Question Lots of RAM caching, without the use of applications

[HarimMZ]

Good afternoon, I noticed that for 2 hours of work in the cache 8 gb, although I did not use only the browser(Chrome) and Telegram, no other applications that could take up this space.
I learned about RamMap application in the discussion of another issue and decided to install it to see what is in the cache, I installed it from here ( https://learn.microsoft.com/ru-ru/sysinternals/downloads/rammap )
In the end it doesn't show what is in it, although on the main page in the item "Mapped File" it seems to show the real volume.
Can you somehow help me to see what is in the cache?
I will be very grateful for the answer
Screenshots attached
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[HarimMZ]

If you're paranoid about viruses at this point, do a clean reinstall of Windows and monitor exactly everything you do and touch. Then come back in about a month of use and see if worrying about cached data in RAM changing is worth worrying about.

It's very mucky, like transferring files, reinstalling drivers and etc

 

[HarimMZ]

Do note that disabling these features will most of the time impact performance. Some positively, some very very negatively.

So watch carefully what you clear and disable. If you disable pre-fetch and then the OS or you re-enable it, that cache/swap could grow even larger. So keep that in mind as well. There is a chance it could grow larger.

Why? By disabling this function, caching should become less in essence

 

[hotaru.hino]

Why? By disabling this function, caching should become less in essence

And then you're going to wait longer or have hiccups in your applications if Windows has to put that data back into memory.

Cached data is free performance. If you use it, great. If it doesn't get used, there's no impact to the performance of the system.

 

[USAFRet]

Why? By disabling this function, caching should become less in essence

Caching is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

Windows is far better at managing system resources than you or I are.

Leave it be.

 

[Bob.B]

Why? By disabling this function, caching should become less in essence

Try it and test you can always turn it on again.

 

[HarimMZ]

Caching is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

Windows is far better at managing system resources than you or I are.

Leave it be.

Yes I completely agree with you, but I'm not against cached memory. I just want to know what the system puts there and for what purpose, in my situation it just caches different amounts of memory every day, although I use the same programs without exception

 

[USAFRet]

Yes I completely agree with you, but I'm not against cached memory. I just want to know what the system puts there and for what purpose, in my situation it just caches different amounts of memory every day, although I use the same programs without exception

1. What you recently used and are not using right now.
2. What the system thinks you'll need soon.
3. What the system may be using, or is going to use soon. This is a big one.

 

[hotaru.hino]

in my situation it just caches different amounts of memory every day, although I use the same programs without exception

Unless you're starting in the same exact condition and doing the same exact thing every clock cycle, you can never expect the same exact or similar results.

 

[USAFRet]

Unless you're starting in the same exact condition and doing the same exact thing every clock cycle, you can never expect the same exact or similar results.

And even then, the system may be / is doing its own thing.

 

[HarimMZ]

Unless you're starting in the same exact condition and doing the same exact thing every clock cycle, you can never expect the same exact or similar results.

Well I only use Chrome and Telegram every session.
Now there was a situation where the cache was 3gb, I went away for half an hour and the computer went into hibernation and when I came back the cache was already 7gb.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Well I only use Chrome and Telegram every session.
Now there was a situation where the cache was 3gb, I went away for half an hour and the computer went into hibernation and when I came back the cache was already 7gb.

What do you want us to do that'll make you feel better about this?

So far most posts here either have explained that caching is fine and whatever behavior you're seeing is not a problem to posting solutions that don't actually solve any problem and will likely make your system perform worse.

Also there's no way to disable RAM caching. Every OS does this. And they're all just as unpredictable.

 

[HarimMZ]

What do you want us to do that'll make you feel better about this?

So far most posts here either have explained that caching is fine and whatever behavior you're seeing is not a problem to posting solutions that don't actually solve any problem and will likely make your system perform worse.

Also there's no way to disable RAM caching. Every OS does this. And they're all just as unpredictable.

I was hoping that maybe there was someone with the same question before and they could somehow find an answer to what was going on.
It is strange that the system behaves like this, one day it caches one value and the next day it caches twice as much for no reason. And even having managed and downloaded an application that should essentially show what applications were opened and cached and there is not even anything close that could occupy so much memory.

