How Microsoft Reduces Memory Use in Windows 8

[bak0n]

I want to know what the footprint is by service pack 3. The growth via patches has always been a source of major memory hogging.

 

[eddieroolz]

Microsoft really took their efforts to another step with Windows 7 and 8. Though, I'm going to miss the rapid increase in RAM capacities we saw after introduction of Vista.

 

[shin0bi272]

I get where Kawininja is coming from. Your average game rig and/or home systems now have at least 4gb of ram ... some have 6 or 12 or even higher... The cost of ram has come down so far that shaving a couple hundred mb of ram out of the running processes isnt going to be a big deal for 99% of those running on a home system. Running win8 on a phone yeah you want it to run with as little ram as possible but there will be win8 mobile version for that... the full home user version though isnt going to be 40% faster even though it uses 40% less ram. Dont get me (or him) wrong though... less ram is always better but how much does a 4gb stick of ram cost now? 15 bucks? Not going to break the bank.

I do however miss the days of running the memmaker program to see if I could get an extra couple of K worth of ram out of my system... But those days are long gone.

 

[Shin-san]

I have 8 gigs of RAM, so this won't affect me much. However, 200 megs is a ton for an embedded device like a phone or tablet

 

[nikorr]

Looks especially good for laptops and such...

 

[dinh_hai_tran]

I don't think cutting down the memory usage is any important thing Microsoft needs to worry right now.... Microsoft should think about how to use extra memory that users have to speedup applications. I have 16 GB of memory on my system but only less than 3GB are used other are wasted.

 

[nikorr]

[citation][nom]dinh_hai_tran[/nom]I don't think cutting down the memory usage is any important thing Microsoft needs to worry right now.... Microsoft should think about how to use extra memory that users have to speedup applications. I have 16 GB of memory on my system but only less than 3GB are used other are wasted.[/citation]
U got it because it is cheap, people like u are fine with less than 8GB of RAM, but there are people who need more. Bit its like 5% of the users.

My brother in law has 32 because he can afford it,
but uses the PC just to check @mail : )

 

[nikorr]

But its like 5% of the users.

 

[gidgiddonihah]

[citation][nom]NapoleonDK[/nom]Lower memory consumption for the OS is great, but I would like to see how the differences affect larger applications like CAD/DAW/Games and photo and video editing. Will Premier use less ram? Ableton? Crysis?I'm really hoping to see something FAST, something NEW. [/citation]

FYI memory consumption for Premiere (It has an e at the end)/Crysis/etc are all handled by the programs themselves. Windows has very little to do how much RAM is used. The only thing I can think of is when you are using 64-Bit you can use more than the 3.2ish GB Premiere allows you to use in a 32-Bit environment. But then again you can use 32-bit on 64-bit.... That is why when a program has a 'RAM leak' its the program's fault its sucking up all that RAM.

 

[tomfreak]

I am fine with the memory optimization, but what about throw in some AI in windows to help our everyday job? Our OS today are still as stupid as it is since day 1. Win7 or win8 are just a GUI improved win95 + some added feature.

 

[tomfreak]

or perhaps if they really want optimize, they should reduce the CPU usage than RAM. I'll probably run out of CPU resources faster than my 8GB RAM. I probably MUCH prefered windows to auto switch to "resources" saving mode while I am Gaming @ fullscreen & window are running idle in background.

 

[tonitelaoag]

for me it's very important to have high priority to antivirus/spyware and firewall softwares running in the background because my pc is shared by many and everyone from time to time use their flash drives for each data files, its the quick detection of malwares that will keep my system some level protection

 

[waethorn]

[citation][nom]gidgiddonihah[/nom]FYI memory consumption for Premiere (It has an e at the end)/Crysis/etc are all handled by the programs themselves. Windows has very little to do how much RAM is used. The only thing I can think of is when you are using 64-Bit you can use more than the 3.2ish GB Premiere allows you to use in a 32-Bit environment. But then again you can use 32-bit on 64-bit.... That is why when a program has a 'RAM leak' its the program's fault its sucking up all that RAM.[/citation]

Adobe products have native 64-bit versions now, so applications like Premiere and Photoshop will use over 4GB of RAM if you have it, and if the application requires it for working on the data.

Also, RAM leaks can only use up to the available amount of RAM that Windows isn't using, or up to 4GB if they are 32-bit applications. 32-bit applications with RAM leaks still can't breach more than 4GB, even if your system has more.

 

[clonazepam]

In an unoptimized system, where someone doesn't know how to disable or set services to manual, memory usage adds up pretty quick. Right now this unoptimized system has 8GB RAM total. After Firefox 7's 5 tabs eats 340MB, just 1 of the svchost.exe's at 140MB, nVidia's various drivers and services, anti-virus and spyware protection, and zonealarm's free firewall, suddenly there's only 6.2GB avail, and 2.3GB free. I haven't even gotten started yet. So it adds up and every little bit will help, but remember, this is Microsoft fine-tuning it for the out-of-the-box experience, and Tom's readers mileage will vary when we get our hands on it.

