So the question becomes: why do they bother having the graph if it's going to read 100% all of the time?

The second question becomes: how do you know how much memory is really being used, and how much is a cache that the OS will throw away if needed?

Linux systems have a similar philosophy - any file read goes into cached memory until it is full (lacks the super-fetch approach, though). But at least you can easily tell what's really used and what's a cache.

Caching.. hm. well..
Maybe Vista is better doing this, but I'm currently using XP with 2Gig, and for me, XP is sucking most of the memory for its System Cache, especially when doing lots of file-activites it's using every bit of the memory, and after a while the computer is just getting sluggish. it looks like it can't handle the size of the system cache, and doesn't throw things out.. so, I reboot the system, and it acts normally again..
I really hope this will work better in Vista..

Oh come on you're clearly covering up the fact that memory dealers are in bed with Microsoft to sell unnecessary RAM to poor old grandma.

But seriously, I've noticed this happening more with OS X with each release as well (though others may call it bloat I swear it's being more aggressive caching things in memory)

That said, I've often wondered; as there is a miss penalty for caches, is preloading the main memory in a cache-like manner only going to increase thrashing for many end users who may still somehow be surviving on less than a gig or two of ram under xp?

e.g. if you have 4gb of ram you can pretty safely start throwing stuff in there and still have room to spare. With a more paltry (normal?) 512 it seems like you'd have to have a pretty smart and judicious algorithm for managing what goes in there. Though I suppose we do have decades of cache population/eviction theories to rely on. It's just the penalty of swapping to disk is so tangible, and even audible.

So it is a service that you can go and shutdown?

Also if you look under processes does it show up how much it is memory it is taking up.

So it is a service that you can go and shutdown?

Also if you look under processes does it show how much memory it is taking up.

did game play speed up after the first few frags? How about trying to window out of the game hitting IE7 and then back to the game, are there bad performance hits for that?

Caches buy you less and less the bigger they are. I just can't imagine what it could even populate 2GB of RAM with. I don't think I even have 2GB of *applications* on my computer. Maybe if it cached data files too, but even then I'd be hard pressed to come up with 2GB of data I use on a regular basis.

This would be a tool I'd definitely want to play around with before enabling. Loss of game performance to keep grandma's cookie recipe in memory at all times doesn't seem like a very good trade-off to me.

Jeff, you need to read "Windows Internals, Fourth Edition". Task Manager in XP is a big fat liar. Windows Vista's Task Manager is not comparable.

The figure quoted as 'available' in XP is the sum of zero, free, standby and modified lists. The 'system cache' figure is the sum of the system cache working set (amount of physical memory used by the file system cache plus the physical memory used by pageable code and data in drivers, plus the kernel's paged pool) and the standby and modified lists. Your screenshot shows the double-counting: Available + System Cache is 1.5 times physical memory!

When a page is taken out of (trimmed from) a working set, it isn't immediately reused. Instead it is put on either the modified (if modified since last written to the page file or memory-mapped file it belongs to) or standby list. Links are kept from the process to the page. If the process then references the page again before it's paged out, it causes a page fault to occur but Windows can satisfy it simply by fixing up the page table entry - this is termed a 'soft fault'.

So how do pages get onto the other lists? Modified pages become standby pages by being written out to disk - a couple of background threads do this, mapped file pages are written after a maximum of five minutes on the list, and all pages start to be written after the modified list reaches 800 pages (about 3MB). Standby pages become free pages as the balance set manager (a thread that wakes up every second) runs, if the free list is too small. Finally, free pages become zero pages as the system zero page thread (runs at priority 0 and therefore only runs when at least one processor is idle) writes zeros to free pages.

When allocating physical memory Windows prefers zero pages for private user-mode page allocations, and free pages for kernel mode or mapped-file page allocations. (The use of zero pages is a security requirement to prevent processes being able to read other processes' data). If the zero page list is exhausted, Windows will use the free list and zero the page on demand; if the free list is exhausted for a free page allocation, it will then use the zero page list. If both lists are exhausted it will then try the standby list - it then needs to unlink the page from its original process at this point - and in the pathological case that that is empty, it has to take a modified page, write it out, unlink it, zero it, and then give it to a process.

This is why these lists exist - Windows has done work when idle to ensure that there is physical memory available on demand.

Speaking of on-demand: when VirtualAlloc is called to allocate memory, no physical memory is actually allocated. The 'commit charge' is simply incremented. It reserves space in the page file to make sure it can't overcommit on memory, but this reservation is a logical one - nothing is written to the page file. Only when a page is touched, and a page fault ensues, does a physical memory page get allocated (and the data loaded from disk if touching a memory-mapped file).

This commit charge is the value actually shown on the 'PF Usage' meter in XP's Task Manager, and in 'Commit Charge' total. 'Limit' is the sum of all page files plus physical memory minus whatever Windows can't page out.

There's no limit to how large the standby list can grow. The file system cache has a limit on its virtual address size of approx 300MB IIRC, but since this is implemented as a working set, pages discarded from the cache go on the standby or modified list! However, if files are opened as sequential scan, they go on the front of those lists, not the end, so are likely to be reused more quickly.

While on the subject of Task Manager, the Process tab's 'Mem Usage' column is actually the process's working set. However, this includes a lot of shared pages from system DLLs, so the sum of 'Mem Usage' normally is significantly larger than physical memory. It's impossible to tell if your program has a memory leak from this column. Switch on the 'VM Size' column (actually process private bytes) to monitor this, although this won't necessarily drop when you free from a heap.

So XP normally has a lot of moderately-recently-referenced data sitting in memory (but not recently enough to keep it in the working set) - well, once the system has been running for a while. The difference is that Vista is actively preloading data that it thinks you might use soon.

It is legitimate to have a blog on Bl*gSp*t, you know! (couldn't post originally due to URL)

I'm skeptical of this feature, personally. It sounds like it will work great for the typical user who runs a lot of small apps - Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Outlook, even maybe Photoshop. But it looks like it could perform terribly when running high-memory apps, like games as you yourself discovered, or media production software (routinely use 1-2 gigs for me), or even Visual Studio.

I guess it remains to be seen. I just don't trust Microsoft in this area, because they've tried these memory-management features before, like the default system-managed pagefile in XP, which almost every power user changes to manual.

Going to take a lot more than extra-aggressive caching (or SUPER-aggressive FETCHing!) to drag me into the Vista camp...

A few questions.

First, even though it says only have 6MB free in the text of the task manager. The graph shows 905 vs 334 MB being used back in XP. Is the OS truely using that much more memory?

Second, why is your page file 4gb?

I wonder what effect Vista will have on the life expectancy of RAM...

2Gb a mainstream memory configuration? Maybe among us techies but not for 95% of the PC buying population.

I've no evidence to back it up other than what I see non-developer friends buying and they generally get machines with 512Mb in.

I also share some of Aaron G's concerns. Memory intensive applications such as video editing and image editing are optimised around the OS's current memory management strategies. Until they're updated there may well be some performance drops.

Time will tell I guess.

This is very interesting, but can you tell me why my system doesn't FEEL any faster?

<<I just can't imagine what it could even populate 2GB of RAM with.>>

Just wait for Office 2007, or Visual Studio 2007
:-)

I wonder if this has any effect on power consumption (higher RAM usage), especially on notebooks?

So, what does it save to the HD when it goes into hibernate mode?

RAM _usage_ isn't important, except in certain server chipset (and, apparently, the upcoming DDR3 Sonoma chipset), since all the memory is always on. But if it's reading and writing to it often, that will definitely increase power consumption. Just depends on how stable it is, I guess.

I'd be happy to have XP preload .Net libraries at some point after startup. The only time I ever have a slowdown, even on a cheapo 5400 laptop drive, is loading the .Net runtime up for an app. Once it's up, no slowdowns anywhere.

The two big similarities in XP are the indexing service and the realtime defragmenter. The indexing service was a miserable failure, since it didn't integrate into windows search without bizarre syntax, and caused a significant performance hit at times. Defrag is much better; not amazing but it runs much less and does a reasonable job of keeping performance to certain levels.

It remains to be seen which one the huge vista cache wll take after.

I'm all for more performance. (Who wouldn't be?) But super-aggressive brainiac schemes like this don't appeal to me, at least, not in theory.

Responsiveness is important in a UI, sure. But another thing that's important is *predictability*, which makes a system more learn-able, something a user can become familiar with and adapt to.

If Vista is guessing what apps I'll want to load at a particular time of day or on a particular day of the week, its responsiveness will change when my routine is broken.

I think that's bad. A major app that always takes a few seconds to start is OK. It would be hugely irritating to have major apps *usually* start up almost instantly but *sometimes* take many seconds.

With hybrid flash-cached hard disks and pure-flash hard disks supposedly on the horizon, the benefits of such a complicated scheme may be short-lived anyway.

This performance dip will go away as people programming games learn to deal with Vista. This is only a problem for the first generation of things, it will go away. Probably quickly; if Linux is suddenly the best option for running XP and older games, M$ is going to be in for a big fat surprise.

All it really would take for them to lose their home market dominance in a few years would be WoW / Starcraft / Warcraft III not running as smoothly on Vista as is it did on Linux.

As long as there's some sort of manual control over what to prefetch (similar to how the system tray will guess your commonly used tasks, but still give you manual control over what shows), then it could be kinda neat.

Fast startup times since it asyncronously loads after boot, combined with fast app launching times for mozilla and WOW... that's about all I'd want anyway.

I think any perceived dip in performance per Jeff's anecdotal game performance story is unlikely anything to do with SuperFetch. There is no way to know that SuperFetch itself is causing this difference - it could be any number of complex side effects that cause this to be the observed behavior. After all there are 1000's of difference in Vista any of which could be impacting the behavior directly or indirectly.

The issue SuperFetch looks to address is this:

In a demand paged virtual memory system, things get flushed out to disk automatically based on needing to make more physical memory available. That is, less recently used pages gets pushed to the page file to make more room available. A user is affected by this when they go to lunch and something low priority (or periodic) runs causing all the desktop apps and data to page to disk. However, when the operation finishes, nothing causes anything to get swapped back INTO physical memory proactively. Therefore you have a bunch of free physical memory after returning from lunch because everthing is now idle including the background processes that ran.... It takes the user to return from lunch and try to click on MS-Word window or something to swap stuff back in....again on demand.

SuperFetch looks to address this proactively for the user by attempting to bring things back into physical memory auotmatically via some clever usage statistics of predicting what you are going to try and do when you return to using the computer.

This is stictly on an opportunity basis as a low priority operation itself and should never affect actual normal priority behaviors. Anything proactively restored to physical memory can be easily be discarded since it is already backed by the pagefile....no differently than the case where you were already using MS-Word and simply switched to a new application.

The only case SuperFetch should be able to affect anything negatively is the following pathelogical cases:

-It predicts wrong at the exact instant you were going to do something else and it starts to chew up some physical memory you all of a sudden need for something else. This impact should be trivial as SuperFetch's actions will cease as soon as you do something else more important.

-The added size and complexity of the operating system to implement this feature and to track statistics and such. Again, should also be fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things.

on my RC1 build, it initially appears that you can start/stop superfetch just like any other service.

As far as having manual control over whats cached and whats not, I personally don't care. the L2 and L1 caches have served us pretty well through the years without us nerds micro-managing what is/isn't cached. I'm not approaching Superfetch any differently.

<i>[Jeff observes that SuperFetch hurts realtime game performance badly, then opines that] the question shouldn't be "Why does Vista use all my memory?", but "Why the heck did previous versions of Windows use my memory so ineffectively?" </i>

Maybe because previous versions of Windows understand that realtime games response time is far more important than Word's startup time.

> hurts realtime game performance badly

I wouldn't say "badly". It's just annoying for the first minute or two of gameplay. The game is plenty playable.

I should also note that I'm preternaturally sensitive to hitches in framerate.

No poweruser people only open 1 internet explorer window, and star reading his mail, and infecting his computer with virus. Thats computers have only 256 MB of ram, and you can open more programs, but is not the normal use.

But future users will open more programs, and frezze others. Linux users are a good example of powerusers: some linux users open firefox monday, and close it sunday, 7 days with the application open. As you have more memory you understand that you dont really need to close apps.

With +768MB people will start using more than 5 IE windows, and every windows will have more than 3 tabs. So RAM usage will grow a lot. And more windows users will work like linux power users.

> This performance dip will go away as people
> programming games learn to deal with Vista.

This is the real kicker, and I'm guessing that it's not the kind of thing that can be solved with a "10 Ways to Make Your Game R0XX0R On Vista" article in MSDN.

It's something that happens with each major change in the technology stack, from the CPU on up through drivers, OS, and utilities, and it's only solvable through trial and error.

For example, take MSFT's own MechCommander 2. The disk usage pattern of that game is such that it interoperates horribly with realtime virus scanners. It seems obvious now, but it probably didn't when the game was being developed.

A change to the stack always hurts initially, no matter how good the developers making the stack change or the games might be.

Anyone else here remember when Win95 would not only boot in 4mb of ram but was actually useful?

905mb of ram vs 334?? I think the more realistic question is what is that CD's worth of ram doing?

And why would I want memory allocations and drive access to be constatntly waring with some background thread that thinks it is "helping" by loading something I might, but probably won't actually need?

disks will wear out faster, CMOS DRAM will use more power (proportional to state changes), fans will run more, busses will be busier (sic) ... basically, you're using more of your hardware more of the time. perhaps that's why our brains only use 10% of their capacity -- using more would wear them prematurely and it's difficult to cool a brain as it is now... :)

my mom told me to put stuff back where i found it. displacing a cache line is fine, as long as you put the original contents back when you're done using the cache. but what that original line is no longer available, or needed? then choose something else to put back. that's all that superfetch is doing. microsoft should make "refetch" APIs available so that third-party companies can tune it to prefer real-time app's, drivers that consume lots of RAM, and locking app's into VM... seems that the old unix "sticky" bit is now required again... remember this:
chmod +t vi

Very interesting article. Many people should read it instead of bashing Vista for no reason at all and thinking you will need at least 2Gb to run it find.

The way SuperFetch work it seems like your PC would be faster after a few weeks of use so it knows what you do and when you do it. Quite like some thermal paste takes 200 houres to be at 100% efficiency. The only thing I'm also wondering is if you change your routine, will it gets slower/worse?

On my current computer, WinXP would recommand 2Gb of PageFile to me so I would set min/max to 2048Mb. Now it seems like Vista recommands more "3Gb" even if it doesn't use more.

Something that I'd really like to know is if you plug a USB stick to use "Windows ReadyBoost" feature, will the OS use in first our fast ram or that usb key? Because if it would use the key which is obviously slower than any ram, it would result in slower performance. I'd really like to know more about how it works as it could be really interesting when the "next generation" of usb key will be out. Those new ones will be small like a 25 and be ~6Gb! Ah and mostly, would it be much faster than the PageFile?! As I won't keep my usb key plugged if it's the same thing or worse than PF. With the low price of huge HDD, it's no more a problem to raise the value of the swap file.

I'm sure it would need a day or three to relearn your new habits, bt in the meantime things will only be as slow as they'd be without the cache, assuming the memory manager has the power to allocate over the cache at will without overhead.

Readyboost is not a RAM expander, it's a hard drive cache. It wouldn't make any sense whatsoever to use it as main memory when DRAM is orders of magnitude faster.

Disks are the only hardware components that are really going to wear out from overuse, rather than from age or abuse, adn this won't even put extra strain on them. Most compenents die from a bad power supply or improper cooling, and the amount of heat these caching technologies will generate doesn't compare at all to how Aero will keep the cpu and gpu burning.

There had better be a way to tame/turn this off or I'm going to be pissed. Especially since I plan on setting up a fast RAID config sooner or later, in which case app start-up time will drop considerably anyway but I'll still want to be able to use my RAM quickly.

Also, Windows historically sucks at managing memory. It gets very fragmented, which leads to lots of swapping which leads to sluggish performance which eventually leads to crashes. As a matter of fact, the ENIAC (yes, that thing with the vacuum tubes that were constantly burning out and had to be replaced) was actually more stable than my Windows system is now due to the fact that I regularly use many memory-intensive apps whose demands Windows cannot meet for extended periods of time and therefore eventually crashes. Ergo, constantly swapping possible hard disk data to and from the RAM seems like an incredibly bad idea to me, unless MS miraculously managed to write a competent memory manager for Vista.

Okay, I got work to do so I'm done flaming.

Ok, So I upgraded to 2.5GB on my games machine so I wouldn't have to deal with the annoying first 3 minutes of slowdown I got with BF2. And now if I upgrade to Vista and use SuperFetch I'll get that back regardless of the ram I have? No thanks.

Hopefully you can just turn this off. But since I've heard nothing about Vista that makes me want to switch and plenty to get me to stick to XP, I'll think I'll be part of the majority that stays.

I think the real question here is why hasn't Windows ever allowed the user to specify how much memory to dedicate to a process manually? Or assign a priority so that certain processes are never swapped out to disk if at all possible? I'd kill for that...

<i>"...Vista is trying its darndest to pre-emptively populate every byte of system memory with what it thinks I might need next..."</i> microsoft is trying its darndest to pre-emptively populate every byte of system memory with what it thinks I might need next. they are usually wrong.

I wonder if this is worth a push to linux for the gaming industry. I see specialiszed/optimized gaming kernals in the future, where pre-emptive caching is kept to a minimum.

Microsoft's ideal predictive disk caching system:

IE: L2 cache
Word: RAM!
Visual Studio: RAM!
Firefox: disk
Apple web graphics: floppy disk
Linux ISO: they'd never use that, recycle bin

I think that superfetch is getting some undeserved criticism here. In particular, It seems that a lot of poeple believe that superfetch results in long load times in the case where:

1) all your memory is used to cache a specific set of programs, and,
2) you decide to start a program X, which isn't in the cached set.

I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that program X would take a longer time to start (with superfetch) then it would if superfetch wasn't in use.

What happens if the superfetch algorithm guesses your program choice incorrectly? well, program X is swapped into RAM from the hard disk. Guess what? this is exactly what happens if superfetch is turned off. Theres no need to write back a cached program to the hard drive if the program isn't in use. (and if the program is in use, you'd hit the hard drive penalty with or without superfetch).

Of course, not actually knowing the details behind superfetch, I could be wrong here. But it seems that in theory, there's no added penalty for superfetch. I'm not sure why so many poeple are "hoping" that this feature can be turned off. (by the way, as of RC1, it can be turned off).

I hope they have the most advanced theories on fragmentation, scheduling, paging, prediction, and hard drive thrashing. Microsoft has never had a great track record. I will await the final version.

Something to remember is that superfetch runs in background io priority. Because of the way io requests are scheduled, your foreground io request will never wait for superfetch longer than the latency of a single io request (max wait time is bounded).

> Well, SuperFetch saw a ton of memory freed to make
> room for the game, and dutifully went about
> filling the leftover free memory on a low-priority
> background disk thread.
I think that's not what's happening. 'A ton of memory freed for the game' would be 'freed' by the game by commiting or reserving it. So it would not be free but reserved.
I think it's about the 'low-priority background disk thread'. It is likely the problems you notice are due to badly prioritized threads. Wether it's the 'low-priority background thread' of a pre-release windows or wether it's some of Battlefield's necessary thread's running on a too low priority, I dont know.

how u turn off superfetch? its not lettin me use my pc at all with music programs , it lags them

>program X is swapped into RAM from the hard disk. Guess what? this is exactly what happens if superfetch is turned off.

This is correct, as I see it. I can't see any disadvantage to running SuperFetch. You don't have to erase data in RAM before changing it, you just change it. If you're not going to use the superfetched pages then it'd just load the program you chose as usual. Because of SuperFetch's low I/O priority, there's effectively no latency (as already said)

> how u turn off superfetch?

open up a command prompt, type 'net stop superfetch', and press enter. (you'll probably need admin privileges).

> its not lettin me use my pc at all with music programs , it lags them

It's probably not superfetch that's at fault (but disabling it could be a good experiment). I'd make an educated guess that it's a driver issue, but of course I can't be sure. good luck!

i tried but i got the message accesss denied and im the system admin?

>i tried but i got the message accesss denied and im the system admin?

when you open up the command prompt, open it by right clicking on the cmd.exe file, and select 'run as administrator' from the right click menu. You will have to go through the UAC dialog bs.

after doing this, you'll have a cmd window which *actually* has system admin rights. Even though you are already the sys-admin, you still have to do this... Confused? you should be. In my opinion, The UAC dialogs, unlike superfetch, are worthy of some criticism. Even if they do technically make the system more secure. More info here:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000571.html

got it , thanks

everythin runs faster now , only problem i found so far is when i start winwos, takes longer , something makes my computer think a lot after boot

Hi Jeff,
There is a way to disable superfetch in vista by setting the following registry key to a value of "0":

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnableSuperfetch

A value of 1 prefetches boot processes, 2 prefetches applications and 3 is for both.

