Vista RAM issues

[hardyb]

Hey guys,

My HP Vista is running at about 54% of my 2gigs of memory idle. I was thinking about adding 2 more but im not sure. Is it worth it and is vista running too much? What should I do to calm it down?

Brock

 

[davidinsarasota]

Same here on the 54% of 2gigs. Makes me wonder because I have used some very memory intensive programs, like dvd encoding and the RAM has never exceeded 58%. What gives?

 

[genec57]

Vista Ready Boost uses available ram to enhance performance. You will always show high ram usage but ram dedicated to ready boost will be released when needed by a program.
At the moment my 4gig machine running only outlook and firefox shows only 590 megs free.
Ready boost is IMHO one of the coolest features of Vista.

 

[pkellmey]

So far, on only 2 gigs, I have never run out of memory either by DVD ripping with multiple programs open or audio ripping, even when using BOINC in the background. I have not played above 1024 resolution, but none of my graphic intensive games have had memory issues either. It appears that high res graphic intensive games or heavy photoshop may be the only reason for 2+gig that I can see so far.

 

[Apoc]

I have 2 Gig ram, i run NOD32 and spy sweeper but thats abou it when idle, no sidebar. and my memory usage is about 34 percent, when i was running Norton 2007 and adaware it was 29%. Never over 50. How many background programs are u running?

 

[pkellmey]

I average around six programs in the background and the biggest memory hogs are office apps, because of all their services. Sometimes, BOINC will cause an app to slow down when it is switching threads its computing, but unlike XP, it hasn't caused a max mem issue at all. I have an AMD X2 5000+ and I also noticed that either Vista is better at sharing apps across the cores for background performance or it has better performing APIs.

 

[Wonderwill]

Strange...I have 1 gig with 57% idle. Maybe Vista just tries to keep usage in the 50s and puts the rest in page file.

 

[pkellmey]

It's based on your historical program usage. If you don't open many programs or they are small programs, then there is less that it allocates for pre-fetch, performance monitoring, etc. For laptops and other low usage PCs, 1G RAM is acceptable (but 2 would ensure that you don't have future problems).

 

[Wonderwill]

It's based on your historical program usage. If you don't open many programs or they are small programs, then there is less that it allocates for pre-fetch, performance monitoring, etc. For laptops and other low usage PCs, 1G RAM is acceptable (but 2 would ensure that you don't have future problems).

I think you are definitely right. I tried testing BF2 on Vista, and boy did it slow down. Then it locked up while unloading resources and eventually shut down. I think I'll stick with XP for gaming until I get more RAM.

 

[trooper1947]

Vista uses 1 gig to flat out run . 3 gigs will help and keep vista from throwing any extra needed ram into that slow virtual memory area . Watch that HD light ... with 3 gigs she won't be flahing very much or at all during high memory useage

 

[joke]

Vista Ready Boost uses available ram to enhance performance. You will always show high ram usage but ram dedicated to ready boost will be released when needed by a program.
At the moment my 4gig machine running only outlook and firefox shows only 590 megs free.
Ready boost is IMHO one of the coolest features of Vista.

Not meaning to challange (too much, ReadyBoost only mirror's the current page-file (and I too think it is great). It is SuperFetch's job to consume all of the available memory by acting as your proxy. It looks at your use patterns and tries to pre-load the programs that you normally run. This pre-loading will put a number of dlls and libs into the pagefile and otherwise load high-use programs into whatever available memory it can find. It also quickly releases that memory if things start getting tight. I have a 4G system which constantly has around 50M available... I have never had a resource issue and my apps usually start MUCH faster than I have ever seen with the dead one.

 

[wilson44512]

im running 2 gb of ram and i can play bf2 and bf2142 just fine

readyboost uses flash memory. read here

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx

 

[1234567890_44]

Strange...I have 1 gig with 57% idle. Maybe Vista just tries to keep usage in the 50s and puts the rest in page file.

you really should get that computer upgraded to al least 2 GB RAM. You really can't multitask with 1 GB on Vista home premium

 

[cratos]

Well if you guys take a look at this screen shot below you'll probably feel surprised.
the comp i am using has a 512 9600gt card, 4GB at 1300RAM, 2x 3.16CPU
I have been trying to figure out these problems with ram for a while now.

1. Why does it show that i have only 3 GB of ram.
2. Why does it take up to 50% (1.5GB) of my ram just to run windows with no applications.

I have come to several conclusions.

1. My 512 card is one part of the ram that is missing, the other 500 is a mystery.
2. The ram showed as used is complete bullshit since the machine uses all the ram at all time and subsidies the RAM used for the RAM needed.

I maybe wrong, but these explanation make me sleep better at night so that i wouldn't go around targeting vista employees.

 

[godbrother]

What gives?

Vista... Is what gives. XP only uses 198MB on idle. Lol, opposed to the 1.2GB Vista needs.

 

[fowang]

i think you dont know how vista works with a reply like that!!!

 

[PaulR08]

Read the article about how to check the memory that your Vista machine uses:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Vista-RAM-Performance,review-1364.html
I have just over 3 GBs installed and never run into bottlenecks. A 64-bit version of Vista can use over 4 GB if you have a need for it.

 

[godbrother]

i think you dont know how vista works with a reply like that!!!

Me? 🙁

 

[dmroeder]

yeah you godbrother. This topic has been beaten to death since Vista's release. There is a logical reason for both the "issues" that the OP posted in this wicked old thread. You need to read up on "32 bit max ram usage" and "superfetch".