 

[pocketdrummer]

I, for one, am not impressed by Win8 as it stands now. There are a lot of improvements, but the start menu seems like the wrong solution. I never scrolled through the start menu in Win7, I just typed the first few letter of the application I wanted and it popped right up. In win8, it seems you're forced to page through your applications. What's worse, the Win-Tab option doesn't show you all your open programs, it just pages through them. So, if you have a lot open, it can be VERY annoying paging through until the one you wanted pops up. Not to mention, some of the little apps they added have no obvious way to be closed, and they don't dock as they were demonstrated.

I'm expecting Win8 to be the next Vista, Win9 will probably rectify the current issues and become the next truly worthwhile OS

 

[clonazepam]

I'm going to install Win8 on a system this week, I think. Depends what time I have. It's fun to read these comments and see how other people tend to use their computers. I never use the search on the start menu, and very rarely use the start menu at all except for notepad, calc, paint, and microsoft update. To the far right I stack shortcut icons for my utilities like shortcut to my network connection, AV/Spyware protection app, ccleaner, defraggler, zonealarm, and recycle bin's in the bottom right corner. I put My Computer, , Network, Control Panel, and Firefox stacked up on the left side of the desktop. Everything else, like games are hidden on the bottom with rocketdock, and anything else I just just use winkey+r, and getter done that way.

 

[teodoreh]

Too little too late. They focus on the wrong path again. If Vista could run on 1GB before 4 years, that would be great. But today the 64bit version will surely be the 90% of all sales, and 4GB modules cost less than €20, so Windows 8's biggest problem is not memory management. The problem is the lack of innovation.

 

[theconsolegamer]

Win8; the OS that killed Desktop PC

 

[delazaren]

[citation][nom]Parsian[/nom]What??? Software optimization is the core of programming. I am not a programmer and I even I know that.[/citation]

In theory yes, in practice perhaps in the early days, now it is hardly the case. Unfortunately the norm attitude now is that if something takes to much memory or is slower get new hardware. Few commercial companies invest in code optimisations.

 

[dickcheney]

[citation][nom]Energy96[/nom]Ironic that they start caring about memory usage when most people have more memory than they know what to do with. This would have been useful back in 2003. RAM is so dirt cheap today its silly to run anything less than 8gb.[/citation]

Relax the tablets are coming, we are all going back to 2003 for the next 5 years... One day we might catch up to 2009, who knows.

 

[jabliese]

The only reason they are doing this is for the notebook/tablet/phone market.

 

[igot1forya]

I appreciate the memory savings, I really do Microsoft. But again I have to ask why do you continue to develop a 32bit version? THIS is the biggest memory bottleneck, not the OS's memory footprint!

Stop making 32bit versions so everyone can get on the same page for a change. I manage a small network of about 100 Windows PC's and about a dozen Windows Server and our venders always take to low road and make 32bit drivers and ignore the 64bit path (laziness). They do this because they can, business's who run industry specific software often don't have a choice of venders - so stop giving developers a choice to go the easy route! Many businesses can't get more than 4GB or RAM because of it and it's holding entire industries back. Please Microsoft, I beg you - we want to join the 21st century too!

 

[Guest]

@pocketdrummer

Win + Q and Win + W will give you the new quick search commands, (w will search your settings, think control panel stuff), also if you hit the winkey and then start to type (as previous) it will start to filter the tiles on the fly

As for the flip 3D, i rarely ever used it in win7, but i think alt-tab should still work in win8

yes i would love a kill command for metro apps (most annoying at this moment is IE) and yes i share your frustration over no obvious way to exist/dismiss/suspend/minimize a metro app (i end up hitting win + D to get to the desktop) as well as their incoherent nature, some will go into suspend when inactive, others will auto kill themselves after a period of inactivity while others just runs along with no care in the world even when sent to the background

ignoring the UI side, which i believe can and will be tweaked before launch, win8 does feel more responsive, be interesting to see if that will translate to better application performance

 

[digiex]

Now it boils down to app developer.

 

[kentlowt]

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]I get where Kawininja is coming from. Your average game rig and/or home systems now have at least 4gb of ram ... some have 6 or 12 or even higher... The cost of ram has come down so far that shaving a couple hundred mb of ram out of the running processes isnt going to be a big deal for 99% of those running on a home system. Running win8 on a phone yeah you want it to run with as little ram as possible but there will be win8 mobile version for that... the full home user version though isnt going to be 40% faster even though it uses 40% less ram. Dont get me (or him) wrong though... less ram is always better but how much does a 4gb stick of ram cost now? 15 bucks? Not going to break the bank. I do however miss the days of running the memmaker program to see if I could get an extra couple of K worth of ram out of my system... But those days are long gone.[/citation]
[citation][nom]dinh_hai_tran[/nom]I don't think cutting down the memory usage is any important thing Microsoft needs to worry right now.... Microsoft should think about how to use extra memory that users have to speedup applications. I have 16 GB of memory on my system but only less than 3GB are used other are wasted.[/citation]


Why encourage inefficiency? Windows has gone through years of being a bloated OS why allow them to take a step back. Inefficiency should never be encouraged or tolerated in any product.