They should have given the option to turn this setting off in the computer management mmc but that works.

mmm was guessin that it turned on by itself after boot, ill try registry edit

ok still not workin , i did set the value to 0 on registry and superfetch is still active , had to turn off again from cmd,
question my memory is still at 700 mb wheen i dont have anythin running, is vista usin those 700?

The theory on caching algorithms is still incomplete, and the practice very dependant on hardware for efficiency. I don't see where SuperFetch can manage to have predictors fiable enough to offset the (albeight small) additional cost of:
a) Reading data from the disk and filling the RAM
b) Resolve data dependancies when apps reserve some of the RAM that was used for caching.
The difference between this and L1/L2 proc-level caching being that proc cache memory is NEVER needed for anything else. That lets the founders implement caching strategies just tailored to the respective caracteristics of the hardware and cache sizes.
If Vista actually computes a caching policy on the fly, to fit the hw/sf caracteristics, think of the additionnal cost!

Does anyone wonder why they had to create a cache optimizer in the first place for Windows? It's a sad day when an operating system needs a crutch with this abundent amount of system resources!

What they really ought to have done was just design Windows NT/2000/XP to have a more customizable memory manager like Windows 9X did.

Windows 95's overall memory management was pretty bad, but the idea of holding off on using the swapfile until physical memory was almost gone wasn't half bad. At least, it wasn't if you had lots of RAM in your computer, like 64 or 128 megabytes.

Windows 98/Me introduced a supposed "improvement" in memory management by performing swapfile operations when only about a quarter of memory was in use. The main idea with this seemed to be to improve the performance of memory-starved systems. The trouble was that systems obese with memory got the "improved" treatment, too, which often led to unnecessary swapfile operations when nowhere near all physical memory was in use, leading to reduced system performance.

Thanks to the "ConservativeSwapfileUsage" and "vcache" system options, power users with loads of RAM in their systems could customize Windows' behavior when it came to memory allocation for programs and disk-caching and virtually eliminate swapfile access to bring out the best performance their systems could offer.

In Windows 2000/XP, like Win98/Me's stock configuration, the disk cache gets priority in system memory, and little-used loaded program data is shoved out to the swapfile, even when there's plenty of RAM to go around, all leading to increased swapfile activity. There is no customizability for swapfile behavior or disk cache size range. The most customizability there is for memory management is a swapfile size setting and a setting for whether applications or background tasks get more attention. The rest is hard-coded. There's no condoned way to configure the system to potentially eliminate swapfile usage.

The best that I've been able to do to get zero swapfile activity in a WinXP system is to stuff my system full of RAM(at least 512 MB, 1 GB for games) and disable the swapfile completely. This has worked extremely well for me, but many experts warn that doing this does more harm than good, supposedly.

Windows 9X may have been less stable and supposedly had a far less efficient memory manager than Windows NT/2000/XP, but the level of customizability in that memory manager, in my opinion, allowed for the potential to run far more responsively than Windows NT/2000/XP over a longer period of time. I'll admit, I still run Windows 98 SE most of the time, because it stays fully responsive longer, and XP doesn't unless I use that discouraged no-swapfile setting.

ToonPal,

I totally agree with you on disabling the swapfile. Windows XP (on my notebook) seems to like to grind the hdd for no reason, with swapfile disabled. Everything FLYS ... although there's the odd application that demands swapfile to be turned on (eg; Photoshop)

Zhichao,

Yeah, disabling swap file in XP makes the computer a lot more responsive.

Actually, Photoshop is just being stupid. When it complains and asks if you want to continue, clicking either yes/no will continue (wonder why it asks at all). Then you can work normally (never had any problem before).

Be careful disabling the swapfile. The benefits are questionable, and it generally adds more risks than it's worth for the negligible benefit:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html

Some of people are really stupid, doesn't even know what they are talking about.

Superfetch will slow your computer down no matter how scheduler is well coded because it's something like emulating another Machine. Scheduler is a program and a program managed by a program doesn't get much of a cpu's speeding up features unless Superfetch is accelerated by a hardware using parallel technic. It will silently eat your resource because when it calculating threshold that's where is stops frequently, that's where the bottleneck lies. Of course it's so efficient so with a better CPU power you won't notice anything but with let's say like 1G cpu, you WILL suffer.

I suffered. After just disabling superfetch, my lag stopped. I use 1G cpu with 655 ram and I changed everything and it lagged as hell and after I disabling superfetch it stopped.

Of course it helped launching time of a program like a Game and it really works pretty well but a slight bit of a idle, scheduler will take the chance and will launch Superfetch related code and that's where your computer stops slightly and it will happen like 5 time a second and you are facked.

Turn everything on, but turn Superfetch, Prefetch, Intelligent start menu or something feature off if you are using slow machine. DLL force unload helps too.

>Be careful disabling the swapfile. The benefits are questionable, and it generally adds more risks than it's worth for the negligible benefit.

The benefit is exactly the same as SuperFetch — not having my applications become sluggish due to the System Cache stealing all their RAM. Only I don't have to wait for the action which caused the System Cache to balloon to complete.

When I first encountered the bizarro situation where more RAM made my system more sluggish and realized the cause, I tried reducing the size of my swapfile. Guess what happened? Windows XP would complain constantly about not having enough virtual memory even when plenty of physical RAM was being consumed for cache! So I disabled the swapfile and have continued to do so on every desktop system that I've upgraded to 2GB+ RAM.

What's the risk? No crash dumps. Running out of RAM is probably a Very Bad Thing but in my experience the system becomes sluggish as RAM nears exhaustion so I take that as my cue to close something unimportant, like Outlook.

> So I disabled the swapfile and have continued to do so on every desktop system that I've upgraded to 2GB+ RAM

I had some very unusual things happen to me with the swapfile disabled. The last thing I need is more voodoo on my computer at this point.

Can you point to a specific benchmark that demonstrates a concrete, factual, data-backed benefit of disabling the swapfile? If not, then why do it? You're assuming quite a bit of risk for no benefit.

Overall system performance is unlikely to be helped by disabling swap and any benchmark with a significant disk I/O component will probably perform marginally worse since the system will be unable to trade swap for cache.

On a system with excess RAM, disabling swap can solve the problem of "My long-running applications take a great deal of time to respond when they are first accessed following some disk-intensive activity." I don't mind that a new VMware instance may be marginally slower to boot if it means that I won't experience a swap-induced lag when I switch back to Visual Studio. It's a trade-off which works well for my usage patterns. Disabling swap would not be a viable option for someone whose memory needs regularly approach the amount of RAM they have and I would not be surprised by any weird behavior that occurs once RAM becomes exhausted.

PS: Bigger textarea, please.

Does ReadyBoost make hybrid hard disk drives unnecessary? As I understand it, ReadyBoost allows a USB thumb drive to be used as a cache for frequently-used hard drive content. Is that the same thing that the flash memory on a hybrid hard drive does? If one is already using ReadyBoost, how much of a performance improvement will one see from replacing one's hard drive with a hybrid hard drive?

> Does ReadyBoost make hybrid hard disk drives unnecessary?

No, because the Flash RAM on the hybrid hard drive is accessible before the OS has fully booted.. so you can speed up the boot and hibernate/suspend sequences.

For the vast majority of users, disabling the page file is a very bad idea unless you have at least 2-3x perhaps the amount of RAM you normally use. The ill effects are described all over the place. For example, some apps allocate a significant amount of memory without ever using it (or take a very long time to use it). If you have a page file, this memory won't be allocated to RAM until it's used. If you don't have a page file, you have a big chunk of RAM doing nothing. Perhaps about 0.0001% of people out there will actually gain from disabling the page file, the rest will lose out significantly. The trouble is there is a lot of FUD out there about the page file and cache. The vast majority of people are too stupid to bother to read properly to understand what on earth they're talking about. For example, a lot of people call it a swap file. It's not, it's a page file. This isn't just a difference in name, it's an important conceptial difference. I currently have 2gb which is enough for me at the moment. But I would never ever consider disabling the page file. Perhaps if I had 6gb or so I guess, but that's way too expensive.

Forgot to mention. While there are probably some users (very few) who benefit from disabling the page file, as I mentioned, you also need to bear in mind that another reason why disabling the page file is a bad idea is because Windows simply wasn't designed to not have a page file. You may not agree with this design philosophy but it was Microsoft's decision and you choose Windows so you have to live with it. You should at least be aware, if you plan to disable the page file, that MS basically creates the page file in RAM because as I mentioned by design it isn't capable of operating without a page file. While obviously it's all still in RAM, so you've fulfilled your primary purpose of preventing it ever going out to disk, this should at least tell you about the Windows design philsophy and why disabling the page file is nearly always a bad idea.

Unless you've actually seen a properly conducted benchmark you should be skeptical of anyone's claims for improvements. People have a tendency to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Double blind tests for example have shown how BS Monster cables are but a lot of people still claim they are super wonderful. Similarly I've seen people make bizzare claims about how much faster their computer is thanks to something when this is obviously not going to provide them a speed improvement or if it did, not to the level they are ascribing.

A lot of people say OMFG why is my page file in use when I have however much RAM. Or why is my disk thrashing every so often? Who gives a fick if it isn't affecting performance (it may cause added wear and tear, but it's unlikely to be that significant unless you need a major RAM upgrade). My point is, don't care if you disk thrases or if your page file has heavy use. Just care about performance (and when I say performance, I mean properly measured not my disk is thrasing so it must be slow). I wonder too how many people are so happy that an unused program can load up a bit faster but ignore the fact that they are degrading overall performance in many other areas. You need to consider overall performance, not single issue performance. Sure disabling the page file may improve the situation when you open up unused background programs, but what about the thousand performance hits you also suffer as a result? Humans aren't goo at measuring overall performance, so again, don't assume it's better, measure it properly. Perhaps it's because I'm a scientist but for me, the most important thing is repeatable, measured performance, not well I think it's faster...

Why would you want Windoze to use ANY memory on a slow, spinning hard drive if you have plenty of way faster RAM memory available?

Suppose you have a PC with 1G of memory and a 1G swap file. Now, suppose you add another 1G of memory so you have a total of 2G of RAM. If everything was running fine before, you won't need ANY swap file because you now have the same amount of total memory as before, except that now it's all in speedy RAM.

What does Windoze do? It now recommends a 2G or so swap file, as if mysteriously now need a total of 4G of memory. Why? Windoze does not do any analysis whatsoever. It just multiplies the amount of installed RAM by a constant and then 'recommends' the result. Stupid!

Here is another thing. Windoze does not make much if any distinction between fast RAM memory and way slow virtual memory on your HD. This is true for Windoze XP Pro, and I would be really surprised if they changed anything in Vista.

You would think that the OS would use up all available RAM and then swap to disk. Not so. The only way to stop swapping is to configure the swap file size to zero. If Windoze really needs some room on the HD, it will just take it, and politely notify you, regardless of your settings.

Case in point. I was running QUAKE 4 some time ago, and did not realize that my system was using the "Let Windoze Manage Virtual Memory" setting.

When I exited the game, I found myself waiting, and waiting, and waiting- for 20 seconds or more. I glanced at the HD light and saw it was on solidly. Aha- Windoze is using the HD for virtual memory.

I have 2G of fast RAM in my system, and no way does Quake 4 need 2G of ram (yet). So, why the h*ll was Windoze using the HD?

I reset the swap file setting to zero, like I have always had it, and tried running Quake 4 again. When I exited the game, it was instantaneous. Your mileage may vary, but if you want way faster response from your apps (especially video editing and such), and absolutely no problems running anything at all, buy more RAM and disable the swap file!

BTW, you regain 2G (or who knows how much) on your HD as a bonus.
If you want to know what's using up the rest of your HD space, I recommend Sequoia View, from the computer science department of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. It uses an amazing visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide you with a single picture of the entire contents of your hard drive. It can be downloaded for free from
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

As NE said, this is Microsoft's "choice" (btw their privilege to choose). Because Quake, and practically any "windows game" let the question of memory management to be solved by the OS. So the creators of the game have to live with the OS. But the Win OS IS a multitasking system, and so it must optimize globally, and not just making favor for a particular program, or a particular class of programs. (that's one of the reasons why the hell was NT born) So why not blame Id Software for letting the OS manage their program's memory??? With all the fact that (I suppose) they knew the consequences. OS offers services. If you use them, you take the risks.
There is no viable multi-purpose solution for caching problems. If you want gaming performance, then go and buy a gaming platform, which was designed for gaming, and which can be blamed if the gaming performance is not enough, but this is another situation.

>> It just multiplies the amount of installed RAM by a constant and then 'recommends' the result. Stupid!
Do you know the underlying algorithm? Do you know the factors which resulted to that "constant" ??

A few answers to a few question a while back. First, yes on a high memory machine (>1gb) Vista uses around 700mb of mem in idle. Second, i currently have 3gigs of RAM so my view may be biased, but my I find that with superfetch turned off my pc performs FAR more sluggishly, (i.e. average app startup time up too 2secs slower). Starting up a more memory intensive application (such as Dark Messijah) seems to take no extra time than if super fetch was enabled, and seems to "free" the needed memory from the superfetch cache with no apparent problem -> I.E. no performance decrease or stutters with it enabled. This might be attributed to my 3GB of Mem, but this still leads me to believe that microsoft might actually have thought about the odd sod gamer who suddenly needs to free up 1.5gb of his "cached" memory for a game. Also as far as i can see the superfetch thread is totaly inactive during some high memory, full screen 3d applications (maybe another indication that microsoft thought about it carefully).

Also slightly more off topic, yes vista does use a larger page file. I'm not sure if it is sized in proportion to avalible disk space or installed memory, but my current (automatically configured) page file is just over 6GB in size.

Hmmmm. Seems to me personal preference also matters. I do NOT want some cache eating all of my free RAM, as I would like to know how much of it I actually have at any one time. Turning off superfetch helps a lot, as it reveals the standard windows memory leak, and allows me to tell when to reboot.

Even with superfetch off, it still shows me it's using several hundred megabytes for caching purposes. I won't mind a bit if an app takes a couple seconds longer to load the first time I use it, if I get a good idea of my actual free RAM in return.

Thanks to all who contributed to this discussion, but my mind's made up. Superfetch is OFF on my vista PC.

Dang! Spoke too soon. Yeah, it helps to turn off superfetch, but all memory still (eventually) winds up in the cache. It just takes longer. If anyone has any idea how to prevent that, please post it! I'll be searching elsewhere on the net, but this is by far the most helpful discussion I've yet found, so I'll be checking back here frequently.

Hello ;-)

Nice Article ;-)

http://www.stone1978.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9730#9730 => here anotherone Test..........

Greetings Stone

cushion treemaps.. UGG That is such a stupid looking app that it's not useful at all.. what a joke.. I use Drivescan from Stardock and man it rocks.. it shows me how much HD space is used by each folder.. expand that folder and it shows by each subfolder.. sort by size or alphabet. I immediately find out what app is taking up so much HD room.. A true app that saves me tons of time since it's just a few files in a folder I put it on a USB device and working on a clients system to free up room.. it saves me tons of time.

Now on Superfetch I don't know if I like it at all so far. Only time will tell but if I had 2 Gigs of ram I would set my swap file to it's bare mininum 2 megs max.. and not have it using HD at all barely. I like that memory to be used in the app I am using like a game or that.. not some app I am not using at the time.

Vista is waaaaay faster when superfecth is disabled...

I have a new gaming PC and Vista is quite slow with superfetch enabled.

My apolgises I'm no expert on these things, and it nice to have an explaination on why my new laptop is struggling so much. I only have 1gb of RAM and the only thing i was running was chess that comes with windows vista (nothing fancy) and after an hour my system started to struggle and I eventually had to shut it down. It was using 96% of available ram and was continually flaging up that is was low on memory.

As explained here it's running 20+ applications in the background. Now I sorry but I don't need them all to be there to save me 2 seconds when I actually want to use one.

JP, RAM is not the only thing to make your system fast. It's not like you can have a 2.0 GHz celeron processor, 2 gigs of RAM and expect it to be blazing fast just because you have 2 gigs of RAM. There is more to the "speed" of your computer than just RAM. You say you would like an explanation of why your laptop is sluggish? We need more information to help. What kind of laptop? What kind of processor? etc...

ps... this thread is nice :)

Great post, i just built a new system with 2 gigs of ram and vista, let me tell you, best desktop experiance i have ever had.

Checked this out from Digg. I dugg it.. :)

Thanks to EVERYONE for the very constructive and informative comments!

-- Maxximus

Wow things Linux doing for ages. Welcome to the new millenium.

What I found better than SequoiaView and Drivescan is something called SpaceMonger. Think of SequoiaView (Picture Boxes) mixed with Drivescan's flexibility. It lists the folders and subfolders inside the boxes, whichever one is taking up more space.

Check it out, I've been using it for quite a while and it's been saving quite a lot of disk space.

http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/

If you don't want to pay for it download the old 2.1 version, it works just as well.

I'm glad someone is finally explaining people how Windows works. Many of my friends have seen that "Vista eats up all their memory" and switched back to XP because of this false perception. Thank you for the excellent article!

Seems to me like we're missing the point about caching. The trick with a cache is how to remove unwanted pages, not fill them up with gunk that won't be used anytime soon. You buy enough memory for your computer so it can cache your normal working set of programs and data. You don't buy twice the amount of RAM you need on the offchance you're going to open that powerpoint or whatever that you need every couple of weeks.

Agreed re the sticky bit - for those who don't know the history of Unix you could apply a sticky bit to an executable that you expected to use all the time...when it was first executed the binary then "stuck" in memory. I should add that Unix only needed this facillity when RAM was very scarce and caching algorithms primitive. We're talking about the 1970's here.

One of the first comment from new users on linux is: "Hey, Linux is eating all my memory. With Windows, I had much more free memory!".

After explaining that Linux use the memory for caching disk access, they are happy with that.

Very funny to see the same question on windows some years later... :)

The strategy for using memory is different, but the question is the same.

Its optional, all I did is switched off superfetch from the services by using msonfig and under services browse to superfetch and just untick it

I HAVE 2gb of memory and I AM using vista 64bit ultima..... its super fast when I play bf2142 after switching the SF off, I had the same problem before when SF is on and playing the game.

Note: You need at least 4GB of memory in order to play any game smoothly + SF on.

WTF? If you're so concerned about gaming, do yourself a favour. Upgrade your RAM for starters. 4GB if you're dead set serious about gaming (and not the cheap stuff either, I'm running Corsair TwinX C2 Pro Dual 3200. That stuff is synchronised as a pair which is you-beaut for dual-cores).

If you're so concerned about the OS chewing up Page Files while it tries to recover its original status before you played that all-encompassing game for 6 hours straight, just buy yourself another HDD and move the Page Files via a 'Virtual RAID' to the 2nd HDD. Want more Page Files for Vista to play with? No worries, just set values for the 2nd HDD (as well as the original values for the 1st HDD) and you can double your Page File capacity.

If you're so concerned about the life expectancy of your hardware, then don't be. Any sane PC enthusiast will have long since upgraded to superior technology before that old HDD becomes unstable and collapses in on itself causing a black hole which starts growing larger as it twists and absorbs our dimension into the nether-regions of time and space. In other words, don't be a miser - thrash it while you have it. Push it to the extreme and beyond. If you have a decent enough system ie. built it yourself using QUALITY parts, she'll love you for it.

Remember, there is no substitute for quality. You pay for what you get - just make sure you do your homework first.

Get a Mac.

The question should actually be: "Why did previous versions of Windows use the memory so inefficiently, when so many other operating systems (ie Linux) have been doing this for ages?"

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

The only reason i switched from openSUSE to Windows XP is because some games are made with DirectX, and WINE its not optimized enough to make them playable under Linux-like systems.

I'll stick with my TinyXP Beast Edition that only takes 40 Mb of RAM! Can you believe that!?!

I hope this guy is kidding. For one thing only half of his memory is being used. and secondly has he not read anything about Vista at all? there is a new memory management system that uses much more RAM to keep the speed of the system up. get more RAM if your worried about it

"Why did previous versions of Windows use the memory so inefficiently, when so many other operating systems (ie Linux) have been doing this for ages?"

If you're refering to linux disk cache then I suggest you read up on it a bit more because it's NOT doing the same thing as superfetch. It actually works pretty much just like XP and 2000 did...

