastyid]

You probably need to update to sp2.

There is no SP2 for Windows 7.

 

[Adroid]

For gaming rigs most people recommend no more than 8 gb of RAM for the same reason... using more than 4-6 GB of RAM is somewhat unusual.

Similarly, I have seen numerous articles where 2x4 GB of RAM actually yields more FPS for games than 4x4 GB of RAM, which I am lead to believe is a result of most platforms supporting dual channel RAM and not quad channel (LGA 2011 is one exception).

 

[DaddyM0E]

Dang. Any way I can choose TWO of your answers as a solution? Well, Honestly, you were all correct, but Bignastyid and Adroid were just about right on the money. No offense Hunter315.

...and no, there is no SP2 for this version of Win7...yet.

 

[DaddyM0E]

Oh, and Adroid, I got 16GB of RAM, because I *could*, not because I *should*, perhaps that was part of my downfall. Going to switch out and remove some here in a bit and see what happens, should be interesting.