Does Windows 10 use more ram than 7?

[Rafael Mestdag]

I've recently upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 and have all the latest updates for 10 now. But I noticed that Windows 10 seems to use more ram than Windows 7 using basically the same programs, like Chrome with 10 tabs open a video player and that's it.

The only difference now is that the video player I'm using is an app from the store instead of a common software(Potplayer).
Could it be that the apps and the store itself and/or other stuff are causing Windows 10 to use more ram than 7?

 

[Barty1884]

There's kind of a two-prong response here.

1. I believe, as of one of the Windows 10 'patches', they allowed system resources to use more RAM than ever before (on x64), can't seem to find a link right now. Looking at it on my work system (a W7 remote environment, W10 laptop), W10 uses 0.45GB with TH on one tab +9 tabs open at the homepage, W7 uses 0.14GB for the same 10 tabs, so yes, W10 can simply "use more"

2. The 'upgrade' process from W7 or W8.1 to W10 can bring on some 'bugs', resulting in high memory, CPU or disk usage (among other things). A clean OS install is one definitive way to 'fix' that.... but there are some other solutions that are less drastic.

 

[photonboy]

Yes, but that is a GOOD thing.

The point of your system memory is to have programs and data there to load rather than loading from an HDD or SSD. So you want as MUCH of it populated that makes sense with enough left over for launching things like games.

Windows 10 is more intelligent about how it populates that memory.

It's not perfect but it's better.

And the amount W10 uses in YOUR case has little to do with the applications you loaded. It's more about the W10 software itself.

BTW, my dad's laptop has only 2GB but W10 loads up 1GB. My sister has 4GB and it uses 2GB on initial launch, and I have 16GB and it uses 3GB, but often jumps up to 5GB after a few hours (or more if Google Chrome is open and eating up memory).

 

[Colif]

win 10 uses ram differently to win 7, in 2 ways.

1 When you close a program, instead of dumping all the data directly onto your hdd, it compresses it into ram so if you open the same program again, it will be much faster to load. This is cleared out on a restart so its not always waiting for you. It is also emptied if PC actually needs that ram for you

2. Because Win 10 uses fast startup, when it is turned off by you shutting PC off, it actually just goes into hibernate. Half your open program data is saved to page file, the other half to ram so when you start PC, its really only loading half the amount of info compared to a fresh startup on win 7 which has to load it all off hdd.