4gb of DDR1... Move up to DDR2 and enjoy some real performance. Read up on Corsairs - They only take the same ole RAM anyone else has and puts their name on it with a heat sink. Sometimes overclocking the RAM and then having people wonder why the RAM goes bad and its supposed to be so nice. If your running PC3200 on dual core, you've waisted your money - You will not get the performance out of a 939 socket dual core, that you would get out of a Socket 940 dual core that uses DDR2. So in other words, my 2GB DDR2 800mhz would blow your Corsair 4GB DDR1 (400mhz) out of the water. Vista does run better than XP - Superfetch seems to be a nice answer and the Windows team has a whole new group of people. In due time things will be worked out and I'm all for linux and playing games on Linux - But I feel my 8800 would go to waist playing older DirectX games. I prefer new games, no something thats been out for 3 years. Expect for BF2 :P

hehe quality?! - So if you pay more it must be nicer?? hahahah

No no, if it has LEDs on the RAM, it MUST be nice! hahahahaha

What's so efficient about 92 MB paged kernel memory anyway?

So they finally started doing the sort of memory management that *nix has used for 25 years. YAWN!

Had 1GB on my laptop, with about 600MB being used; added one more GB and now the usage is about 1GB. The goal was to reduce hardrive generated heat(and the fan noise), but the way it turned out, filling up the last available memory slot, (i'm guessing) has filled up an air pocket and my fans are running more often than before :( Can't believe the memory would be generating as much heat as the hardrive spinning...)

Hmm, for those people that are complaining about memory usage in the way this article states, try looking at linux computer memory usage. It is the same and linux has been doing it for a long time. Vista is just catching up on this.

Jeff,

Excellent Article! And Thanks for the Insight! Now I see there are plenty of comment and blog reactions to your article. Is it possible for you to rewrite/add something to your article..which takes some of the important points in the blog/comment reactions and advice us *How exactly Superfetch is good and under what circumstances, or it should be disabled under certain circumstances? And even if it should be disabled, how do you go around doing it ?* I guess lot of people would appreciate the eloquent way you phrase the problem and solutions to it. Thanks!

Interesting. I'll have to start yelling at my local linux guy because he obviously hasnt optimised linux to use up all my memory on duplicate cache requests that fill up my memory and decrease the performance of my computer.

Damn him! How dare he write something that isnt broken and bloated!

I like the days in NT4 where the original writers of the cache algorithms knew how badly designed they were and capped its memory limit at 25% of your system memory. Oh, if only the marketing drones in a technical conference showing off win2k beta1 werent shown that they couldnt increase the cache memory to use up 1/2 the system resources then we'd have computers that would still be kinda fast but wouldnt need 4gb of ram to be running 'efficiently'

I agree with Western Infidels about speed and responsiveness. A program and being sluggish because SuperFetch is caching a whole bunch of stuff into my RAM is more than enough reason for me to put off considering Vista for another year or two until it gets ironed out. Either that or just switching to Ubuntu and 'Wine'-ing all my favorite older programs.

Being in IT and having spent some time talking with a few guys from microsoft at a company showing of vista they recommended that everyone use 2GB really.

1GB is what's recommened as a minimum on the box

If you run 3GB+ vista DOESN'T use all your ram (it seems to stop on my system at just under 3GB used). After evaluating quite a lot of the new technologies I think superfetch is awesome but as I said you need a lot of ram for it really......

As for upgrading to vista I've seem tons and tons of reviews slagging it off with no technical commentary at all, these reviews seem to be written either by mac/linux users or people who just can't be bothered to do any research into what vista can actually do and they hate microsoft just because.

As an OS Vista has got some AWESOME features and superfetch is one of them but you WILL NEED a lot of ram to make the most of it. For those people without lots of ram try adding a 2GB flash drive (which are cheap) and configuring the flash drive using READYBOOST (another new feature) to improve performace..

Out of all the people in this thread I wonder how many have objectively reviewed vista and how many are linux fan boys who have just looked for an excuse not to use it???

At present there are a lot of driver issues around the 64Bit version but for anyone that has used it the performance in processor intensive apps is nothing short of phenominal.

This happens on my mac also. No matter how much ram I have, it uses up all of it within a few hours. Pisses me off, as I like to have at least 25% of my ram unused for opening up new applications. I can hear the disk grind working like hell when the memory usage goes to 95%.

Actually, I dont even know if its caching. I tend to think the mac is just memory leaking like crazy. Hopefully 10.5 will fix it with objective c garbage collection.

I turned SuperFetch off on my vista machine (with 2gigs of ram) and theres a noticable performance improvement. However like some people said, it just delays the fill up. Eventually it uses everything, even when you close all your applications. I wish they would fix this and give power users an option to manage our own F*#$&ing memory.

This seems to be a fundamental shift in computer architecture. It used to be that the hard drive was 'virtual memory'. Now the memory is 'virtual hard drive'...

Times are changing.

FINE. Your hard drive runs like a maniac becuase everything in memory has to be swapped to the page file so there can be enough space in ram to load your new program.

That is why memory is best EMPTY. So we do not have thrashing hard drives. Yes its sometimes less efficent, but I want my hard drive stopped and memory empty when I run my computer.

Is that so bad ? Hell no. Thrashing hard drives is bad not just ebcuase of the noise but it laggs the computer.

You have 1277 cache, with 2045MB total .. so, you're using almost 800MB of RAM doing what? Where is the REST of your RAM?

Microsoft's caching methods are exceptionally piss poor, and always have been.

Patrick: All operating systems have always used spare ram as drive cache, if they were capable of doing so.. Just that Microsoft's form of it sucks. All the way back to "FASTDRIVE" or whatever the hell DOS 5's cache program was called. It's horrible. And, of course, ther'es the fact that until Gigabytes of RAM became common, Windows had a tendency to use nearly all of your ram, using only it's minimum caching.

...
It'd be sweet if someone could write programs to replace Microsoft's piss poor internal parts.

Matt, you don't understand how this works. The cache is not a set size, equal to like 80% of your RAM, or whatever. If the system needs RAM, to run a program, it should immediatly free Cache RAM. Also, if running the hard drive while you're not trying to directly use what the hard drive is caching is lagging your system, then you need to invest in some newer hard drives, or SCSI drives.

So; here is a simple question:

How do you know when you need more memory for a system? Looking for a simple way; instead of having to add up columns.

It's very interesting but it doesn't seem to explain why Vista overall is slower than XP.
If these new methods are clever at prefetching pages and managing cache, why is it slower than XP ?
I would of expected each Windows release to be tuned and faster than the previous version, especially with these new features.

Eric,

I want only the programs I choose to be running to run. I want the computer to have as close to zero CPU cycles and the HD stopped except for when programs I choose to run need either. I want my memory empty.

none2,

Vistas slower becuase of the so called optimizations like prefetch and UAC and especially all the indexing.

Its like build in malware...

Ok first off, this little story is a new spin on a typical corporate myth to explain why their latest program uses more memory than last - 'we reserve memory as a cache' etc. I remember Adobe using it a few times, and even XP used it.

Remember that prefetching DOES NOT MAKE YOUR SYSTEM RUN FASTER! It only loads commonly used junk at startup rather than when you double click the icon! This is logical, think about it. Now, if you boot your computer and decide you don't want to run office first off, or whatever, or you don't just have 5 or 6 apps installed on your computer, it will actually be far, far slower with prefetch.

Lastly, you don't really know how memory works. When 'notepad' in your example is loaded into memory, there is no clearing of memory or anything like that, it simply overwrites an area and assigns it an set of RVA's. The program doesn't know whether it is loaded into swap or phys mem. Windows is so terrible it tends to swap out to disk even when only 10-20% of your memory is used... would you trust prefetch not to swap after this?

Lastly, filling up your disk with possible data is generally a BAD idea since any new data (and there will always be new data loaded, even with commonly used programs, think documents, images, etc) will push itself into memory causing cached stuff to swap. So prefetching will most definitely cause MORE swapping rather than less.

Congrats on listening to the microsoft PR campaign, you absorbed the ambiguous details really well.

I just turned off superprefetching and indexing services and I still managed to type this. Funny how my HD is quite and I have 1.2 gigs of free ram.

My CPU cycles on both my CPU cores are well close to zero.

OMG MY COMPUTER IS NOT OPTIMIZED. good

Woopee!

Finally a way to disable SF. I play company of heroes (COH) on my brand new box, an E6600, 2GB ddr2, 8800GTS, runs in 1280x1024 in max settings in COH in XP with no problems w.r.t. disk activity/lags and I get great performance.

I then tried playing under Vista, and I ran into heavy laggy situations nearly instantly, since COH managed to use 1.3GB RAM. The drive was constantly active during the lags, I'm sure it's SF bogging it down. After a game COH crashes if I tab out to desktop, so maybe I'll get lucky and avoid that too when I disable SF (though I doubt that is related directly to SF).

I'll try disabling SF when I get back home from work today, and find out if that saves me. I'd love to use Vista because of the added security features, but I won't sacrifice my gaming experience like that since I don't have problems with security in XP very often.

You idiots that disable the swap file are complete fools. Of course, this is the internet, full of millions of "self-made experts".....oh pahleze. ;)

The biggest shame is that Windows in the year 2007 is still a "hardcoded" piece of shit. It will be pretty amazing if we could "improve" the system on our own.

is there a way to make vista use less memory for the cache ?

Guys,,this vista caused me many problems,,in many ways,....I'm from Bulgaria and I'm sorry if my english doesn't sound to you good....I don't know the hardware very well but i know one thing,,I have never
seen system like Vista usin' so much memory all the time.That's makes me worried!!!!Why,why,,why.......the pc doesn't do anything,,,,and i'm using 700,...800 MB from 2G,...?????and if I start doing somthing going up to 1300 MB,,,what the .....uck is that????????I'm wondering if i start to do something with 3ds Max ,,how much memory do I have to have???????2,3,4,5 GB??????????????

to "omg"

I suffered. After just disabling superfetch, my lag stopped. I use 1G cpu with 655 ram and I changed everything and it lagged as hell and after I disabling superfetch it stopped. <-- lol

1GB CPU is "weak" at best for Vista, no wonder you seemed to have lag

Hi there, interesting article (and comments).

1. Linux uses that same caching strategy for years, just without superfetch. At college I had my linux machine running constantly for weeks and after a few days it touched the disk only when I saved or loaded a file. All applications were cached in memory.

2. Also the free moemory syndrome you observed in Vista is same in Linux. As explained above, free memory is wasted memory.

3. Superfetch is usefull for people with regular behavior paterns. Start PC, open outlook, word, explorer, winamp and work, close at end of shift. Other than that, it is a hindrance.

4. I'd think it gets worse with more RAM you have. Imagine that after booting superfetch is trying to precache 4GB of ram. That takes several minutes even from a fast hdd. I once saw a linux vs winxp comparison where the guy measured boot up times. he did time the start of the OS until the hdd stopped crunching data. XP was the winner (guess why). I'd like to see that test repeated with vista on a 4GB machine and superfetch on :-))

Linux users have the pre-load that is like the old prefetch used in Windows XP. Windows Vista superfetch is better than linux's pre-load, because the superfetch technology uses artificial intelligence technics.

Hey, whoa, I just read all of the comments here, took me a good 20 minutes.

Thanks to everyone who posted usefull information :P

I work with MS Servers all day. I have a half decent laptop that I generaly only use for work (RDP, Office, Internet etc.), its a 1.6 Duo, 1gig RAM. Worked perfectly for my needs under XP. I recently dual booted my machine with Vista (instantly disabled all the bubbly theme crap and aero bar) and noticed a severe drop in performance just using IE and office. Not to mention the fact that my laptop lags sometimes when just playing an MP3 (becomes jerky).

I have disable SF, Indexing and auto defrag and have seen a massive increase in performance.

Now as I understand it, the whole idea of the above services was to improve the experience of a user just like myself. I don't play games on this laptop, I use it for work, same stuff day in, day out. Why then has my experiance improved from disabling these? Somethings not quite right there...

To help XP to use more of it's RAM constructively, I have been using a progam called Speedbooster by disktrix

I know it's doing something..

I experienced the same thing playing Battlefield 2142 demo with 2 gbs of Ram. Drive would constantly run like it was burning it up. So I just put in 4gbs to test it out. IT STILL DOES IT! GRR. Forever and ever, as you play the game, the disk is working away, getting hotter and hotter. BF2142 does not do this under XP.

I don't know if SUPERFETCH IS THE CULPRIT, but it may also be SEARCH INDEXER... watching under the Resource Meter (reached by pulling up task manager, then clicking Resource Monitor button under Performance Tab, then dropping down Disk drop down menu), I saw it grinding away as well.

SO... IT MAY ALSO BE THAT THE BLASTED SEARCH INDEXER... I swear, if that's anything like that blasted Fast Find under Micrsoft Office, I'm going to shit a brick.

"How do I disable the search indexer?

After you install Windows Vista it will begin looking through your hard disks and building an index of your files. This is done in the background at a very low priority so as not to disturb you too much, so this process can take a long time. Durring this time, you will notice your hard drive light is constantly flashing.

While this process is supposed to be unobtrusive, some people have reported that the indexer slows their computer down so much that it's practically unusable. In this case, it is necessary to disable the indexer by following these steps:

1. Go Start: Control Panels
2. Click on icon Administrative Tools
3. Click on Services
4. Scroll down list to Window Search
5. Stop the process
6. Right click on it, do properties, change from Automatic Start to Manual

Probably windows vista has been tilored on low level users which use a computers for web browsing or listening to music, so the file load is the most expensive thing they may experience. Cachin files to memory then can be a good shortcut to achieve better performance.

The problem is for advanced users that really depend on system performance and free memory, like CAD, 3d animation softwares. Let's plot a simple scenario:
1) my Windows Vista boots and start to fill all my memory of crap I probably don't need.
2) Wow, my usually used software start in 2 seconds instead of 12.. but daily I load it just a couple of times in 10 hours work. I gained 20 seconds of productivity in my whole working day.
3) Then I start using that software. Contente cration softwares, like 3d animation packages, are very resopurce hungry. They must be anle to grow from 200MB to 2GB of needed memory in just few milliseconds. 4) Since the memory is not just free I suppose my application memory allocation will require much more time, because all the windows cachin crap needs to be flushed.
5) Differently from a game than once loaded in memory it can run pretty smooth for all the gaming session (so games could soffer of perfomance degaradation only in the ferts few minutes?). COntent creation software, ans scientific simulation softwares will keep to allocate a free memory as they need it. Maybe the program need 1GB just for a couple of seconds, then it will run with a low memory usega for other seconds and then up again. This is svery tipical. I'm pretty sure Windows will try to fill up the memory again as soon as it's released from my application, resulting a strong performace degradation. Windowns will use lot of processing power just to load data into memory, and just few second after all that cache need to be flushed because I need that memory.

All this will result in a very strong performance degradation.
I completely disagree with people that says unused memory is just wasted memory. Filling memory with any stuff is consuming processin power, and a computer have to execute just the absolute minimum to be as fast as it can when the user is requesting it to compute something.

I think I won't move to windows vista unless I don't have any other choiche.

I've had a vaio laptop running xp since 2004 and i'm probably going to buy a new laptop before the end of the year, but i'm concerned about how well vista will work, as i often use demanding applications. This is mostly because i'm an architecture student so as well as needing to run small programs like a few IE windows, Messenger, media player, at the same time, i have also in the past used Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time as archiCAD, and wonder whether the demanding visuals of Vista couple with the memory management system will be able to efficiently manage switching between these programs.
Something I find with XP is that i will have to restart my laptop to 'refresh' the RAM, as it seems to clog-up, i don't see why after a program has closed the RAM it was using can be cleared, but obviously i am no expert, and i would just like to know if anyone posting on here has any advice?

I HAVE SAME problem with Ram as lot of user are already saying,but mine notebook is having one more problem.
"when i start notebook the free ram shows 700 mb and use memory shows 800.the addition doen not count to 2040 since i have 2 GB RAM.
after runnign any small application it comes down to 140 MB.
Problem Starts now when i start installing any software (i trying Visual Studio 2005 then Free memory Comedown up to 6MB then error message shows that "can not copy delete/setup.exe file to system".
again on rebooting, and without running any application installation starts but slows down drastically.(seems like vista was trying my patience)and i gave up..

can any one comment on this Vista Installation Issue..

How can you really compare memory usage if you have 61 processes running on Vista, while only 44 processes running on Xp?

Well theres one thing for sure.
Vista us a money hungry Operating System.
I mean Bill Gates is Rich enough,why does he make Vista so expensive?
Anyway Vista sucks on average computers.
Well im running windows vista ultimate 64bit version.
and I dont seem to have much problem on my comp.
If it helps in anyway here is my comp specifications.

Intel Dual Core 3.6 Ghz extended 64 technology.
2.5 GB RAM(supports upto 4 GB RAM.
256 Graphics.

My question is "how much is Microsoft paying you?"

So I look at that screen shot and I see 1200 MB in cache, 2045 of system memory, and 6 MB free. And I have to wonder -- what is so hard to understand here?

The problem is NOT the 1200 MB of cache. Agressive use of memory for caching is a very good thing. (In fact, Linux has been doing it for years)

The problem is the 800 MB of memory required to run "a few instances of IE... plus one remote desktop".

Also: "I noticed that the system was a little sluggish, and the drive was running constantly. This was very unusual and totally unlike the behavior under Windows XP."

How about 'unacceptable'? If it were simply releasing cache, it would not need to access the disk drive. It really sounds like it was swapping things out to the hard drive INSTEAD OF releasing cache. That's just ridiculous.

***HERE IS THE BOTTOM LINE***

There is something wrong with this picture. The fact that we are even having this discussion, asking ourselves how well our current generation power-user applications such as 3D, Cad, Audio, Gaming, etc. will work is rediculous. I don't care how you try to slice it, machines with MORE than capable hardware should not see degradation in performance of software because of Vista - that's backwards!

/thread

Definitely feels better with superfetch turned off...

DISABLED in services
firewall
defender
superfetch

and if you have, let say router with firewall, you can disable windows defender and windows firewall and increase HDD access time by considerable amount.. I recommend that you use nod32 and it will give you much better substitute for defender, and all together I am finally happy with my system performance.

**
Core 2 Duo T5500
1GB ram 667
80GB HDD
intel 950

Experience index
cpu 4.7
ram 4.5
gaming 3.2
aero 3.1
hdd 4.8

Hhhm, definitely see an improvement after disabling the search rubbish and auto defrag, they can stay off. Superfetch off left me with more free RAM, but the system seemed a little more sluggish.

I have a Turion 64x2 with 1 Gig RAM and after switching off the search indexer and defrag, aswell as a few other unneeded services, I am left with a system that works much better with superfetch activated.

However, I do really game with this machine much, more general usage, but games seem a little laggy for the first 20 or 30 seconds, but after that they are fine, I simply wait a few seconds before playing.

Overall performance of Vista Home Premium for me is better than XP.

:edit: sorry above should read "However, I do *NOT* really game with this machine much"

Just an idea, maybe microsoft could take into consideration and giving control back to the consumer.

Imagine this:

Maybe a taskbar
1st thing on the taskbar has highest priority, last thing on taskbar has least priority. Like numbered 1 to 5.
And being able to drag and drop applications to different areas on taskbar to adjust priority.
You can keep an eye on your priorities and know at all times what your priorities are just by looking at your taskbar. And the consumer has total control. And user friendly because the taskbar has always been there, therefore they know what it looks like.
Then do something similar for background tasks ie virus scanner etc, like the toolbar.
Just an idear.
Mast

I'm in the same situation as you Gareth. I use my laptop mostly for work, internet, and sometimes some other programs and I've experienced various problems and delays just with playing a playlist in windows media player, having 3 word files open and 5 tabs open in my web browser. This is ridiculous to have in a new computer with just about the fastest processor in laptops available t7200 core 2 duo, 2gb of ram, and 100gb 7200rpm hard drive. My old laptop with pentium M, 1gb of ram could do three times each of those tasks plus run other programs without a hiccup (that laptop got stolen so that's why I had to get a new one). I've always been a Microsoft fan, but my frustrations are with Microsoft for being a billion dollar company but not being able to deliver a functional product. I have no idea why other companies that offer their products for free make products that are twice as good as many of Microsoft products.

you guys are complaining? I have amd 64 X2 4200+ with 2GB of ddr2 RAM, i did a clean install of vista business. once the comp starts up, i have about 45MB, thats right, 45MB of free ram left. msn messenger takes a min to start up, and since i do a lot of programming, visual basic 2005 takes about 2-3 mins to fully start up. i think thats ridiculous. my old intel pentium III with 800MHZ processor and 368MB RAM running XP pro was doing a way better job than vista. and lets not mention that vista IS A rip off of Mac OS X.
check this out and laugh your ass off, cause i sure did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdGt3ix2CQ

Vista is all bollox. I use windows 98 with an updated PC, and its fast!. Much better than all this Vista & XP stuff. And you can easily pirate stuff too!.

sure. win98 is a GREAT oS.
LOL.. for morons who believe this.....