 

[USAFRet]

somehow find an answer to what was going on

Thats been explained more than once.

The operating system is managing available resources, to give you the best performance possible, at this particular moment in time.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I was hoping that maybe there was someone with the same question before and they could somehow find an answer to what was going on.

None of us can figure out or tell you why the caching system is behaving the way it is for you. None of us here work at Microsoft on the Windows team for this specific feature, and even if one of us did, we wouldn't be able to explain in detail how it works due to NDA.

It is strange that the system behaves like this, one day it caches one value and the next day it caches twice as much for no reason. And even having managed and downloaded an application that should essentially show what applications were opened and cached and there is not even anything close that could occupy so much memory.

It could be as simple as the application requesting a lot of memory or conversely, releasing a lot of memory. And since there's available RAM, Windows doesn't see a need to evict whatever was released. But I don't know for sure, because I don't know with any exact detail how the caching system works nor how the apps you use want memory.

 

[HarimMZ]

Thats been explained more than once.

The operating system is managing available resources, to give you the best performance possible, at this particular moment in time.

But why is it different every time?

 

[HarimMZ]

It could be as simple as the application requesting a lot of memory or conversely, releasing a lot of memory. And since there's available RAM, Windows doesn't see a need to evict whatever was released. But I don't know for sure, because I don't know with any exact detail how the caching system works nor how the apps you use want memory.

Well, I wrote already that I use only Chrome to watch videos and streams, well, and Telegram to communicate with their friends on this all

 

[hotaru.hino]

We're running around in circles and you're likely not going to get a satisfactory answer here because trying to figure out what's going on requires a lot of effort.

So either you can accept that caching, regardless of the amount of space it's taking up, is nothing to be concerned about, or you can go email the support team or ping their community channels for the apps you use and ask why this caching behavior exists.

 

[HarimMZ]

We're running around in circles and you're likely not going to get a satisfactory answer here because trying to figure out what's going on requires a lot of effort.

So either you can accept that caching, regardless of the amount of space it's taking up, is nothing to be concerned about, or you can go email the support team or ping their community channels for the apps you use and ask why this caching behavior exists.

I'm still hoping for some miracle that someone will come along who can tell me what's wrong.

 

[JayBird99]

Unless you're starting in the same exact condition and doing the same exact thing every clock cycle, you can never expect the same exact or similar results.

Like maybe a thin client that controls a billboard or signage or something along those lines. You know more or less pretty much everything in RAM. Windows still will do its thing, so you never know exactly.

And even then, the system may be / is doing its own thing.

Yep. There is no way to tell with Windows without doing extensive decryption (because Windows usually encrypts RAM for security attacks) and reverse engineering how and why Windows caches what it does.

I'm still hoping for some miracle that someone will come along who can tell me what's wrong.

You’ll be looking for a Microsoft OS engineer that is itching to get sued for leaking trade secrets. Windows is closed source so there is no way or legal way to tell you how or why what is in memory is there. Even if it’s caching something you’ve never even used. You can evict it and turn off caching, but you better have a VERY fast drive.

I think we can all reiterate once more that it’s of absolutely no concern. Especially with 32GB. And if it is, Jesus take the wheel.

 

[Ralston18]

@HarimMZ

Nothing is wrong so no miracles are necessary.

The basic premise that nothing changes is the issue.

Even though you think/believe that you do everything the same (and you may be - sort of) there are milions of very fast changes going on and Windows is using the cache and changing the cache size to manage those changes.

If you spell a word correctly that is good. However, if you make a typo and backspace to retype then Windows has to do all sorts of other things to "fix" the typo. Other things likely to include adjusting the cache size.

Likewise if you are on the internet and there is some glitch or snag that requires data to be retransmitted then Windows must manage that and again adjust the cache size as needed. Perhaps more for an image than an email or text.

Or some backup, update, or other process launches in the background thus changing things and Windows responds and adjusts the cache.

And those changes will never be identical. And even if so, Windows would again change the cache size to match and cache may temporarily be the same quantitative size. But the cache contents would be different.

There is a basic flaw in applying the initial impression/belief that nothing changes.

The universe, people, computers, and the cache are always changing. (Google Entropy and Chaos Theory.)

