'Recent Apps' could utilize virtual memory better?

By Nylonee
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Nylonee

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Hey Neowinians,

I was playing around with Win 8, and I remembered that Android utilizes the power of multitasking in an effective way that doesn't eat up the virtual memory, by terminating apps that haven't been used in a while. That way the Android RAM always looks full, but it's actually being quite efficient.

But when I look at Win 8 and how it handles multitasking, it's quite similar to Win 7 in the sense that RAM cleans itself automatically and is rarely ever full.

My question is do you think Windows 8 could run smoother if they enabled the same strategy that Android had enabled? ie. Could Windows 8 operate better if every last byte of the RAM was used all the time?

Forgive me for any displayed stupidity. Consider me a noobwinian =)

Cheers,

Nylonee

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Danielle1989

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I dont think the RAM memory in Win8 is empty. Just look at Task Manager. Right now, after 3 hours of use I have "only" 123MB of free RAM (I have 2GB of RAM). Then there is ~850MB allocated in standby mode (probably what you mean with Android) and the rest of my RAM is in use.

Again, open Task Manager, click on Performance -> Memory and mouse over Memory composition. :)

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giantpotato

Posted
Posted

Hey Neowinians,

I was playing around with Win 8, and I remembered that Android utilizes the power of multitasking in an effective way that doesn't eat up the virtual memory, by terminating apps that haven't been used in a while. That way the Android RAM always looks full, but it's actually being quite efficient.

But when I look at Win 8 and how it handles multitasking, it's quite similar to Win 7 in the sense that RAM cleans itself automatically and is rarely ever full.

My question is do you think Windows 8 could run smoother if they enabled the same strategy that Android had enabled? ie. Could Windows 8 operate better if every last byte of the RAM was used all the time?

Forgive me for any displayed stupidity. Consider me a noobwinian =)

Cheers,

Nylonee

Windows 7 does use all RAM available. It caches items, but still marks that RAM as 'available' if an application actively needs it.

Experienced

br0adband

Posted
Posted

Go get this app from Windows Sysinternals over at Microsoft: RAMMap

That tool will tell you more about what's going on in your RAM at any given moment (assuming you refresh the display, of course) than any other tool that's probably ever been made for Windows. It's extensive and even somewhat complicated but, it'll give you the most singularly accurate "map" of what's going on in RAM you'll ever find, including every single bit of data, every single file loaded, where it's loaded, what mode of RAM (active, standby, etc) the file or data resides in, and a whole lot more.

Windows, since Vista, has strived to make use of every last byte of RAM available by caching as much user data and application data into RAM as possible and freeing it if and when RAM is needed for another purpose - that's what Superfetch is all about, and it works brilliantly but it does take time for the cache to become populated.

If you use an app or load some data, it'll be cached in RAM during the initial loading process and stay there until something comes along that requires the RAM space where that caching is happening. It makes the system more efficient overall and prevents "wasted RAM" which is what happens when you use the older memory model like XP and previous versions of Windows: a lot of RAM might be available, but it just sits there doing nothing. So for example if you have XP installed on a 2GB machine, the OS itself and all the drivers, etc may only require about 250MB to boot to the Desktop and from that point on, that means 1.75GB of RAM is doing nothing but consuming electricity and not giving you much back in return.

It's like having a Lamborghini in Park: it's idling, it's using energy/fuel, and while the potential performance is there just waiting to be tapped, it's not even spinning it's wheels.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM, literally. Windows Vista, 7, and now Windows 8 have been doing things to actually put that RAM to use instead of it idling and doing nothing for system performance, and Superfetch works very well indeed.

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