Ok i have been reading all posts and my conclusion is this:

First off, alot of linux users here are saying that linux is doing this all the time, i doubt it. It might have better memory usage or whatever, but what vista does doesn't work.

A.I. if that is what superfetch does in the most basic way of AI then it is only usefull for the most basic users, the people that use it for work, start up mail, working program IE. then doing whatever you do with those programs, and at the end of the day you turn it all off and go home.

An advanced user never does the same with the pc so the AI would never know what you will be doing that day. That is if Vista has any form of AI.

Why is Vista slow on older machines? Because graphics and 3d in Vista are used way more then xp ever used and therefor needs a new age pc.
I mean, 1 gig was the minimum allready a couple of years ago. We are getting better processors, better graphics cards and others but why not more memory??

I just tryed to unpack 2 rarfiles both arround 4 gig and then started up IE it took me 2 min to start it up, i mean my pentium 2 was faster than that.

But a problem with all microsoft products is, that they aren't optimised for all the drivers, programs, ways of use,... something that would be impossible since there are millions of ways people use their pc. To be true i always sayed, don't switch os till they are about a year old. With vista i had to since the 8800 GTX uses directx 10 and will need viste to get the most out of my card. I mean we all hate microsoft, but in the end 85% orso of the people use it, including me.

Bottem line is, i and i think many with me don't what everything in my ram, i want to have my programs start up faster not have my file unpacked 1 min faster but meanwhile having to look at the status bar waiting for it to be unpacked because it won't start up any other programs.

For now i am going to see how i can decease the visual and the use of Vista and trying to get it optimized for my way of pc use. I don't care how vista looks since i am looking at the programs i am using, not at my desktop.

I am not saying i am an expert, just pointing out the way i see it.
greets

Just one interesting little comment popped up that was screaming to corrected, namely this:

> 4gb of DDR1... Move up to DDR2 and enjoy some real performance.
> So in other words, my 2GB DDR2 800mhz would blow your Corsair 4GB DDR1 (400mhz) out of the water.

Fact of the matter here is that memory clock speed barely matters any more.. DDR400 vs DDR2/800 has very little difference; even DDR2/533 vs DDR2/1066 has little, if any, difference. Core 2 sees some (SMALL) benefit from running memory synchronously with the FSB, but otherwise there is no "MASSIVE" performance benefit. I challenge any of you to, empirically, prove that memory that runs twice as slow (i.e., DDR2/533 vs DDR2/1066) can make a real (>5%) difference in performance. You'll find that it doesn't, on the same platform (CPU, motherboard, memory) having the memory running at DDR2/1066 will make -VERY- little difference in performance compared to DDR2/533.

PC's have already passed the point where higher memory frequencies translates to very small performance gains. There's no point in purchasing those expensive "fast" and hot running memory kits. They'll perform only marginally better then memory that's significantly cheaper.

"But Vista treats system memory like a cache much more aggressively and effectively than any other version of Windows."

So why is it sooooooo much slower than XPSP2 ? The most basic of tasks such as opening Notepad are dreadfully slow when compared to XP and even Win2K Pro was faster on a 1GHz machine with 256MB of RAM. Today I have an AMD 64x2 4600+ with 2GB of Super Talent RAM, an ATI x600 256MB video card and 1TB of SATA II drives all capable of spewing data at incredible rates and yet Vista is simply dog slow. This whole bit about SuperFetch and other technologies built into Vista would be great if they actually worked however what I'm seeing is a return to bloatware that is mandating unnecessary hardware expense with little if any return on the investment.

Further, the GUI just plain sux. If I wanted a Mac I would have bought one. I am well over the age of 10 and haven't watched Popeye by myself for quite some time. I want a real file manager not some sluggish piece of bloatware that has too many capabilities to do things I could care less about. And all of it is wrapped up in a nice dark Aero theme. YUCK !

And why didn't they include the XP theme rather than the Windows Classic ? I could deal with Classic if it really looked like Win2K but it's some bastardized mix of Vista and win2K that makes me cringe everytime I see it.

Allow me to clarify one thing. I use my computer for work and basic entertainment. I couldn't care less about W.O.W., BF 2142, Halo, or even playing flight sims. I have something called a "life" and most people playing these games will tell you that they don't so they bought one and installed it in a computer. No, I use a computer for building websites. For accessing information from groups of like-minded people. For finding materials and services for purchase. For organizing documents, images, music and videos. I want to do all of the above and more in the most effecient and most enjoyable manner possible. Why do I ride a 1000cc motorcycle ? Because it's fast, it's effecient and it's fun. Vista is none of these.

Silver you know what they say. Don't like it don't use it. When XP first appeared it took a while to wait for the shut down feature... now it's faster. give Vista some time and the hardware will make it faster... it's a lil bit more secure than XP, and it has a nice GUI. I have to say one more thing. if all the big companies like Intel, AMD and other will switch to Vista it means that this version of Windows is better than the old one (that's why its new to be better)

Do you realy have to defrag RAM?

Windows XP/2K/2K3 paid for my house.
And my cars.

Linux pays for my holidays. And my wife's wedding ring.

Vista will finance my kid's education.

I hope you all keep noobing out on this one so that real experts can keep making a fortune.

Having my frequently used programs cached in memory waiting to be activated quickly instead of the slow HDD load is fantastic but I just wish I had control over which programs should be cached or not and then it would be brilliant!

On my Vista PC I have timed starting an application directly after reboot and login. As I am a developer this was done to check performance of the application with an empty filesystem cache because it will access a lot of small files. The result was kind of interesting, at least to me.

The application startup just after login is 2-3 times longer whenever the ReadyBoost service is enabled. This is regardless of whether the USB flash memory is plugged in or not. Using the aforementioned method with the Task Manager and the Resource Monitor it looks to me like readyboot is doing some fancy boot analysis and saving the result to disk. Then if the flash memory is plugged in this process will then continue by writing/reading to the ReadyBoost flash memory which isn't that resource intensive.

I tend to want to start to use applications directly after login so this method of "boot speedup" isn't that useful to me. It is cheating to simply show the desktop before it is usable :)

Anyone with similar experience with readboo(s)t at startup?

I'm kinda with one or two others here on different ways.......:

1) yes XP was terrible when it first came out but now its great (ok maybe slight exageration)

2) I just bought a desktop Intel D915 processor, 512mb ram, 128mb ATI, and its terribly slow. It's like someone is inside winding up a generator (buying a 1gb ram next week)

Point being why do they release things that don't work properly. Ooh buy this Car with no engine, buy this house with no windows, buy this woman with no.......you get the point.

Raaaaa but knows it will get better when they release 'Windows Vista Service Pack 5 (2011)' which incidentally will be just before they release Windows Twix.

okay dumb moment <----- noob whatever....lol

Physical Memory (MB)
Total 446
Cached 178
Free 4

Now i'm doing the math but what is wrong.......... 446-178=4..... Yeah i'd like someone to explain it in a bit more simpleton words.

Hi Adrian, I suspect that you see 446 mb because 64 MB of your 512 MB is shared by on-board graphics as video memory.

I definitely recommend 1 GB minimum for Vista, just as I recommended 512 MB for Windows XP back in 2002/2003..

Hello Mr Atwood,

Yeah, i had 512mb on my old pc back in 2002 (XP). But when i bought new one no-one in store mentions how Vista is RAM hungry.

I was kinda referring to the 'FREE' part being only 4. Sorry. 446mb Total minus the cached amount = free. but the math don't work.

Purchasing 1gb (ordering shall we say) friday cant wait to see if puts a rocket up its arse or merely pushes it a little. Can upgrade to 2gb though if necessary.

1GB ram for Vista. I run it with just 512MB and it works just as well as XP on just about the same load. So I say Vista works fine on 512. After all I get no slowdown in any of my games and some of them need a lot of resources. For a 512MB memory system and I even run aero. I don’t run the sidebar all the time because I don’t see the point.

I run vista on the same laptop i ran XP on earlier. In my experience Vista is a lot slower. So this new way of handling memory doesn't seem all that good. Apps do not start/shut down faster. And the boot process is so slow I have to busy myself with something else during (like rebooting my Linux machine 10 times in the same amount of time, just for fun) or I'll freak out with technostress :) It seems Vista tries do do so many things it'll drown in its own mess and you have to reboot to get something remotely like performance out of it. And I'ts not like some person wrote "if you don't like it don't use it". I HAVE to use it, it's my job, and millions of other ppl use it. The pc at home is happily converted to Ubuntu and, surpise surprise, it's fast as hell.

I have noticed my computer now writes to the pagefile all the time but yet has 1 gig of RAM free. I don't know how this could speed up performance. I opened Excel and paging began immediately because I had 5 other apps open. Not good

Its how most linux distribution are doing since years.
Its how it Should had been Way before M$ "invented" it.

Vista is a good example of a bad OS. Huge effort into things which are not really required, and drowning required things.
I benchmarked Vista against XP -
REsults on http://vistams.tripod.com/pp.gif
XP beats Vista in every damn thing, 2D and 3D performance is damn low in vista.
Some people might say Directx 10 is required in Vista. But why the hell is Integer math so slow ? Every damn thing is slow, even hard disk access is slower. Does directx 10 solve all these problems ?
I dont care about Super Fetch Or Hyper Fetch, or Fetch the Whole damn Hard disk on the RAM, i just want it to beat XP in most of the benchmarks.

If superfetch in Vista caches often used apps into memory then why on earth does show up more memory usage when you start an application? No matter what application I start up, the task manager shows a increase in memory used, and lowered when I shut it down.

So what "often" used apps is stored/cached in memory?

I'm a noob when it comes to stuff like this, but I don't like the idea of Vista almost using 1GB of ram after bootup (normally 600-700MB).

Is there some place that describes in detail how Superfetch works officially in detail?

"officially" Superfetch works as Microsoft says, but you should know how it "really works".
I dont know much, but will tell you what i know -
It Keeps a record of what you regularly use. Most often used application get the first preference to be cashed on RAM.
Second most used gets second chance, and so on. It Fills the RAM till there is no RAM left. If in Vista your RAM is not getting filled, either you dont have many applications on the system, or you dont use many applications, or Superfetch is turned off.
So when you are in Vista, just pray to god that you should only need the most used applications, or welcome to the really slow hard disk access. But since most used applications are already on RAM, fewer hard disk transfers are needed than in XP. But it does need hard disk access to fill the RAM initially, I it does it in background, when computer is idle.
But after benchmarking with XP, there is no real performance improvement. Vista is slower in all benchmarks.

I would agree Vista is slower in every way. I have a vista ultimate laptop with 2 GB RAM and 7200 RPM HDDs and even if I disable SuperFetch vista's doesn't perform. I had the exact same model running XP and I was very happy with the performance. Since the HDD was faster applications/data loaded faster and believe it or not 5400 to 7200 RPM made a big difference. Even the same fast hardware (actually a bit faster CPU) is much slower than XP. In my case I can hear the hard disk going weather I am doing anything or not, and this causes the laptop to get/stay hot. The Visual Studio 2005 loads a little bit faster and usually opens a large solution a tiny bit faster than it did on XP. Now this is fine if I am only opening 1-2 apps. As soon as I start opening more apps/windows which I often do, since there isn't enough memory available and the apps are not pre-loaded in cache (actually RAM) now vista has to first clear ram to make room for the new apps being loaded or it will use the page file (which is actually worse).

Out of the 2 GB RAM 340 is free and I am only using one IE window, one VS 2005, one Outlook 2003, and a yahoo messanger. As soon as I opening SQL Server 2005 Management Studio the free memory dropped to 290. SQL 2005 studio loaded fast but if it was already in memory then why did the same use up more memory?

Page files were needed becauses system's didn't have enough memory so they provided virtual RAM so that the applications could still function and get the RAM they needed even if the system lacked RAM. So if we have 2 GB of RAM then why do we still need 2 GB of Page file? 1 GB space on hard disk is being used as virtual memory while the 969 MB of RAM is used as a "cache", I think thats either a stupid choice or a very shrewed choice on Microsoft's part.

Anyone in their senses (someone who is not a die hard worshiper of Microsoft) will agree that it doesn't make sense to use 2 GB of hard disk space as virtual RAM for applications while 969 MB of RAM is used to load stuff that the user may/may not use.

Well, anyway there are plenty of other thing wrong with Vista, it freezes so many times (might be that the hardware is getting too hot since vista keeps running the disks/memory to preload stuff). Graphics performance is poor although I have 512 MB dedicated video memory.

I hope someone at Microsoft is ready and hopefully in Vista service pack they will do something to fix these issues. Btw, turning off the SuperFetch service doesn't do anything the system works the same way and still uses the similar amount of memory for "Cache".

Talk about performance!!!

in IE 7 on Vista I simply pressed the down arrow key to scroll down to the bottom of the page, and while scrolling the CPU usage was 75% until I reached the bottom of the page which took 3-4 seconds. I don't really see any consistent/measurable performance improvement from a P4 machine with 512 RAM and a Core2Duo 2 GHz machine with 2 GB RAM.

Well, I have to disagree with the the system-memory-as-cache as a blanket philosophy. In my scenario, I record and process audio files that often exceed 1GB in size. Shutting off SuperFetch, ReadyBoost and a few other services has drastically improved the handling of these files and reduced the amount of hard drive activity on my PC exponentially.

While a nice idea, the SuperFetch service is not as "smart" as it should be. If it can anticipate a program launch it should also be able to shut itself off and purge the memory while that program is open. Trying to work with a 32 track audio recording in Cubase when Vista is "anticipating" that I might launch a video editor is not a pleasant experience.

In this case the used memory IS wasted, and it is a detriment to system performance.

As for CPU usage, after I turned off those services, my CPU usage at rest is now 0% for both cores -- as it should be. Or would you say that 0% CPU usage is a waste, too? ;)

well i have 512mb of ram for windows vista home basic and it only uses 56mb of ram when its idle. but when i load internet explorer or aim or aol the basic stuff it goes from 56 mb to 400 mb! i know that those programs dont use that much memory. also ive noticed that when i load a program that takes 2mb it takes up 50 mb!

"Anyone else here remember when Win95 would not only boot in 4mb of ram but was actually useful?"

UGH, NO, actually I don't remember that. Why? Because it wasn't useful in 4MB of RAM at all, not one bit, and don't try to claim that it was. Unlike you (it's pretty obvious that you're full of shit), I actually ran Windows 95 on 4MB of ram. But really, I suppose something did run well in 4MB and Win95: Notepad. And Wordpad if you didn't write anything.

Now, Windows 3.x performed like champ in 4MB of RAM. Was it useful? God no, it was Windows 3.x.

Seriously, why do people see things with rose tinted glasses? This worship of the past is out of hand. Windows 95 was gross. No amount of RAM made it pleasant to use. 98/se was an improvement, Millenium Edition was an embarassment, NT 3.51 was... well I never used it, so I can't comment. NT 4.0 was a good first step, 2000 in my opinion was as close as they've gotten to doing it 100% right. XP was a nightmare in its first year (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL anyone? No? Howabout WinNuke 2? That's just embarassing) But after that it got better and better. I suspect the same will happen to Vista. Don't jump on the bandwagon just because you're easily lead. Actually USE things (opening notepad 20 times is not usage OK?) and form your own opinion.

For you 'benchmarking types', here's the kicker: 2000 was MUCH faster than XP when XP first appeared, and the delta between XP and Vista is much smaller. Eventually that didn't matter. Why? Because we move on and get better gear, and upgrades to the software are made and a billion other factors that you cannot ever possibly hope to factor in to your little metrics. Honestly. With how things work these days benchmarks are just about the worst metric for performance (anyone with a grain of sense having compared things like Java to .NET to C++ can tell you that).

For a bunch with severe worship of the past, you people forget pretty quickly just how unpleasant the past has been. Perhaps you'd all like to go back to 1930-1945? It was -certainly- much better then right?</sarcasm_for_dumbasses>

Seriously, move out of your "command centers" (thank you Kevin Smith), your mom will be happy to reclaim her basement.

Well, I just came across this and will be turning off superfetch and indexer as soon as I get home. My PC has become dreadfully slow and I've found that it appears to be a ram issue. I have 1 gig of memory and Vista uses 500 megs of it for cache, leaving me next to nothing once I have a couple programs up. And the hard drive is constantly going which gets rather annoying.

yeah ive noticed slower gameplay on vista than with xp. i dont know as much as i want to know about my computer, but on games like World of warcraft and stuff, i cant play them as good as i think i should be able 2, in terms of pixels and image quality and things of that nature. i have 2gig of ram, a duel core AMD ATHLON 64x2 4400+, a NVIDIA 6100 video card, and 320gb (SATA) whatever that stands for, hardrive. i want to try turning off this superfetch thing, and see if it helps. i just want to know if there are any risks involved, and if it doesnt seem to help, how i can turn it back on. and i kinda need them in an average joe, easy to understand step by step type thing if anyone can do that for me lol.
thanks

My system take for ever with Vista, Iam running on Athlon 4000+Ghz, and 2Gb of ram, Running and rendering 3DSMax on Vista takes forever. I dont how much men\mory is required for either Vista or 3DSMax

I, too, have been having trouble with Vista slowing down my computer -and I'm no gamer. I do some intensive online work and frequent page changes with multiple browser windows open - and my system reaches a point where even with only one browser window open, I can't refresh or open a new window. It's like a cascade crash, except the system seldom goes completely down - just refuses to move on in the program I'm using.

I'm starting to hate my new computer although is has more RAM than I've ever had in a computer as well as hard drive memory. I say, If Windows is going to turn my entire memory into cache, then give me a way to dump the cache easily!!!

If you think SuperFetch is the culprit, do this at a command prompt

NET STOP SUPERFETCH

.. then use your computer normally. Note that it will come back at next reboot. But if you see an improvement working this way, then turn it off permanently via the control panel, services applet-- set Superfetch start status to "disabled".

Hi Folks,
Simply put, MS wrote it's OS line(from Win 3.1 thru Win95-a swapfile-& Win98 thru Vista-a pagefile)to use virtual memory management to use the HDD like system RAM to give it a place to dump unused data from system RAM to make system RAM available based upon demand-regardless of which program(s)-including the OS itself-is asking for RAM space to operate based upon the priority of the need at a given time-regardless of whether that data is actually used or not-& write this data back when it's needed. The real issue w/ this as I see it is using 1 HDD to load the OS, programs AND run virtual memory management concurrently(at the same time), as the HDD head is constantly traveling across the platter trying to read AND write data which obviously creates slowdowns in computing performance. This is where most of the dilema is actually occurring at in my opinion. Yes, adding more system RAM is 1 way of addressing this problem but this DOES NOT address the issue for the OS/programs that are written to use the swap/page file anyway regardless of how much system RAM you have & the OS WILL make 1 whether you want it to or not if it "thinks" it's needed. The advent & popularity of doing true multitasking(running several programs at the same time)has now more than ever before validated the usage of a swap/page file. So to not have a swap/page file setup(especially if you're a power multitasking user-you know, the folks that have the system tray & quick launch tray loaded w/ programs as these programs ARE preloaded into system RAM at bootup thus using up a LOT of available system RAM-yes it's a handy way to quickly access these programs at the cost of performance)nowadays is a bad idea.

The only remedy that I know of that can cover this dilema the best until MS develops memory management routines smart enough to address this dilema is to add a 2nd HDD-not 1 HDD partitioned to look like 2 HDD's-& put the swap/page file on the HDD that DOES NOT contain the OS & programs on it & is the faster of the 2 HDD's & the HDD's MUST use the SATA IDE interface w/ the swap/page file loaded into the OUTER TRACKS of the 2nd HDD so that the swap/page file is located at the fastest read/write area of a HDD(this can't be done on 1 HDD as the OS & programs will occupy these tracks; now why do you think that the OS will load itself & all programs into the outer tracks of a HDD, hmm...?). The SATA interface-unlike the PATA interface-does not limit the number of devices being active concurrently across the IDE channel because ALL SATA headders on the motherboard are active-PATA will only allow 1 device to be active at a time on a PATA headder-& SATA w/ it's improved bandwidth over PATA can move a LOT more data across each clock cycle, so the OS can instruct both read/write for itself & programs AND do virtual memory management at the same time speeding up ALL of this very noticeably since from Win98 on, the OS does this preemptively(loads/dumps data into/out of system RAM ahead of time before the data is needed or the RAM space is called for)& pages in/out ONLY the unused program data instead of the entire program's data(this are 2 of the improvements of a pagefile method over a swapfile method of virtual memory management).