As has been stated many times - do not worry about the cache size changing.

Remember the quotation:

"....... grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

 

[HarimMZ]

Like maybe a thin client that controls a billboard or signage or something along those lines. You know more or less pretty much everything in RAM. Windows still will do its thing, so you never know exactly.



Yep. There is no way to tell with Windows without doing extensive decryption (because Windows usually encrypts RAM for security attacks) and reverse engineering how and why Windows caches what it does.



You’ll be looking for a Microsoft OS engineer that is itching to get sued for leaking trade secrets. Windows is closed source so there is no way or legal way to tell you how or why what is in memory is there. Even if it’s caching something you’ve never even used. You can evict it and turn off caching, but you better have a VERY fast drive.

I think we can all reiterate once more that it’s of absolutely no concern. Especially with 32GB. And if it is, Jesus take the wheel.

And how do you propose to disable caching?
By disabling SysMain?

 

[HarimMZ]

@HarimMZ

Nothing is wrong so no miracles are necessary.

The basic premise that nothing changes is the issue.

Even though you think/believe that you do everything the same (and you may be - sort of) there are milions of very fast changes going on and Windows is using the cache and changing the cache size to manage those changes.

If you spell a word correctly that is good. However, if you make a typo and backspace to retype then Windows has to do all sorts of other things to "fix" the typo. Other things likely to include adjusting the cache size.

Likewise if you are on the internet and there is some glitch or snag that requires data to be retransmitted then Windows must manage that and again adjust the cache size as needed. Perhaps more for an image than an email or text.

Or some backup, update, or other process launches in the background thus changing things and Windows responds and adjusts the cache.

And those changes will never be identical. And even if so, Windows would again change the cache size to match and cache may temporarily be the same quantitative size. But the cache contents would be different.

There is a basic flaw in applying the initial impression/belief that nothing changes.

The universe, people, computers, and the cache are always changing. (Google Entropy and Chaos Theory.)

As has been stated many times - do not worry about the cache size changing.

Remember the quotation:

"....... grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I realize that I have no idea how many processes are running at different points in the computer.
But, my computer literally doesn't have a lot of apps and games on it (only one Hearthstone) but I haven't played it in a long time. So little on my computer due to reinstalling a completely clean version of Windows.
And it turns out that all the cache that is accumulated can not be justified by other applications of some kind, because they literally do not exist. And system services that accumulate 8gb of cache, it sounds like a fantasy.

 

[Ralston18]

The cache does what Windows needs the cache to do and does not need to be justified.

= = = =

You posted:

"I realize that I have no idea how many processes are running at different points in the computer."

Reading back I noted that I did not mention Process Explorer (Microsoft, free).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Use Process Explorer to take a broader and deeper look into everything going on in your system.

Much, much more than just "apps".....

And, by the way, do not stop, disable, or uninstall anything that you feel may resolve what is actually not a problem nor a fantasy.

Leave it all alone and forget the cache size changes and variations.

 

[JayBird99]

Leave it all alone and forget the cache size changes and variations.

Yes. Especially with 32GB. You're not missing anything at all, and letting Windows run like it should.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I realize that I have no idea how many processes are running at different points in the computer.
But, my computer literally doesn't have a lot of apps and games on it (only one Hearthstone) but I haven't played it in a long time. So little on my computer due to reinstalling a completely clean version of Windows.
And it turns out that all the cache that is accumulated can not be justified by other applications of some kind, because they literally do not exist. And system services that accumulate 8gb of cache, it sounds like a fantasy.

Dude! This has been explained to you multiple times already.
There's nothing to fix.
File system caching is normal operation. There's no need to fight it.

WT%& ?!

1. File system caching is used only, when there's FREE /UNUSED ram available.
2. As soon as some application requires additional ram (and there's no free ram available), file cache gets released and given to this application.
3. File system caching improves system performance.
4. Windows processes read/write files all the time - search indexing, windows updates, defender scans, event log writing, etc. The longer system runs without a reboot, the more files will be cached. The more web pages you have visited, the more temp web cache will be written to drive. These files will be cached too.
5. You want ram to be used. UNUSED RAM = WASTED RAM.