[SOLVED] I don't understand how Win10 uses Ram

[fomrat]

I have an Alienware Aurora R8 desktop that came with 16GB of RAM. (Yes, I know, I could have stopped there.)

- Hynix HMA81GU6JJR8N-VK, DDR4 2666MHZ, 2x8MB DIMM

For the heck of it I added 32GB. I figured, worst case, I'd use the 32GB, but if the original 16 worked with the 32, why not?

- Crucial CT2K16G4DFD8266, DDR4 2666MHZ, 2x16GB DIMM

And it all plays nicely: BIOS recognizes it, memtest86 loves all 48GB, Windows 10 sees it.

(I'll use Performance Monitor terms here.)

So will anything use all that RAM? I never see more than a tad over 16GB (but definitely over 16GB) "In use", and the better part of the other 32GB "Available/Standby". Like, always, no matter what I do.

I don't run anything particularly demanding (I'm pretty sure Civ VI (play) uses far more than Visual Studio (work)), but I'd like to prove to myself that I can actually "use" a goodly portion of the 48GB.

What am I not understanding?

 

[Eximo]

You would just need to load more applications up. Or work on larger projects in VS.

Unless you are doing database development or something, don't see that happening. Large video or photo editing would be another way. 3D modeling with lots of assets/textures.

Windows 10 is actually probably using some of that excess memory for its processes, it will even hibernate applications in memory when not in us. Or something like that, lot of complaints when win10 was new, people thought it was using up all the memory, but it was doing so to make certain things faster because the capacity was there. If you had less RAM it just wouldn't do that as much.

What all that RAM gives you is the ability to just never close anything, with little effect on your system.

 

[fomrat]

I was concerned partly because I had written a quick console app to eat up ram, with each instance gobbling 3.999gb a shot. But while I saw allocated memory shrink, it had no effect on actual. I just realized that allocating a 4gb array isn't enough -- you actually have to fill it with something (duh).

I just filled up 40gb of ram, so I'm happy. Ironically, it's the processor that gets almost brought to its knees whilst writing the number 7 over and over again ;-)

Thanks. I now know you're right...

 

[Colif]

For the most part, very few applications use vast amounts of ram. Some like Star Citizen still want more.

Most I have used ever was 10gb and that was playing Civ as well. Empty ram is just wasted ram... and 16gb is still enough for most uses. 32gb is future proofing you may not need on current PC.

Win 10 compresses data it isn't currently using in ram, and only if you ever run out will it start swapping the compressed data into page file.

Win 10 can run in very small amount of ram, it is most efficient in that regard compared to all WIn versions until you reach XP. So its only when you seriously run out of ram that PC should slow down to a grind.

 

[fomrat]

https://www.driverscloud.com/images/signatures/img_215399_0.gif

For the most part, very few applications use vast amounts of ram. Some like Star Citizen still want more.

Most I have used ever was 10gb and that was playing Civ as well. Empty ram is just wasted ram... and 16gb is still enough for most uses. 32gb is future proofing you may not need on current PC.

Win 10 compresses data it isn't currently using in ram, and only if you ever run out will it start swapping the compressed data into page file.

Win 10 can run in very small amount of ram, it is most efficient in that regard compared to all WIn versions until you reach XP. So its only when you seriously run out of ram that PC should slow down to a grind.

I was talking about CPU -- I watched it hit and stay at 100%. Surprisingly, Win10 itself was still quite responsive. Eight instances of my app each eating 4gb ate a lot of CPU. Given that each does nothing more than allocate and then write a single value to each byte allocated, I assumed it was that initializing that was doing it.

But the app was written for the express purpose of using up lots of RAM, so it's not like I'm complaining that it did what I wanted it to do ;-)

I was also curious about the workings of gcAllowVeryLargeObjects (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/do...chema/runtime/gcallowverylargeobjects-element ). It enables greater-than-2GB arrays, and supposedly is limited only in array bounds (Int32), but I found a definite 4GB limit; though that may have been the bounds limit, come to think of it, given that my array had a single dimension and the limit is UInt32.MaxValue...

 

[falcon291]

Windows 10 RAM usage is really strange. I have a 32 GB computer, when it started, after Steam, Origin are started, it uses 5 GB RAM. When it found enough RAM it claims that RAM. And it is as others wrote how it works and it is not an issue.

Same computer of mine with 16 GB of RAM, would be using less RAM, because it then has less RAM. Kind of smart in memory usage.