This will SMOOTH up computing quite noticeably. What you want in the 2nd HDD is NOT so much capacity(size of the HDD)but the fastest seek time & access time & spindle speed(performance of the HDD). If you check into HDD prices vs system RAM you'll find that HDD's are on the whole cost less than comparable system RAM to accomplish the same thing. Now let this be heard--I'm NOT saying that you won't EVER need to add more RAM as that is a foolish statement, I'm saying that this setup gives THE MOST EFFICENT use of system RAM & swap/page files being used AS system RAM to cover ALL aspects of this topic in dicussion using MS Windows as it stands today.

If you don't believe this, just try it & see for yourself.

Forgot to add this:

All that I've said above done on a computer w/ multithreading capability(Hyperthreading or better yet multi-core CPU's)will further enhance this by the CPU's ability to process more than 1 thread at a time.

Sorry this will leave out most laptops at this time.

The other thing I didn't state is that the HDD's can not only be read/written to concurrently but INDEPENDENTLY as well meaning virtually no interruptions when processes are occurring.

Hey,

About harddrives:
Harddrives are slower, they have slower seek times. Get a ramdisk instead that will load all temporary files into the ram space and that data will be available alot faster due to less seek time (apparently its zero seek time)

Some photoshop people use a harddrive as a scratchdisk, dont do that, use memory instead. As scratchdisks are only used for temporary files.

So Get a ramdisk, get the maximum amount of ram the ramdisk can handle and use that.
if you want to store information into the ramdisk such as applications and so on, get one that allows you to save the ramdisk as a image file that can be reloaded on boot. That way it appears as a normal harddrive.

Vista is a memory hog, it doesnt allow you to selectively choose on how you want vista to manage your memory. There isn't alot of flexibilty. I guess thats what happens when you get attached to microsoft ease of use functionality and trust microsofts knowledge.

Shouldn't the end user choose what and how he wants vista to manage the memory side of things. Microsoft needs to work on vista memory management alot more cos as far as im concerned vista is useless unless it can perform better with memory.

Ben

I tried Vista Home Premium for a few days on my laptop. Eventually the near-constant hard drive activity drove me crazy, so I turned off SuperFetch, indexed search, etc. That solved the hard drive access issue, but Vista still took up almost 500mb of memory after a fresh boot. I'm back to XP, and it uses closer to 100mb. And things are snappier even without any fancy statistical algorithm predicting what I'm going to use.

i didnt read all the comments but i think before running your game try running a free ram program it will get rid of all the ram you dont need and put it into free ram so when your gaming it wont be lagging etc..

I had upgraded to a maxed out PC for gaming. It smoked. I could run BF2 on all maxes and get full frames. After a couple weeks, my games started stuttering for the first few minutes of play and they would crash with memory dll erros. After reading this, I stopped Superfetch. No change. I then turned it to manual and restarted. Wow! The stuttering and errors were gone! I haven't noticed any difference in application performance. Anyone gaming should set SuperFetch to manual in my opinion!

Well I'm sold. I just upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate x64. I too had heard the horror stories about Vista and memory usage, I was so wary about it in fact that I was debating on dumping the WinNT platform altogether and going to Linspire if I had to dump Win2K (Win2K's light footprint on a fast modern box properly optimized runs like greased lightning). I always found XP to be a pig on both resources and speed.

I've heard some horror stories about the 32-bit versions of Vista; I'm not sure if it would be worth the upgrade to Vista from XP if you're not going to jump into the x64 platform; memory addressing is much quicker, dual channel DDR2 configurations it can make proper use of. If you're going to upgrade from what I've seen I'd certainly say wait for a x64 box then go straight to the x64 version.

Re: the aggressive caching. Yes I was very worried after first install. I thought my 2Gb of memory would carry me through for a while (was nice seeing 1700Mb free on my W2K load), and seeing that Vista was using over 50% of my memory just on bootup. I was looking around poking around the system to figure out what's going on but found out it was SuperFetch.

Performance wise, I have to admit I was wrong in my pre-Vista judgements. I expected Vista to be like XP with lead legs (whereas I considered XP to be like W2K with lead shoes). I've never had a computer that's more responsive than this one with Vista. Opening windows is instantaneous for most tasks. Dreamweaver and Office 2003 are two culprits for not being as zippy as I'd like, same with Vegas. They obviously werent written with Vista in mind I'm sure the newer versions will be a bit snappier.

The 32-bit apps run fine, I'm just on the hunt for the x64 versions of everythingnow. I can totally tell the difference; (IE 32 vs IE z64 for example). Its not so much that they have faster throughput in x64, it's just that FEELING of it working faster because it's so much snappier.

Once you get a taste of a 64bit OS and some 64bit apps you get addicted fast. I was actually only going to do a trial install of Vista Ultimate... I was backed up and ready to go back to W2K. I'm sticking with it, much to my own surprise.

My Vista does that too! is there a way to stop that?

The last paragraph sums it up perfectly, "The less free memory I have, the better; every byte of memory should be actively working on my behalf at all times. However, I do wish there was a way to tell SuperFetch to ixnay on the oadinglay when I'm gaming."

For being so smart, Vista as an OS fails in my honest opinion. Full Screen means, STOP DOING OTHER SHIT, and LET ME PLAY!

Hello All,
Some of the posts on here are fantastic and helpful but alot of you are coming on here whining why Vista isn't working while running less then 2gb.(shaking head) BUY MORE RAM. If you still have problems then start complaining. Leave the forum open for people with real problems instead of causing someone to read for an hour not getting anywhere fast. If you would read around the web you would see that Vista needs more ram. It is cheap so go buy some. If you can't afford then watch t.v. Man some of the builds you guys are talking about here with vista installed is rediculous.

Now onto the problem.

System spec:

OS: vista 64 premium, as the ultimate is bloat ware
mobo: ASUS p5k deluxe
cpu: q6600 GO stepping
Ram: 2X2 Gb Patriot Extreme pc6400
video: 8800 GForce Ultra
HDD: 2 320 WD 16mb cache se

Now I am far from an expert. I built this computer for one perpose only and that is to game with. I have only 3 games installed. Now, When I play my game Dungeons and Dragons Online, I have about 2.1gb of ram being used. While running around the world my frame rates drop down to a stutter everyonce in a while which seems to be linked to the hard drive. The hdd light is flashing non stop and seems to realy flash fast when I get the slow down. Trying to troubleshoot I went into performance monitoring and found some meters that monitor cpu, hdd, memory etc. I can see which programs are running underneath these meters and beside the game that I am playing it has a hard fault per second column. I was getting like 0 to 140 hard faults per second. At the same time my Hdd is thrashing like crazy. ( It would go from 0 up to around ~ 140 and back to 0). I believe this is the cause of my poor gaming performance.

Now I have read that Hard faults isn't realy a fault but is just the computer working with the hdd for paging files. what I don't understand is why vista is paging files under this game? Why isn't it using the ram first then the virtual memory? If this is superfetch working then it should show up under different apps shouldn't it? If I have 4gb of ram shouldn't the game run completely off the ram once the game is loaded into it? Can someone explain to me why I am seeing hard faults per second from this game and how to correct it? I am going to test tonight to disable Superfetch and indexing but don't see how superfetch can be the cause as it is listed under the game I am running.

Ayways, waiting on you're replies
thanks.

The Page Faults graph display memory page faults, both hard and soft faults, as faults per second. A page fault is an interrupt raised by the hardware when an application accesses a page that is not mapped in physical memory. A soft fault occurs when the requested memory page is still in memory and a hard fault occurs when the requested memory page must be read from the hard disk.

Tried disabling all the features such and superfetch, indexing, auto defrag, windows UI aesthetics etc. No help in increasing frame rates.

Tried shutting off paging file and frame rates dropped to ~20 from ~70.

It looks like these features are not hindering someone who has a computer with 4GB or ram. If you have less then 3 then I would suspect that you would gain something from this. I gained nothing and with superfetch off It took much longer to load into games.

People who say it boosted performance only say this because they have insufficient ram to run vista in the first place so shutting down features will help in their case.

So what about memory optimizers in Vista (Free RAM XP Pro etc.)?
It brokes cache idea. I do not use these softs in Vista. I thing it is right.

Are you stupid or something? Ram needs room to breath if you run 100% ram usage your system will slow way down. Its not at all like cache where the data is constantly being flushed are refilled, ram loads data that is used for long periods of time and is all ways searched from bit 1(1Mb is the beginning of extended memory) up so if your running a lot of small files in extended memory with a 3 gig system and your ram is full whatever is in the 3000000-3145728 bit addresses could take a while to be found and the cpu ends up calling for it from the hard drive instead. Superfetch needs scraped its flawed and one of the biggest reasons hardcore gamers are holing back from getting vista. It needs to drop data that has not been accessed in a few minutes not find data that i accessed a few hours ago just in case I need it again. MORE FREE RAM = LESS HARD DRIVE DELAYED READS, WHICH MEANS HIGHER FRAME RATES AND LESS "OUT OF MEMORY" LOCKUPS/FREEZING.

Bottom Line People
Vista looks preety but is one big pain in the balls for gaming
Microsoft fix this now!

I agree. Vista is less gaming friendly. Thanks for the Vista memory explanations. I was wondering about this.

Just a quick shoutout: I can see you're still using the task manager to check your system's performance.

There is, however, an alternative (by Sysinternals cum Microsoft, no less). It's called Process Explorer. Check it out! (www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/)

Hey! thank you for this! You really cleared up a lot of confusion for me!

Keep it up!

P.S. Vista is better than XP. seirously.

"okay dumb moment <----- noob whatever....lol

Physical Memory (MB)
Total 446
Cached 178
Free 4

Now i'm doing the math but what is wrong.......... 446-178=4..... Yeah i'd like someone to explain it in a bit more simpleton words."

Total is the amount of RAM you have.
Cached is the amount of RAM that's actively being used for programs you are using. There is no math in this stat display.
Free is amount of RAM left over that couldn't pre-cache any other programs (either because there's not enough (4MB sounds like not enough to pre-cache any program) or you ran out of programs to cache)

I might have the cached part wrong. That could be the amount of RAM being used to pre-cache programs. Sorry if i'm wrong. don't hate me.

Ok guys, quit whining. Just get 128 gigs of ram up on Vista 64 and have fun.

7 years ago, I bought a new laptop with a Pentium 1 100 processor. At the time, it was considered blazing. I paid almost $4000 for it and felt like I was was getting a deal.

Yesterday, I bought a new desktop with an AMD X2 6000+ Processor, 3 Gigs or DDR2 Ram, a 500 Gig HD, a 19 inch flat panel monitor, a color printer and an NVidia 8800 GTS 320 MB video card.

Total cost. $1000. I paid 1/4 the price for a system 100's of time faster.

Buy some ram people. Either stop being so cheap or stop complaining. Don't expect the drive a Porsche when you'll only pay for a Pinto.

I bought a Compaq laptop recently with Vista Home Premium, and I noticed a big difference in battery life with SuperFetch turned off. All that caching is apparently pretty power-hungry.

I am boosting my Gateway 507GR up to 2GB (reputedly its max, though some say it'll take four) because it takes 2 minutes to load Firefox(!) and at least 40 seconds for the Control Panel folder to open and populate with icons! It's a new installation on a 7200 rpm SATA drive. You'd think it would be fast. You'd be wrong. My Radio Shack M100 was faster. Ditto my DEC Rainbow, and my Mac Plus (ok, the 128K Mac was slower) and hacked up Dell 586 (that's a long story).

The disk churns and churns and nothing happens for a looooong time. I still do useful work on my G4 tower (Circa Feb, 2001, CPU upgrade in 2003) and OS X doesn't go off and churn for minutes at a time.

I've never had this problem with XP or XP pro (I even LIKE some things about XP Pro) but Vista's good qualities have yet to show up as far as I'm concerned. I hope they exist because I need this to work,

Oh, by the way, it's ugly. Really ugly. XP looked better. And XP wasn't exactly a looker,

> I am boosting my Gateway 507GR up to 2GB (reputedly its max, though some say it'll take four) because it takes 2 minutes to load Firefox(!) and at least 40 seconds for the Control Panel folder to open and populate with icons! It's a new installation on a 7200 rpm SATA drive.

You need to visit the add/remove programs dialog and remove all the bloatware most PCs come with. Particularly anti-virus, which will literally cripple your performance..

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000803.html

Thanks for this post Jeff! I was totally outraged when I saw that out of my 8GB RAM 2GB was used as system cache and 1GB was loaded for other tasks. I had the idea that more free RAM was a better thing but after reading your explanation I feel much better about getting Vista now.

I totally love it in Vista that it doesn't come sluggish at all when I have tons of heavy stuff running like Flash CS3, Photoshop, Outlook, Excel and other office apps, P2P, etc. Works much smoother than XP in any desktop situation I've encountered so far.. but then again, I don't play much games.

XP just freezes for countless seconds when eg. trying to open a new file browser in a situation like above. And I "only" have have 2GB ram, which is cheap these days so even 4GB would not make a noticable hole in the wallet.

I like how Mac OS X does this — if I'm correct, it caches applications in memory when you've opened them since the computer booted up. This works great because things launch faster, and if it eventually runs low on memory all it takes is a reboot. I would get really pissed off if there was a background task running all the time whose sole purpose was to fill up my memory.

Well, there is one more thing to note. Whatever super fetch is doing, it cannot just discard pages when you need free RAM. It has to zero all pages before giving you that memory. Quote from: http://blogs.msdn.com/ntdebugging/archive/2007/10/10/the-memory-shell-game.aspx) "Due to C2 security requirements, all pages must be scrubbed before handed to a new process."
So, to put it simple:
Vista is more hdd activity, more threads and longer internal data structures, additional overhead of page zeroing, and probably more...

But then again, WMP on XP is always prefetched as well, even if you don't use it (/prefetch:1 switch), I wonder if Firefox and that like is left in fragmented page file section for 'ferformance' reasons.

This is all well and good and I understand this. However, Vista is now complaining that I have too many programs open (Excel, FireFox, Word) and I need to shut one down. It states in my resource monitor that I'm using all my memory.
If it's caching, shouldn't it be doing so in such a way so as to permit to run these programs?
I've got 1.5Gb of RAM. System monitor lists Cached=845Mb and Free=17Mb. I'm not sure where the rest is going.
My pagefile is 955M/3056M.

All this seems really odd. As I write this, the only things open are Task mananger and my browser w/ 1 tab.

Any help?

What I find most amusing is that Windows is implementing more and more features that OS/2 implemented over a decade ago. OS/2 didn't have prefetch but it was demand pages (of course - the best OSes are, lol). With Warp it also learnt which libraries were needed and initialised the front of the pagefile with them (something I consider to be a really cool idea).

IBMs advice back then was not to close applications because OS/2 would adapt and perform better. That's why the WPS defaulted to reloading things when you rebooted.

The ultimate irony of course is that people kept moaning about OS/2 and asking why it always used all the RAM :D

Is there a performance penalty for switching to the 64bit version of Vista to actually be able to use all 4GB of the RAM, instead of the usual 32bit cap at around 3.5GB? Or am I looking at the same kinds of x32 compatibility issues that I occasionally encounter when running the XP x64?

Whenever I run any game at all on Vista and hit a loading screen, the game minimizes, and a message box pops up saying that Windows is closing the following program to free up memory. I have the "CPU Meter" gadget running all the time, and it generally reports that my CPU usage and RAM usage are nearing 100% whenever this box comes up. At the bottom of this message box is the icon followed by the name of the game I'm playing. If I'm not quick enough (or the game doesn't minimize fast enough) to hit the cancel button on the message box, Windows closes my game, and I lose everything. This is extremely annoying. Running this one IE7 window and only 3 gadgets, my system is using 55% of my 1.5 GB of RAM. I'd never seen a message like that with XP, and performance was much better in general. I don't get how this is any help at all.

re os 2 posts above - windows isn't implementing an os/2 like feature. its making decisions based on your usage history. os/2 didnt do that : )

mac user: what you described for mac - it works very similiar on windows from a basic paging standpoint. your apps you opened remain cached unless the page (memory manager decides something else needs it. its the same as any paged memory system - nothing unique to mac.

however - one issue still is even though 0-5 mb is available, the system still can suffer from the exact same problem xp could - when plenty of swap file space is left - ram usage is maxed out - the window manager goes freaky - half windows show up, etc. and yet.. plenty of virtual memory available. the cache isn't doing a good job then. I was hoping it wouldnt happen in vista - it did.. and with less open than I would have in XP. one visual studio, a few IEs, ultra edit, and sql server mngmt studio - neither of the apps taking up more than 100mb (ultra-20mb) - and this issue happened. yet at another time.. I was fine. weird. same on 2k, same on xp. same on vista.

Just go with Linux. You can run MS games and products through either wine or crossover linux pro. Ubuntu 7.10 is easier to use then Winblows Vista and with all the eye candy and XGL installed it only uses 128megs out of 2 gig at best. I can run two instances of Virtual box running xp on both and play Quake wars at the same time and it does not even use 50% of my ram. Look up Linux and you will be a happy person.

Is it this, that is called a memory hog and bloatware? Suck up all the memory? And, why do some people claim that gaming runs in par with Windows XP? It is proven that Vista generally has 10-20% lower fps than Windows XP, in the same game.

Im interested to know, a newly freshly installed Vista with no apps installed yet, does it consume 2GB RAM too? How could it do that, when there is no apps installed to prefetch yet? What does it cache? All accessories like MS Paint?

I heard that in Windows XP(?) you can not even turn off the page file. Is it true, even under Vista? I use OpenSolaris with 1GB RAM and Solaris never uses the page file unless it must. After done using the swap file, it tries to flush the swap file immediately. Some people has turned off the swap file under Solaris, completely. It doesnt exist.

Solaris and other Unix generally have a good memory management system as they are from the beginning multiuser enterprise systems with lots of memory. Whereas Windows has it roots from a system that "640KB RAM should be enough for anyone" - and single user.

OS is vista busness with 4 gig ram ,,,on boot up AVG anti virus and skype are running,, this uses 1.07GB of Ram about 35% usage ,,

Why is so much ram used before using the computer!
Are there ways of reducing this so as to maximize ram usage with other applications,,eg 3dsMax

Thanks anyone

I bought a laptop in July and the other day it was carrying out a routine PC health check (HP Compaq) and the next thing it just went mad. Everything onscreen got bigger as did all the text then smaller then it all went black. I tried to restore but couldn.t. I lost all my emails and everything. All my photos documents my website folder etc. My computer is back to original state when bought. I'm shattered and don't know what to do. Does anyone know what happened and is there anyway I can get my info back. I'm not greatly literate in this field.

I bought a laptop in July and the other day it was carrying out a routine PC health check (HP Compaq) and the next thing it just went mad. Everything onscreen got bigger as did all the text then smaller then it all went black. I tried to restore but couldn.t. I lost all my emails and everything. All my photos documents my website folder etc. My computer is back to original state when bought. I'm shattered and don't know what to do. Does anyone know what happened and is there anyway I can get my info back. I'm not greatly literate in this field.

I had vista for about a month, and I was very disappointed.
I have 2gb ram and 2.4 GHz C2D CPU, but Vista just... Doesnt work as it should be. I am on XP now and it works like it should be. Vista not.
Stronghold Crusader/its game from 2001 i think/ starts for 10 second in XP and 30 in Vista. These 20 seconds are not much, but some newer game? How would it run?
Also, everything other is slow too. Visual Studio 2008 starts slower, loads projects slower, compiles slower... Ever when i am doing Alt+Tab I feel it doesnt respond immediately. Theres around 300 millisecond wait... Its done lighting fast on XP. I think its because XP doesnt have these nasty mini-thumbnails like screenshot everywhere. I think this BitBlt or whatsoever is not so fast when there is 20 opened windows... And saving this images in memory also causes trouble.
Imagine a reguar window it 800x600, its 480000 pixels. Multiply it by 20/windows on screen/. And its 9600000 pixels. Every pixel is 32 bit so its 9600000x32 =
307200000 bits. Now divide by 8 and its 38400000 bytes. Or 37500 KB.
36 MB. Its not so little if you think theres tenths of such things in Vista, and they use the RAM very much.
And Vista has many services, some of them very unuseful, and they are "taking part" too. So, Vista is much more heavy than XP its clear. But if i have 8GB RAM, why should I care - because Vista will fill my remaining memory with some programs... And when I want to use some of the RAM - well I have to wait, because Vista must clear up some space. And this is also slower. But Vista doesnt overwhemn the RAM chips, they data is rewritten with every FSB cycle/or I think so?/, to keep the data from disappearing... But this is an automated task. The CPU doesnt have to renew the memory by itslf. But with Vista, it has to, because Vista is using additional clock cycles clearing up some space for *running* programs. RAM is not cache. Its Operational Memory and so... Sorry for my English too, i am only 13 ;)

For elaine - try looking for programs that can restore deleted files, like Undelete Plus.

As a side note on the game, you might try booting the game and the first map, closing it and reopening it. I find with Unreal Tournament and a system with little RAM, this can help.

The problem I have is not with the amount of ram being used but with Vista bringing my PC to a screaming halt when I have 98% of my ram used.

I've benn running Vista Premoium since it was released and it's been fine up until a few weeks ago. Now within hours of using it it's used up all my memory to the point that I have to wait over five minutes for the task manager to appear.

What's the deal with that?

I bought a Compaq Presario laptop on Black Friday.
It comes with Vista Premium, a Dual-Core Intel Pentium CPU (clocked at 1.5GHz) and 1GB RAM.
It's incredibly slow.

I'm about to install AVG Pro instead of Defender (if I find out how to disable it), and do some Windows Updates.
I just disabled Superfetch, it's a little faster now. :)

Point is,
Why can't Microsoft do anything right?

Well, XP, on its time, was better than Vista. I think Vista is the largest disappointment after ME.
I will personally stay on XP, because Vista is just the shiny new look...
Until SP2, I think Vista's not needed.

Vista actually does not use all that ram. Vista uses Superfetch so that when you launch programs, it will release the memory it held to the program straightaway. This speeds up program lauching. Vista had superfetch problem which was slowing down vista but it was fixed on april and now with sp1 RC, it has used lesser ram and works faster and increased compatibility. Wait for sp1 because I think its a really good update.

You should only use Superfetch on systems with at least 1.5 GB of RAM or more.

I think 4gb for SuperFetch is perfect. Its sluggish on 2GB...

Guys, really that was a very funny article, well written but funny from the first word to th end.

This explanation of Windows vista usage , even if its accurate its useless to the normal intermediate or on an advanced IT consultant that supports through windows vista and i will explain why .

A personal computer with a vista configuration, if the memory is sucking up the whole universe for the reasons that you say it does is only usable ad comfortable for a secretaries personal pc that is meant to run and execute procedures that are measured in the fingers of one hand. Like Microsoft office applications and STOP!!! nothing more nothing less,so in a pc configuration used by someone specific for specific procedures and applications yes YOU ARE CORRECT THAT VISTA IS THE BEST!!!!! Cause it will continue to suck up all cache memory showing in the task manager that the pc has only 1byte of free memory :P but the applications that are always used will of course be extremely fast. OK thats good, but i don't think that e people that came here in your blog and read this article is part of the users i mentioned above...
Good article but not with essence.
Thanks and goodbye .
**Have fun ,do good work and the money will come,or not**

netlawmaker, he isnt justifying how vista works and all, he is just trying to explain it, so that more people will understand how vista REALLY works.. many people has the absurd idea that vista is eating the memory, not keeping it ready, they think its a second game they have running in the background, so yes.. its with essence if you get it.

my vista ultimate works fluid(but only because i got a big gamning rig)
so i agree that vista isnt exactly for people like the ones that are just surfing the e to read blogs like this, they should stick to xp or something.

I think that Vista isn't exactly the problem with your game...I think it's the game creators...they need to tell vista what not to do while it's running to prevent SuperFetch from being annoying.

It appears to me that this is a debate between quickly available memory and quickly available programs.

Like it has been mentioned many times here, SuperFetch is great for office applications, and it's certainly appreciated that your trusty Excel loads up in just a few seconds.

However, you must keep in mind that eating up all the memory means you need to unload stuff to fire up something that isn't cached, such as a game. That's double the work for the hard drive: putting fetched data into swap, and loading the game into memory.

Vista is ALLWAYS accessing my Hard Drive, I have 4GiB of ram, I allways see the hard drive light blink, it never stops. There's no easy way, (if possible) to set it to passively fill the ram, index the hard drive, etc..., for those of us who hate hard drive noises.

Not only does it make noise, it also drains a laptop's battery.

HEY HAS ANYONE NOTICED THAT ONE IS IN MB THE OTHER IS IN KB And that means he has about 1000 mb compared to 1500 mb

i'm now the hero but still vista is stil using alot but look at the feactures vista up holds and it is going to be the future if you can't update then you'll be left behind sry ^_^ hard truth anyway i will admit that vista need more fine tuning and that should of tested it first before releasing it ( they should of payed poeple form off the steet to muck around with it )but hey no one is perfect

"ps i was kidding about the hero stuff and next time please read what you post before posting i will admit i have mayde many stupid lil errors like that on forums myself"

hero... since when does 6MB = 1000MB ?.

by the way we use rendering software that can use 2Gb or more for one rendering task but the core of the program only uses about 100MB. If superfetch has these 2Gb cached with other crap, surely the time it takes to unload in order to perform the rendering task will be longer than in XP where the memory is free?. Would you say that in our case where we use the same software all the time and in the case of the 24/7 gamer who only uses the PC for one game that it would be better to disable superfetch?

It seems to be one of those features that caters for the average receptionist or home user who checks email, writes a letter and browses forums but isnt really going to help people who run memory intensive applications? Or do I have it the wrong way around?

You have gotten it ALL WRONG.

The meaning of figures changed between XP and Vista.

Let's do some preschool math. The XP screen says you have 2G of memory total, 1.5G available (note, it doesn't say free as in Vista!), and 1.5G minus few megs disk cache. Would you think those 2 figures add up and still fit in your RAM? Of course NOT! The disk cache is available for immediate allocation. This is a pure read cache, which only needs to be unmapped to free up memory. To sum it up, XP genuinely uses just 0.5G RAM on your machine, with the rest being read cache.

(only a fraction of megabyte to few megabytes are normally used for write cache, and even then the data is usually written as soon as there is free time, and the data then goes from write cache into read cache so it needn't be reread immediately)

Now, loot at Vista. 2G - 1.3G (cache and genuinely free) means it genuinely uses just about 0.7G RAM. More than XP, but bearably so. And most significantly, the disk cache size is not drastically different from XP.

Next, let's look at the page file. XP has just over 300 MB, while Vista has way over 1.5G - the data which has been written AFTER on operating system has started. This has taken some time, and even if the transfers were initiated when the system had to do nothing anyway, they mean less responsiveness for a while. By the way, this makes it also obvious that one needs at least 4G RAM to be able to disable the swapfile on Vista and make a crash at least somewhat unlikely.

So besides Vista having grown in memory consumption (0.7G XP vs. 2.3G Vista from your screenshots), you should consider that agressive swap use and caching benefits manufacturers much more than users, because it optimizes the OS for high RAM configurations and faster drives, while conventional wisdom says one should rather optimize for a slower system, which is more likely to desperately need that extra performance.

What the marketing buzz describes by "superfetch" is probably just a change in the caching algorithm, which makes it less remembering already read data and more speculatively prereading, but we have seen traces of that even in XP. I am using such a speculative prereader (preload deamon) on Linux too.

And now for de-confusing my post:

Available memory = disk read cache + free memory. If it weren't so (that is, disk read cache wouldn't count as available memory) that would mean you have more than 3G of RAM, which is obviously wrong.

Haha, i didnt know vista uses superfetch. I just thought it was a virus because every day it seems like the ram keeps filling up, although a scan showed no viruses.

Glad you cleared that up.

Now if only we could disable superfetch from loading specific programs.

Free RAM is wasted RAM. :)

your thing should be more memory in a person while on the computer

Why Does Vista Use All My Memory? Because it does use more its called bloat and bad coding! I see alot of these games run out of memory and crash. Did they do this in XP simple answer is no! Why? Because XP used less memory. When will people stop being sheep and get brains? Maybe never if they believe stuffing 3gb in vista is a cure all sorry its not. All 32bit system be it xp or vista have a 2gb user cap! No its ok dont listen to me keep getting drunk off of the fud kool-aid. Want proof? Put in 3gb play a newer game when you hit 2gb crash!!! hahah. Now install XP with 2gb wow the games plays with no crashing it gets no where near the 2gb limit.
There are plenty of reviews online about the 2gb limit with actual proof. Its easy to tell this sap was paid by microsoft or is a complete moron!

There is nothing special about vista's memory management its called garbage.

Free RAM is wasted RAM. :) Oh your a real tool.

Jeff,
While I agree that any RAM sitting empty is a waste, I don't think filling it up completely would be a good idea either. If as you say, SuperFetch has predicted your usage correctly and filled your RAM to the brim, there should be no problems. However, if it predicted wrong (a situation similar to a cache miss), then the overhead for swapping out existing memory would be too huge, with the result being the system would be non-responsive every time SuperFetch predicted wrong. No matter how perfect an algorithm may be, filling all your RAM all the time seems like a bad idea to me.

do you think ms didn't test it or something i'm sure all options have been discussed and this is the best implementation.

Microsoft has invented artificial intelligence? In their propaganda material they mention superfetch is smart all the time, but there is no real proof that it is so. So we should believe on their word?

Even if that is so, how do we know what is it using its 'brains' for? Doesn't it (now or in the future) start working against competitors' products (for example, other office suites)? Who does it work for? Us (the users) or Microsoft's shareholders?

The amount of power taken off user's hands is unacceptable.

Here's a solution for some users, but not all.

This might be the problem many people are running into: Vista automatically allocates 50% of all RAM to SYSTEM services. For example, if you have, say, 3GB of RAM and you tell your program that it can allocate 2GB, it will crash once it tries to go beyond 1.5GB.

You can get around this by directly editing, in the boot control file, the amount of RAM that Vista allocates for USER programs.

Here's how I set it for a 4GB system, to solve this problem that was crashing my video rendering:

1. Open the Command Prompt as the administrator. You'll find it in the Accessories folder in your programs menu. To open as the admin, you'll see the option "Run as Admin.." in the context menu (that thing that pops up when you right click an object).

2. Enter: bcdedit /set increaseuserva 3072

This configures Vista to allow USER processes to access 3GB of RAM instead of only 2GB.

3. Restart (Everyone running Vista has probably mastered doing this by now!)

Note: The internal variable "increaseuserva" can only be set between 2048 (2GB) and 3072 (3GB), so this isn't really helpful for anyone running less than or equal to 2GB. For those of you running 3-4GB I'd recommended always leaving Vista at least 1GB (though it doesn't give you much moving room to choose anyway).

Hope this helps some. I know it worked on my office's system I configured.

To anyone buying a new system (particularly a desktop), I'd say don't even bother with a 32-bit OS and go straight to a 64-bit OS. From my vantage point Vista is really Microsoft's final attempt at squeezing all the life (and money) out of the 32-bit architecture, since with a minimum requirement of 2GB of RAM and a maximum of capacity of 4GB, you're not going to last out the decade on anything running 32-bit.

Fascinating discussion. I am, confessedly, a MS basher, because it is the OS for Dummies. That being said, I haven't jumped to Linux because it is the OS for people with enough time to tweak everything. I am neither, so, by default, I take the dummy's way out. However, I have run across this problem: trying to open a 300meg app, I keep getting the message that there is not enough memory to accomplish the task. Now, having read through the discussion, I understand why task manaager shows me I have no system memory. Problem is, if available memory is only in the cache, why doesn't the cache serve it up so I can open the app (actually, app installer)? Actually, I've been pretty happy with some of the improvements in Vistas dialog box choices, such as beinb able to move two a file with the same name to folder and have the option to have it auto-renamed, verus just overwrite or forget it, which is a nuisance in batch moves. And I don't like MS's games as much, but they've all been deleted anyway, so big deal. But now I've hit this snag, and it reinforces the problem with MS--every two years I have to waste a few weeks of my time being an IT guy. So, at roughly $1200 a week in lost revenue, MS costs me about $1200 a year to own. But maybe it would take 4 weeks to figure out Linux and this is indeed a bargain.

PS -- Athlon 64 Dual Core, 2GB 5300 DDR2. No graphics card, so I'm probably losing a lot to shared graphics. Intent to fix that soon. Just got the thing.

i just bought a laptop running vista with intel core 2 duo, 4MB cache, and 2 GB of RAM. Any late advice for managing my memory limitations with vista if i want to run games more than programs.

It's really anoying everytime I hear this stupid explanation about Vista memory usage. It's like telling about a car that can go 9000 miles on a tank of gas, but the tank is the size of 2 buses.

Here is teh deal, it makes sense about caching a lot in memory but what is the ACTUAL benifit? Not the INTENDED benifit, what is the REAL benifit cause it's NOT system performance! Is Vista faster than a solid XP/2000 system? Nope, actually slower because since the memory is loaded up all the time the system quickly goes into the page file which bogs the machine down. Whenever there is more than like 1.3GB RAM in use my sytem starts to crawl. So in previous OSs I had control...don't run too many apps and usually the sytem rocks, but now even if I' only runing a few things it's a big deal since I have much less RAM available. Basically it looks like Vista needs 4GB RAM because it's memory usage is sloppy, not genius.

Alright I read the majority of these comments, and so I should post my thoughts as well.

Personally I am ANGRY at Vista using my ram as a cache, and I'll tell you why. For the past year (really 1.5 years), I used XP with 128 mb of ram. Truly, I cannot express how awful that time of my life was.

But the story ends well, I purchased a new system not a week ago. Quad-core (Core 2 Quad Q6600), with 2 GB DDR2 800mhz, and a GeForce 8600, that came with Vista Home Premium. For me, a paging file should not have to exist, I have more than enough ram (soon I'll have 4GB at least, so there). However, I don't mind paging files, and I do not mind Vista using some of my ram (because there is more than I really need, at least at this point in time), but DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE THE STUPID THING USE ALL OF MY RAM.

I did experience the lag that people have been describing. I opened the speech recognition program in Vista, and it must not have guessed I was going to use it (Free Ram = 0, from task manager), and so my computer lagged for 5 seconds or so while it thrashed. SuperFetch failed me, my system should remain responsive at all times (barring rouge programs and other such factors).

For me, this is UNACCEPTABLE. No matter how advanced the algorithms are for SuperFetch, and unless I have an absurd amount of ram (enough to cache everything + at least 2 GB free for anything else), then SuperFetch will always be a bad idea, at least how it is now.

I wonder why I can't just tell SuperFetch that it can have free reign over 50% of my ram. Honestly I think it's a superb idea to allow SuperFetch at least 300-512 MB of ram! By caching the top 3 or 4 of my most used programs, I imagine there could be a significant performance boost to be had, but as it stands I do not know of a way to limit how much ram SuperFetch uses, and so it is being shut off. My reasoning for this is as follows.

I've stated that SuperFetch CANNOT predict well what I will do, humans are hard to predict, especially myself, which is why I think it is futile to fill my ram to capacity with "educated guesses" of what I might use. I'm not going to use all of it, or even any of it. I believe that SuperFetch suffers from DIMINISHING RETURNS.

In other words, there is lots of performance gains for the first 25-50% of ram that is filled (I would say the top 5 most commonly used programs would suffice), but after that, you really aren't getting anything out of using the entirety of ram-space as a cache.

Microsoft needs to put more options in the hands of the consumer, because there are obviously disagreements about how beneficial SuperFetch is currently, and because people use computers for so many different things, SuperFetch should be more configurable by the user.

My question to you Jeff Williams and everybody else...does superfetch really make ANYTHING faster? I use IE and Media center EVERY day...so they should be in my cache right? At least they are faster right? No! Nothing is faster.

I'll just be blunt, I do not see any performance advantages to Vista. The main difference I see are in a few conveneince features that frankly could have been added to W2k and WXP. Compare the performance nightmare that was w95 and wme to the clearly more stable win98, then compare that to very obviously faster and more stable WinNT and W2k. Thats where advancement stopped(for me...I never had XP)...

I was thinking that games are more advanced, but is that Vista? I think it's more the graphics cards and CPUs that have steppped up.

Well this certainly clears up some questions i had. I have a friend that is getting vista Ultimate and is sharing the key with me. But he is hoping and me as well that 6 gigs of mem would curb the demanding uses of ram that superfetch causes. Now i know that there is no hope unless ditching superfetch altogether. We're both running raid 0 so accessing any program wouldn't be an issue anyhow and actually negates the need for superfetch in the first place. I also agree that Superfetch will never be a good psychic so what's the point of superfetch again? I never know what i'm going to do when i load up my machine and i think it would be safe to say that 70 percent of people don't. I guess the biggest performance problems with vista is the bugs that are in it. I can easily and simply just disable the worthless feature of superfetch which is what i'll do but the millions of bugs in vista needs to be fixed.

I have been strugling with a probleme for a while now, and I didn't get much help from the Toshiba support. Its like my new Toshiba has a memory probleme, but I dont know if its caused by Windows Vista or if its HW related.

This is what happens:

When I surf with IE7 og have more than 7 tabs open at the same time, its like windows runs out of memory, all of a sudden I cant open any new tabs and right click on the touchpad does not react. If I then minimize IE7 and right click on the desktop nothing happens either.
If I then close a couple of programs (its only Yahoo messenger og coreTemp that are running(coreTemp shows how warm your cpu is, and min is constantly between 56 og 64 degrees celsius)), then right click works again.

Usually when this happens I cant even get the taskmanager up, but if I close Yahoo Messenger then I can, and now I can see that there is used about 47% memory, under proceses i can see that:

Yahoo uses up to 50MB,
Iexplorer 27 - 150MB
og Dwm.exe takes up to 120MB.

The problem also happens if Yahoo is not started, so thats not the cause.

I have disabled aero and use minimal of all the things Vista comes with, so the I get max. performance following most of the instructions from www.Vistaguide.dk but the probleme persist every time I use IE and use more than 7 tabs (This should not happen, and using more than 7 tabs is perfectly normal).

Besides surfing on the net, I use it for playing video by VLC or GOM player, and music by Winamp. I dont play games.
Here it never runs out of memory.

Its Vista Home Premium Danish and in general I think it runs worse than Home Basic did on 2GB ram.

My laptop is an Toshiba satellite L40-139:

Intel Celeron M 520 1.6Ghz, 2GB DDR II 667Mhz(that fits the model), Toshiba 120GB S-ata HDD, Atheros Wi-fi, Intel 943GML Chipset.
Comes with Norton Internet security pre-installed.

I have set auto tunning to High: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglev=high

It did not solve the probleme.

Basically its like Vista simply runs out of memory, but I can see in taskmanager that is not the case since there is only used 47% of 2GB Ram together with a swapfile of 4096MB.

What I dont get is that there is other people who have a similair systeme and they dont have this probleme.

I scanned for virus and other dirt with Dr. Web Cure it and it didn't find anything neither did Norton.

The things that I think might be causing this is :
1. Norton Internet Security 2007, that might have an flaw that makes this happen.
2. The CPU is has an 533Mhz FSB and the Ram has 667Mhz FSB (should only be a probleme if the Ram was slower than the CPU). Memtest says they are OK.
3. Vista has an error that makes it not releasing the memory again, but it just stacks up until the error happens.
4. That there is an flaw in my CPU or in the chipset.

If its 4, does anyone have a programme so I can test this?

The probleme has been there ever since I bought it and even with the original Ram inserted.

Anyone know a solution for this?

With kind regards

JBJ

> I've stated that SuperFetch CANNOT predict well what I will do, humans are hard to predict, especially myself

Strange, the other caches on your CPU seem to work OK at predicting what you will do.. or at least what the code running on your PC will do.

> When I surf with IE7 og have more than 7 tabs open at the same time, its like windows runs out of memory, all of a sudden I cant open any new tabs and right click on the touchpad does not react.

You are running into this..

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000966.html

I dont care what you say, vista is not worth anything. Is a ploy to cache you cash. The fact is that on every vista system we have everything runs slower than XP, FACT! The new machine have more memory and faster processors, duel core even, and vista cant do anything right.

Oh and dont forget that guy that showed you can run the MS game on XP with a hack and installing directX 10. And yes, they run faster than vista.

It appears that Vista is a resource hog big time. I have the HP Tablet PC tx1000 and out of the box I spent almost 3 hours uninstalling the bloatware that came with it, i.e. Vongo, etc. because I figured that was the problem regarding my resources. This machine has 2GB of RAM upgradable to 4GB so needless to say I will be upgrading it soon. Just for the system to boot & run idle with no applications running I am using between 900-1000GB, it's ridiculous.

I've actually finally made the leap to Vista Ultimate SP1 from XP, and I'm happy with the new OS. The darn thing boots to the login screen in 12 seconds, desktop instantly responsive in 3 seconds after credentials, and my programs (like VS2008) load instantaneously.

Sure, it is running on a 2.4 GHZ Quad Core on a 1333mhz FSB motherboard with 4GB of 800mhz DDR2 ram, and a 7200rpm SATA-300 drive...

But I guess my point is - as long as it performs as expected - which it does - I'm happy as sin.

I have the same problem as that, but even worse. When I check my memory with absolutely no programs open, its at 52 percent. And i have 2GB of ram... So that would mean my Windows Vista computer, when completely idle,(except for task manager) is at more than 1GB of memory.

If only I had a Mac...that could use .exe programs. That would be heaven.

I also thought that Vista was crap and was bloated... but i took my friends copy of vista which he got on a computer that doesnt work anymore...
and I dual booted XP... and when i first ran it i obviously liked it.. iv used it before.. but i only liked the visuals and effects.. thats what drew my attention and so then i start XP and it seemed a lot faster so i looked up ways to make vista faster and i turned off a bunch of services and features i didnt need and a lot of the visuals that i dont need and vista still has the cool aero effect... and so i was still thinking XP was faster but after about 4 days its beein going really fast it loads my programs a hell of a lot faster then XP! some things run slower and it says im using a crap load of memory that i know im not using... but it loads stuff like none other right when i open the computer up after i turn it off! i almost like vista better then xp which i never thought id ever say... and i cant wait to try the ReadyBoost but i dont have a flash drive yet :( should speed things up with the help of SuperFetch combined with ReadyBoost

I had problems running XP sp2 (slow operation with low virtual memory msgs on 2GB - and I am not even talking about all the other "makes-me-wanna-curse" stuff to deal with like viruses, crashes, spam, upkeep, defragmentation, re-installation - I can re-install XP with eyes closed - security patches, updates for this and that and other (and not legitimate updates but screw-up-quick-fixes that will need to be patched up later on, too).
Then I 'borrowed' VISTA key. Well, in short, I was NOT impressed, so I went out and bought an additional 2GB of RAM. 4GB should help, I thought. Yeah, right! Vista took it's time switching between apps 4GB or not even under modest use (my old 2003 PC could handle it better, with 256MB of RAM, I kid you not!). How much RAM do we need to have before Microsoft's S!*&T works? 32GB of RAM? 128? How much? What processors do we need to run a couple of tabs on IE? I can just see the ads on TV: Intel's new 24 linked SuperDUPER Double Quad duo Quattro XEON x 4 CORE PRO processor IS THE BEST!!! Make sure It's Super DUPER INSIDE! This is pathetic, no?

And then it hit me (actually it hit me when I lost AutoCAD file I spent two hours working on - on a freshly re-installed XP). And I thought about how much time and effort I was spending on everything OTHER THAN work and fun things on a computer - like fixing, troubleshooting, re-installing, cleaning, even (no-offence, guys) reading blogs like this for hours on end and others about which Antivirus is better, what are the latest security flaws were discovered in Windows or IE or Messenger or whatever...
And I told myself screw this! My time and my health (with all the frustration from PC) are just not worth it! I went to Apple an ordered new 24 inch iMac. Impulsive? YES! And I have 2 grand less, which, well, sucks. But now, a month after, I see that that was one of the smartest decisions I made in a long time! Everything on a Mac just works, and I don't even know how to use it! No viruses, no crashes, everything is fast, elegant and - brace for it - INTUITIVE! Mcrosoft is as intuitive as counting sheep by number of legs they have - try to
explain Ctrl+Alt+Del to someone who never used a PC... Good Luck!
The funniest thing is my iMac came with ONLY 1GB of RAM. And yes you can get more if you want to, but I have hard time justifying it - everything I do is just about instantenious!
Get a Mac and you'll forget most of the computer terminology - you'll never have to use it! Computer today is a creative and entertainment tool, and if you are not using yours for work or fun what's the point
?

i don't know much about computers so i need help. my recently bought computer, a quad core with 2.4ghz, 5gb ram, e-GeForce 8800GT 512MB, and runs on windows vista 32bit home edition, is really slow.
when i click on firefox or internet explorer it takes 10min to open up(i run on cable )and to goto a website it takes 2-3mins and most of the time it just won't go. downloading stuff is fine and all but starting the download takes forever.
another problem would be the video. most of the time i watch a movie(.avi, .mkv, .mp4, .omg) its all laggy and glitchy. the sound just follows the glicthy movie.
i did a full computer scan and it said the hardware and hard drive is running perfectly and theres no virus or spyware on my computer(scanned with mcafee. and turning the computer on and off is fast
i seriously need help the slowness is killing me.

Thanks in advance and sorry if some of the stuff i wrote down seems stupid

to idunno,

It's hard to see what could be the cause of your problems. Did you have this before? Or did it start happening after you installed something.
Vista generally is slow after a fresh install because it's caching everything (for search and stuff).
Also, I believe you can only utilize 3 Gigs if you are using a 32 bit system, switch to 64 :) (This could be a reason why your system is slow... not sure though)

I use Windnws server 2008 64bit built on vista sp1 kernel. I made some adjustments to transform it to 'so called' workstation. I use it mainly becouse its free for 8 months. Till now I have been useing xp sp2 2GB with page file off - no problems at all. I play games most of the time. Bf2 was all the time smooth under xp. Under win 2008 was stuttering for like 10 sec after switching back to gameplay from desktop. Additional 4GB ram sorted it. Now I have 6GB of ram and everything flies so far. 3d Mark 2006 score is the same as it was in xp. Bf2 performance is the same in xp. General use performance is about the same as in xp. So far I am happy with my modified Windows server 2008 built on vista sp1 kernel.

I would like to add some more detailed comments to my previous post. As I stated I use windows server 2008 64bit which is built up on vista sp1 kernel. I made a modifications to it and turned off some server features so I can use it as a ordinary desktop system. It uses windows vista 64 bit drivers so driver-wise I had almost no problems apart from instaling my pci-e wifi card from Abit, because manufacturer's drivers won't work I had to use a chip based driver and it works flawlessly now. Superfetch is off by default in this system but I enabled it and the outcome it that windows allocates 3.8 GB out of my 6 GB of RAM and is showing that 1.8 GB is free. Pagefile allocates 1 GB. No matter what application I run it remains about the same even if I run and play battlefield 2, which I play on the best possible details in 1280x1024 with 4xAA on. Starting time for all my applications is almost none. I mean applications like skype, miranda,email client, opera browser, burning software, commander, system info, 3d mark06, and similar ones. When the superfetch is off my windows allocates like 500MB of ram when idle and more according to programs needs. I have tried to open all my apps I have instaled and some more windows so I had like 20 open apps on my taskbar and then started my most demanding game Bf2 and loaded map with 40 players and it has no impact on performance whatsoever. Loading times were the same and the gameplay was the same smooth experience as ever. Switch to desktop and back to gameplay was without any delays or stuttering and its worth to notice that I use areo with all possible eyecandy on. Taskmanager was still showing the same with superfetch on which is 3.8GB used and 1.8GB free. So to me superfetch works and it works great as long you have a decent computer with 4GB+ of ram. When my system is held CPU usage is fluctuating between 0 and 1 percent. The only time I would maybe like to put the superfetch back off would probably be if I decide to cut some huge video or audio files but till I dot try that I cant say If maybe superfetch would be that smart and empty the memory for me recognising that I am going to need it. So so far I have to tell that I never had such a great and fast desktop experience like now and I went through windows 3.xx, 95, 98 se, millenium, xp but not the linux thou.. But I have to confirm that you need that decent computer with 4GB ram or more. Windows 2008 'workstation' is said to be generaly faster then any vista, but I cant confirm that since this is my first 64 bit vista based operating system.

You can read about windows server 2008 modifications in here www.windows2008workstation.com

My system specifications are: MB Abit IP35 Dark Raider, core2 intel e2160 1.6GHz overclocked to 2.9GHz with fsb 366MHz and original voltages and cooled with artic freezer 7 pro with 80mm sharkoon golf ball (2000rpm all the time yet very quiet end effective.) FSB:MEM 1:1, 6GB DDR2 corsair xms2 pc6400 cl4 4 4 12, ati radeon x1900xtx 512 DDR3 with modified bios and aftermarket cooler accelero S1 with turbo module, psu 720Watt Enermax infinity, hdd 250GB SATA II Samsung spinpoint, wifi pci-e abit airpace, onboard sound, mouse Microsoft-razer's Habu, joyistick Saitek Cyborg Evo Wireless, ordinary 17 inch CRT (going for 30 inch daewoo soon), going to upgrade CPU and graphics card soon as well. The CPU of my choice will be probaly core2 quad 2.4@3.6GHz (with fsb on 400MHz)

Sorry, I have posted bad link for windows server 2008 workstation modifications. The correct one is www.win2008workstation.com

Wow there sure is a lot of people here saying the same thing over and over again. Talk about waste. Did all of you even read the discussion before you posted or do you really thing it is necessary to say the same exact thing someone above you posted. I don’t even know how many different times I read “Vista is Bloat Ware” or “Vista is Garbage”. Did some of you really feel the need to tell us how superfetch works using after the author already did that. Some of you added to the authors comments and that is fine but some of you repeated everything the author told us. This is not high school we do not need to hear 50 people summarize the article.

This article contains information that is helpful and useful. Computer technicians need to work with Vista to stay up to date with the problems their customers will experience. Especially with so many inexperienced home users are getting this OS with their new systems.
Vista Uses a lot of memory. Vista uses more memory than XP we get that, but the amount of memory Vista is using is not measured by subtracting the free memory from the total memory. The amount of memory being used is displayed in the top left hand corner in the box labeled memory. The little green indicator is telling you how much memory is being used. In the example given in this article vista is using 905 MB of memory. If you subtract that from the 2 GB (2048MB) supposedly in the system you will see that there is actually 1143MB unused. Watch that little indicator every time you open something and you will see that it increases when you open an app and decrease when you close an app. I don’t know why it says there is only 6MB free but this is not a true indication of the amount of Memory free on your system.

Some of you asked if they tested Vista before they marketed it. Well I recall them having Vista Beta so that it could be tested. Last I heard that is testing. But Microsoft did understate the minimum requirements to run Vista which is why they are in the middle of a law suit for false advertisement. (Read about it in Google news last week)

Microsoft has consistently presented its customers with more Demanding software over the course of its existence. It has fallen under much scrutiny since the beginning of its popularity. Win 95 Was horrible and the only reason I ran it was because certain software required it. Win 98 (1st edition) did not improve much. It seemed more like Win 95 with the Plus features on it. Now Win ME ran great for me. I hear many remarks about this one but I had fewer problems with ME than any of its predecessors including 98 SE. 2000 Was the most stable but was more focused on the business community not the home user community. XP had many bugs at first, I have seen Endless boot loops many times. Not to mention in the beginning you could not install Win XP on a system with 512 MB of Memory. I remember having to take out one of the mem sticks just to get it loaded then reinsert the memory after Win was installed. Over time they improved XP to its current state (which is better but not perfect). I presume Vista will get ironed out as well.

I tested the performance of Vista by opening certain small apps side by side with an equivalent XP machine( such as notepad, word, iexplorer) and there was now evidence to support Vista is considerably slower. Notepad and iexplorer opened at the same time. Word opened a little slower but the time difference was not so marginal that you could run to the kitchen and get ice cream. It was less than a 1 second delay.

One of you stated that there is a ceiling on 32 bit machines. This is a correct statement but the ceiling is actually 3 GB to 3.5 GB. So everyone who says they have 4GB or more, if you are not using the 64 bit version you really aren’t using all of that memory. (if you are using the 64 bit then great for you I don’t need to hear about it)
You can disable superfetch permanently (not just per session using the command line entry) by going under services and disabling the service. For those who do not know where to find services it is under control panel > administrative tools > services. There you will find the superfetch service. You will also find the service for search indexing (which is labeled windows search) and readyboost(which can be disabled if you do not plan to use a flash drive for page files) As for me I use flash drives for sneaker net functions not for page files.

For those of you who said you are not easily predicted, I hate to tell you but after reading your first few sentences I knew what the rest of your post was going to say. Just like I predict that there will be some upset people after reading this post. Your video game not running fast enough is not much of a reason to be angry.

I had 101.0 GB and I shut my computer down and re-opened it. Now I have 71.0 GB, what's going on?

try disable restore point on hard drive reboot then enable restore point. now you should have all your free gigs back on your hard drive

this was a lot of reading. I am trying to figure out what exactly hyper threading is. I read about it in wikipedia after noticing that it was disabled when looking through pc wizard.

I have a hp laptop with amd turion 64 x2. I'm running vista home premium. I went through black vipers list of services to shut down a bunch of things. I'm thinking maybe some stuff I disabled will effect my gaming. I play the sims 2, which takes a lot of memory and processor speed.(I have 2 gigs and my processor speed seems to be Real Frequency :803.7 MHz if I'm even looking at the right thing). My video card isn't really good for gaming (NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150).

Is there anything that can be done to make this game run a little faster? I shut down as much as I can before playing. Anti virus programs, windows update, network connections, etc. Superfetch is disabled so is readyboost. Also as stated above hyper threading is disabled. I am pretty knowledgable when it comes to computers but all the things I see when viewing pc wizard has me totally confused.

Can anyone give me any advice? It woul be greatly appreceated.

Bonw

I am trying to figure out what exactly hyper threading is. I read about it in wikipedia after noticing that it was disabled when looking through pc wizard.

I have a hp laptop with amd turion 64 x2. I'm running vista home premium. I went through black vipers list of services to shut down a bunch of things. I'm thinking maybe some stuff I disabled will effect my gaming. I play the sims 2, which takes a lot of memory and processor speed.(I have 2 gigs and my processor speed seems to be Real Frequency :803.7 MHz if I'm even looking at the right thing). My video card isn't really good for gaming (NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150).

Is there anything that can be done to make this game run a little faster? I shut down as much as I can before playing. Anti virus programs, windows update, network connections, etc. Superfetch is disabled so is readyboost. Also as stated above hyper threading is disabled. I am pretty knowledgable when it comes to computers but all the things I see when viewing pc wizard has me totally confused.

Can anyone give me any advice? It woul be greatly appreceated.

Bonw

From your own screen shot:

2045 - 1277 - 6 = 762MB being consumed for essentially having nothing running (unrelated to aggressive disk caching) in vista vs 334MB in XP.

I suspect the reason they got rid of "commit charge" in Vista was to hide the real indicator for comparison of how much more of a pig vista actually is on RAM. This kind of memory usage out of the box is absurd and unecessary. Even the server versions of vista (win 2008) use much less memory when doing absoultely nothing.

Yes if you have 2GB of ram and never use more than 1GB running applications Vista is great. If you actually want to use the memory you have the picture is quite different. The only time I used vista was on a notebook with 768MB of ram... Opening more than a few browser windows lead to swap hell (painfully slow). It took me more than an hour disabling enough useless crap that most people don't need or want to get that changed enough to make the system semi usable.

is there a way to clear the cache?

Disabled superfetch, indexing, I have 2Gb of RAM and Vista says I have 2030Mb, Cached is 1110Mb with 25Mb free.

Why is the cache so full and I only have 25Mb free???? I reboot the PC and for about 12 hours I have about 1Gb of free RAM to load apps with no lag time.

Noticed a few vista sidebar gadgets that apparently clear the cache but they don't work!

Anyone ...is there a way to clear vista's cache???

I think its shadow storage that occupies or decreases your memory in vista it eats up 15 percent of hardrive

you can reduce it just follow these steps

Reviewing Shadow Copy

1. Click Start>Computer and on Local Disk (C:) you'll see the available disk space you have left on the hard drive of your Windows Vista desktop/notebook computer.
2. Click Start>All Programs>Accessories.

3. Select Command Prompt (make sure you right click on Command Prompt first, and select Run as administrator).
4. Type in vssadmin list shadowstorage

5. Press Enter/Return. Command Prompt will show the allocated space towards Shadow Copy. This can be reduced to allow more free hard drive space.

Reducing Hard Disk Space Allocated for Shadow Copy

1. Exit Command Prompt and backtrack to Step 3 in Reviewing Shadow Copy. Open Command Prompt, again selecting the Run as administrator option when right-clicking.
2. Type in vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=[here add the maximum space you will allow for Shadow Sorage, e.g. 3GB].
3. Press Enter/Return. The results will be displayed in Command Prompt.

4. Click Start>Computer and once again review the available disk space for Local Disk (C:).

A lot of forum posts says superfetch is the reason vista uses 50% of Ram (so 1 gig on mine) and they to this article even though here is says "all my memory". Take the example of this screenshot:
Total: 2045
Cached: 1277
Free: 6

So, when it says 44%....isn't that used by vista. That is: 802 mb(2045 - (1277 + 6))

My understanding of superfetch is that free memory decreases and cached memory increases. If a memory intensive application starts, free memory will increase.

So how much memory does vista really use? 802 mb?

Thanks All About Me for the well placed sarcasm.

Disabling SuperFetch appears to have helped some on my PC. I have a 3 GH Pentium 4 with 512 MB of Ram. Until recently it had Windows XP Professional. XP ran like a champ with Visual Studio, InterDev, PaintShop Pro, SQL, numerous IE browsers and tabs, Notepad, Outlook, and other applications running simultaneously.

After getting hit with a virus I took the "opportunity" to rebuild with Vista Ultimate. After that my PC became a fat silicon turd.

Right now I have virtually no development software installed. Admittedly, I should have read the hardware recommendations which clearly state at least 1 GB of RAM for Vista Ultimate.

Rather than repeat the symptoms many of you reading this blog are likely experiencing, I'll just mention that task manager initially showed 88% of my Physical Memory Usage History consumed. After disabling SuperFetch and rebooting I could detect little change in that memory usage figure. Right now it's at 79%.

Overall the PC is not as sluggish as it was before disabling SuperFetch. But, I'm experiencing issues that were not present with XP. For example Internet Explorer keeps crashing when there is virtually no load on the system. By virtually no load, I mean that I have the following windows open:
IE with 2 tabs.
Task Manager
Notepad

In the background Task Manager shows a dozen svchost.exe and about 25 other processes.

Under the pre-2000 versions of Windows I was used to intermittent application failures. They were a fact of life in the 90's. Does anyone remember the days when you would install a program and pray that Windows would still boot up after doing so? I do, and don't want to go back to those.

I think Microsoft has done a good job of raising the quality bar with Windows; in fact they've done such a good job that I now expect applications to virutally never fail because of the operating system. Of course they do, but it's rare.

My work PC has Windows XP and simultaneously runs multiple instances and versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, Office, and other resource intensive software. Rarely do any of those applications fail. The only time that system gets sluggish is when Norton kicks in for a system scan. For some reason Symantec has been incapable of producing a virus scanner that enables users to govern its resource use.

That's probably what needs to happen with SuperFetch. Put an option to throttle SuperFetch at some memory percentage level. For example, if Windows wants to pre-cache, I'm willing to gamble that it will be right 50% of the time, so it can have up to 50% of my available memory. Leave the rest alone.

Unfortunately I'll probably go back to XP Professional, at least until I get a 64 bit dual core with loads of RAM. :)

I think this is funny. If people knew how to read this there would be no issues or fussing. Look at the graphs again at the top and then translate the information, in particular from the Windows XP claim.

DO YOUR MATHS!!

Under XP 2096620 total memory
and 1506504 free memory

so how come it has 1481992 system cache?
If you do your maths on this one then 1506504 - 1481992 = 24512

Seems to me like Windows XP is doing the same, your only really have 24MB of ram left in the example you have posted, its just windows reports it to you differently.

If you pay for 2, 3 or 4Gb of RAM why do you want so much to be free, Windows is just caching useful data in case you need it. Once you load a program that requires memory that information is unloaded and released for use by the program.

Why have all that memory and not have it used by the system.

Windows XP and Vista do basically the same thing with memory, cache previously used software, only Vista actually achieves this a lot more efficiently. XP just doesn't own up to the fact that it is cache system information.

I find it amusing that you'd have all this memory and insist that it is free, if it is free then it's not doing its job.

The only people who need free physical memory is gamers, but as Windows is a multi use system it can't afford to keep memory free just in case you want to play a game.

There's no point going back to Windows XP, it has a flawed security model and is inefficient on multi-core processors. Vista is massively more secure and uses hardware a lot more efficiently.

It's time to put Windows XP to bed and move on unless you've got an older machine.

I have 4GB RAM and currentrly run Vista x32 (I will try x64 too, but i haven't installed it yet).

Vista has only 2813MB avaialable, because its x32.

Currently I see the following values in Task Manager:

Memory-Graph: 1.39GB

Physical Memory:
Total 2813
Cached 1667
Free 0

So I think, that the 1.39GB is the memory, whicch is used by windows in the "old-fashioned" way an the other ~1.4GB are used for superfetch.

But I will disable superfetch now, because form what I read in some other comments here, this should be faster in games and games are the only tasks on my PC that need performance.

Most people so far seem to have said that disabling superFetch helps performance. Reality trumps theory. Wear and tear on the system is reduced by disabling superFetch. That's reason enough.

The improved caching algorithm generally seems to work fine; but I run a lot of data analysis (nothing huge, but multiple gigs nonetheless), and it seems that vista is more willing to page out programs (even unused portions of actively running processes) to enable it to cache more aggressively - which isn't very useful to me, since the workload isn't IO bound, but it is quite annoying when the windows general GUI latency grows unnecessarily to improve disk latency of non-disk limited apps.

So sure, it's generally a good thing all around, but it's not exactly brilliant; and it doesn't seem to notice that certain apps always trigger cache misses anyhow (i.e. why bother caching?) which means it's not noticeably smarter than any other VM system out there.

Eamon, I agree there are specific narrow situations where SuperFetch is detrimental. In those cases I've issued a "net stop superfetch" myself.

But for typical, general use it is quite a bit faster to let the OS pull in everything it thinks you might need -- put that 2 GB or 4 GB of memory to use instead of sitting idle and empty 90% of the time.

When I go back to Windows XP now it feels a lot less "snappy" as I launch apps, and I think SuperFetch is a part of that.

Here's what I do. On every client machine with Vista, I turn off SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, Windows Search, Windows Defender, and System Restore.

Like magic, the machines run _almost_ on par with XP. The difference is freakin' night and day, really.

Now, this works even on machines with 2GB of RAM, so explain to me again why all of this grafted-on after-the-fact bloat crap is supposed to be GOOD for my clients?

So let mi get that straight. Microsoft decides what to cash for you IN CASE YOU MIGHT NEED IT…
These are the facts. My machine is Intel Quad core 4 gig of RAM Vista Ultimate 64 nVidia 8800GT. I play Second Life on this PC and 4 GIG of RAM is not enough?!?!
If SL is running more than 1h on this machine and I load different regions of the game the memory usage for SecondLife.exe is shooting through the roof reaching 1.8gig at times eventually Vista freezes.
This never happened on XP64 so I don’t know what Microsoft did but whatever new memory management they decided to use is total crap.

Nice Article Jeff! I really like your writing style and think the input and responses to this article have been very interesting indeed.

My thoughts...
Superfetch IMO is a very good idea but frankly it appears even if you have 4GB of ram (as I have) Superfetch will simply not 'guess' correctly every time. Applications start faster, but try something Superfetch does not guess correctly (in my case opening up an application I use everyday (yes every day) and my system starts to crawl.

I really like the idea of Vista using my 'free' ram. Why not? But somehow my real world experience is really poor management of my 'free' ram.

Solution?
If,if...if only we as users could simply tell Vista what apps we want to use Superfetch with (in a similar way to telling Vista or XP what app to use to open a type of file) I think that would be huge step forward. I think Superfetch and Ready boost are good ideas but it's almost as if they are not quite 'finished'.

As a Linux user as well, I see no system lag doing the same things using the same hardware as Vista.

TAO's comments...

"Here's what I do. On every client machine with Vista, I turn off SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, Windows Search, Windows Defender, and System Restore.

Like magic, the machines run _almost_ on par with XP."

TAO is IMO absolutely SPOT ON.

That is *exactly* my experience. Whatever Microsofts plans were for Vista, making the tweaks that TAO and others like myself do to Vista should never result in a more reliable and/or more responsive OS.

Reliability should not be achieved by switching things off that really should be left *on*. It is supposed to be the other way around. Switching things off that are on by default should cause reliability issues!

Sudden system crawls and slowdowns really provide an unreliable environment for users who might use more than a few applications consistently.

I get the feeling that Microsoft designed Vista with far too much of the future in mind. I am trying to remember who from Microsoft made a comment about "PC's being so much more powerful by the time Vista comes out"

Yes when everyone has 6gb or more of ram and Vista 64bit(based on 'ados' excellent post, more on that later) then it looks we will see pretty much the real Superfetch in Vista.

The time will come when you walk into a store buy a PC and the lowest base unit system has a 64 bit version of Vista with 6 - 8gb of ram. Fire it up and forget about performance issues.

By that time it's likely Windows 7 would have been available for about a year or two. With a service pack already released. It's just too far down the line for joe public to think about now.

He wants Superfetch on Vista 32 to work as advertised (now) with the hardware he currently has available (4gb + Quad core in my case)

I just think that Microsoft should have 'finished' Superfetch. It seems better in SP1 (IMO) but the system lag I experienced pre SP1 simply just took longer to show up. Maybe Vista SP3 (if there will be one)will have a further revised Superfetch that delivers on it's promises but without having to run a 64 bit OS with 6GB + of ram.

{Back to the 'ados' post reference earlier}...

'ados' posted a superb write up on just how much ram a user may need to really see what Superfetch can do.

I really hope someone from Microsoft reads that. If you want to find that post quickly it look for a post from ados on April 5, 2008 03:45 PM

That really was a real world detailed example of how to take the guess work out of Superfetch and let it do what it was intended to do properly. Thanks for taking the time to do that ados.

The problem...

...of course is that Superfetch appears to favour users of a few apps consistently (to be fair that is Likely Microsofts main target demographic) but of course for any mid to high usage, not even very heavy usage, Superfetch fails IMO. Even with 4GB of ram on a Quad core PC (mine).

Give it enough ram and based on ados' post Superfetch will really fly. But to expect a user to have to fork out for a 64bit version of Vista and 6GB or more of ram to really get such a potentially highly useful (as advertised) feature working to it's optimum level, is not a realistic expectation for Microsoft to have and is somewhat different to XP in terms of what was needed to get the best our of it.

I appreciate as a business Microsoft likely wanted to focus their efforts with Superfetch on the larger part of their target market (who may have far less, if any problems with Superfetch) but that approach does not work. Let us decide what apps Superfetch is used with. That will save a good chunk of cash on additional memory (6GB+)and a copy of Vista 64 bit.

An interesting twist to my post...

I actually have a native 64 bit application (Cakewalk Sonar) that I will use on a 64 bit version of Vista.

Sonar can access up to 128 GB of ram so it will have no problems with my second upgrade...memory up to 8GB.

So in a strange way my move to 64 bit Vista (disc arrived today)is application driven and not as a result of the failings of Superfetch. I will also run some 32 bit apps on 64 bit Vista like Zynewave Podium, and Office 2007 (through WOW64) but my upgrade is really down to Sonar.

Also some other plugins I use for Music Production are starting to appear as native 64 bit plugs so I think now is a good time for me to move.

I still have another version of Vista 32 bit on a second PC that would benefit greatly from a further revised and enhanced version of Superfetch in future that hopefully will not need 6GB+ of ram to totally eliminate any issues.

Nice idea in theory but it just does not appear to be 'finished' yet.

vista is using too much the hard drive, no mather what amount of ram you have or if you disable the search indexer, windows defender, sistem restore.
-------------------
regards,
Ochelari de vedere

Someone should make a program that finds out what is causing vista to take up so much space. I mean... look at linux, it looks cool and has more features and still doesn't take up as much space. Ms should check their products again.

amusing to hear these XP fanatics strut their stuff.

XP-eol this year.

Not sure about you, I'd move on to the upgrade rather than whining about it all day long.

Interesting article and comments (on the whole).

From Win2K onwards Microsoft/Windows has been stuck in it's own bootloop.

- Launch new product (unfinished)
- Start pimping next product
- Put most of your programmers on the next product
- Leave a few strays tidying up the new poo you just pooped
- Hope they get the "new" product up to speed (i.e patched and actually working within three or so years) in time for:

- Launch new product (unfinished)

I reluctantly moved to XP last year from Win2K because of one prog that wouldn't run on 2K, plus the product support on 2K will die. I also bought a laptop that HAD vista on it.

XP compared to Win2K sums up the problem many users here are describing with vista, which just takes it some steps further. This problem is an increasing removal of control from the user towards the OS.

Vista with it's super administrator account, millions of clicks on "yes I really really want to change the fu{@ing time please, please Mr Computer". Superfetch. Super indexing. Super graphics, Super slow.

Super for Micro$oft yes, but basically everything they touch is the definition of bloatware - and a perfect reflection of the narcissistic Gates' ultimate greed.

I'm moving everything to Linux. It's a learning curve, sure. Yet the idea that the computer will not be doing lots of things I do not want it to do and will be doing the things I want in the way I want them done is just too attractive. It makes the learning curve worth it.

Gates is fighting a war now against Linux, not anyone else. He can employ 64,000 programmers but he can not fill them with love for what they do. He can fill their pockets with cash yet that will not make them do their best work.

Two years ago Linux was not really an option for anyone but an expert if you actually wanted the machine to do something useful.

Today there are linux distro's that install more easily than windows. OK after that things can get tricky for certain specifics (Digital TV card anyone?) yet the pace of improvement is vast and what we do not see with Linux is it getting fatter and slower and hungrier. We see it getting tighter, faster, easier.

Two years from now, with an ever growing body of developers contributing, Linux will be an out-of-the "free download" OS that will beat the pants off Vista, Windows 7 and anything else Microslop come up with, if they can get someone to buy it.

The main spanner in the works, potentially, IMO, is the anti-virus companies - who will now start paying people to write nasty Linux viruses to scare people off. They are in a lovely snuggly co-dependent relationship with Microslop.

Matthew

ps Whoever is running Norton ..... just always expect a slow system, however many processors and such it has.

"Someone should make a program that finds out what is causing vista to take up so much space."

Sysinternals

I love it! Great place to let go over this whole issue...

Look, it's really simple: Keep the Totally Clueless Sexually-Confused End User on the treadmill with the latest and greatest chrome-plated crap from whatever keeps abusing them. They love it; and it's great for business! To Vista, and beyond!

For the rest of us: Stop where common sense has defined the natural edge. XP/2K is good for everyday use from 384Mb RAM up, with NO pagefile; bearing any common sense regarding system setup and program selection.

Linux stinks from a common usage standpoint (try installing a typical printer or anything beyond a distro's spread of pre-installed programs); and isn't ever going to figure out what the masses wasnt at the rate they're building their distro "Tower of Babel."

When ReactOS FINALLY comes past Alpha we'll see true, lasting computing freedom for the PC desktop. 'Til then, hang on to what works; and use it for all it's worth ;o)

Pax.

On my computer downstairs, Vista uses about 87% of the available RAM most of the time. I have 1GB, and I really don't know why it fails to use the rest.

Also, my laptop is the same, alothough I could attribute it to the lack of use, as it is new, and SuperFetch hasn't really learnt yet. But I'd still expect it to use more than the 55% of my 2Gb of RAM.

I always want my computer to use as much RAM as it can.

I also want to point out that Linux is very good at caching necessary information before I need it. Linux uses most of the 1Gb it has installed, and pretty much all of that is cache.

All Your Memory Are Belong To Us

nuff said eh?

While RAM-as-cache SOUNDS like a good concept, in practice it seems like another "we are microsoft and we know better then you" attempt. So now the system knows exactly what programs I'm going to launch? What if I use a lot of different apps? Now I have to wait for the system to unload memory it tried to cache for me so it can load up the app I want to use. Or if I want a certain program to run faster (like a game), there is no way for me to change the priority because the system treats my one big app as "not so often" and my web browser as "often".

Caching works perfect for system files and such that every program needs, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for user apps. Or at the very least there should be a mechanism for changing it to work better for MY setup, and what -I- want to have happen.

Man im trying to play my lineage2 on vistas had no prpoblems for 7 months, now i cant even log into game because it has a critical error stating that i dont have enough "virtual meomory" wtf???

My system was running great at about Free-780 suddenly it just started hogging ram down to between Free-0 and Free-8 and kept hogging; as a test I tried to hogg the ram before vista get's to hogg it but that just made it worse.

Yes; there's a definate memory hog; it's not open source so not telling; maybe it's best that MS sweat it a bit as that's what they deserve.

I now have it running at Free-1410 and it's great!!!

Is there possibly a way to turn super fetch against itself?
Possibly before it even caches the memory, you could set aside X amount of RAM to be used for a game of your choice. Since I started using Vista, I can't play my games online. Although before, I had JUST enough RAM to run the game, but then I got the Verizon Security suite which of course added yet another RAM requirement to my long list of Memory Loads.
So is there a way to set aside some RAM that super fetch cannot cache?
I have over one Gig of RAM available, however it is already cached.

nVida Geforce 9600 GT 512 mb
2GB RAM
Windows Vista Home Basic 32 Bit

Jeff,

I am having a similar problem to this. I am running XP with 3 gigs of RAM on a Gateway Laptop W350A T-1628. I am having a tough time typing in anything, let alone this text box, without it coming to a complete halt. It freezes up every several seconds while typing, then fills it in. I am using Mozilla Firefox as well. Does this issue relate?

I checked my "Free" and it was 35MB in the Performance manager/Task Manager pane. I am not a tech guy, so any help would be great!

I am only running Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 and Mozilla right now, but I am using 5 windows for browsing, and most only have 2 or 3 tabs but one has around 15. My PC usage is only 6% though in Task Manager.

Am I just using too many Firefox windows at once? Thank you for your help!

Problem is, they did not disable the low memory warnings. Running almost nothing, I get low memory cautions all day long, with display driver outages, blanking screens, and insistence that I "close" the apps using the most memory like Firefox or Google earth. Stupid Microsoft.. PS Ive got 3GB and it isn't nearly enough for Vista.

Just checked SP1 - same old... the souce seems to be Task Scheduler.

Vista 64 Ultimate SP1.. Dual Core 3.2.. 8GB of ram. Vista is a memory crack addict.. most times I have under a gig of memory free. 7 gigs..into a black hole.

I've had my paging file on and off.. mostly running IM programs, email..movies.. not a big load. Sidebar takes a gig alone, Windows search takes a gig.....clearly there is a massive issue with memory allocation within this 64 bit OS. Even after closing the sidebar and search (which should free up 2gb) it free's up about 400mb instead.

Under a fresh install the system ran great with 8GB, it was normally using 2-3gb.. now im sure if I gave it 50GB and ran Outlook it would be 99% used................................wtf

Helpfull article . Thanks

As far as I see, the green bar graph shows under Vista how much memory is already in use and cannot be freed for other purposes. The cache can be shrinked / freed if applications need more mem. Same is true for the "Physical Memory Usage History" if you have Page File off.

But for the same services running in background and just having a desktop, Vista seems to need approx 500 MByte, while XP used approx 150 MByte. This is a huge difference.

Do not believe that you find under Processes a reliable amount of memory used by a process. There are Win32 API functions to allocate memory which does not show up there, but only in the green bar and in the History.

One explanation for the higher memory requirements of Vista may simply be the ill-done winsxs stuff, keeping all old DLL versions on disk and using them for applications linked to them. If there is only a single version of a DLL, its code is in RAM one time and shared by multiple apps (or DLLs). If every app gets an other version of the DLL, then every version occupies RAM for its code.

Even such simple applications as notepad.exe use old DLLs from winsxs instead the latest version.

You can shut it down but why would you want to? Its not like if the memory is filled it cant load anything else. If the memory is full and what you need is there,it just uses it. If its full and what you need is not there,it just overwrites it. It doesn't take any significant effort to just release the pages and reuse them.

who cares about memory usage,or at least the kind of memory usage we are talking about here. I have 8gigs of ram and it cost me 150 dollars. At that price,windows can use all it wants.

In order to " ixnay on the oadinglay " you just have to stop the SuperFetch service.

Note on the side (to the guy that disabled SuperFetch and still has no clue), memory management isn't "impaired" by disabling the SuperFetch service since its a design, SuperFetch is only meant to IMPROVE it and isn't the engine behind it, think of it as high-class motor oil.

vista precaches regulary used programs

When i try to update AVG Free 8.0.169 from a dir (Tools-> Update from directory...), i get the message "Update Failed. General Error - not enough free memory, write error". I have tried every thing from increasing virtual memory manually to setting virtual memory to be system managed - no effect. i still get the same message. i don't think memory management is so hot on Vista. The feature of AVG works fine on my 1.5 GB RAM Laptop whereas my desktop (which has the problem) running VIsta Professional SP1 has 2 GB RAM and is a Core 2 Duo processor to boot.
Any suggestions????

When i try to update AVG Free 8.0.169 from a dir (Tools-> Update from directory...), i get the message "Update Failed. General Error - not enough free memory, write error". I have tried every thing from increasing virtual memory manually to setting virtual memory to be system managed - no effect. i still get the same message. i don't think memory management is so hot on Vista. The feature of AVG works fine on my 1.5 GB RAM Laptop whereas my desktop (which has the problem) running VIsta Professional SP1 has 2 GB RAM and is a Core 2 Duo processor to boot.
Any suggestions????

Hello - I have 8 gigs of ram, and windows has decided to use all of it. So much so that I can't even save a 400x300 jpg out of photoshop that has 4 layers and no effects.

I could see letting Vista pre-cache with a couple gigs, but it caches up 6GB! This is ridiculous. Everything runs super slow. Launching Firefox takes forever. And everything keeps saying "not enough memory to run" etc. I don't know what is wrong with the service... maybe something got corrupted. But it would be kind of nice if you could have a setting of max RAM to use in your pre-cache. Or tell it programs to not precache.

>I am having a similar problem to this. I am running XP with 3 gigs of RAM on a Gateway Laptop W350A T-1628. I am having a tough time typing in anything, let alone this text box, without it coming to a complete halt. It freezes up every several seconds while typing, then fills it in. I am using Mozilla Firefox as well. Does this issue relate?

the reason why this usually happens is windows XP has a background task that defrags the hard disk. when it kicks in, you feel it. massive swapping can cause this too. Really, other than defrag, I honestly don't know what causes this. I have 3GB ram too, and I have the same problem.

I think the more memory you have, the slower the system you are going to have, because windows must manage more ram, and it does it in chunks. some programs do garbage collection, which takes a while.

These are only educated guesses. I would really like to nail this one down because it really bugs me.

People think ram is the God component of the PC. IT is not. Think of it this way. Ram prevents your system from being slow, kind of like preventing a bottleneck. Ram does not make your computer faster (in a way). The CPU does.

(1.66 dual, 2 gig RAM, 32 bit) One thing I didn't see mentioned here is starting the computer in Safe Mode, which I plan to try soon. This is supposed to run bare OS processes only. I can see caching is sapping my CPU resources, because every time I do something, CPU spikes disproportionately. I have turned off most non-
dependent processes, which has my RAM used now at about 730 Mb. The person who said RAM not used is RAM wasted fails to consider that RAM unused can be used for the computing-intensive application you're currently using, and it takes CPU to modify that RAM. I will take the advice to get a second high quality hard drive, but does anyone know how to set the page caching to the second hard drive?

Superfetch as nothing to do with it!!! The cache still registers as free memory when seen by programs, cos Vista just discards it when you need the memory. I want to know why Vista has to use something like 700MB+ all on it's own (i.e. that difference between 905MB and 334MB on the graphs you show)

Free available RAM is *everything* in modern IT environments that run vm's, java, firefox ...no free RAM and you get swapping to disk.

And why shouldn't the user be able to choose which apps are cached rather than Vista???

I've got 3069Mb of RAM, Cache 2659Mb, free 73Mb

The question is how can one view what vista has cached???

I got 1 gm RAM and vista, it was working quite well but from yesterday I cant even update my briefcase in my USB pendrive with the mother folder in my Laptop. It is saing "dont have enough memory to run".. Task Manager showing, it is using 77-85% of the physical memory. I have done everything possible from hijackthis to disabling various services, still no outcome. I am desperate. please help.

You, sir, are and idiot (sic)

Thank you very much for this useful article and the comments.

Ok here's one i didnt see on this whole page. I just built a new rig, and opted to switch to vista to take advantage of the 8 gigs of ram i threw in. the system registers that there are indeed 8 gigs installed, but strangely the task manager physical memory is limited to 2 gigs. any attempt to run software of high demand is met with "out of memory" errors. i cant seem to find any way to get Vista to use the other 6 available gigs of ram. anyone seen anything like this before?

intel core2 duo (2x T7300 @ 2ghz), 3gb ram, 8600gs.

windows indexer - manual
ready boost service - off
all auto update services - off (I manually check for updates on a regular basis, and do update checks for security software once a day (more often if I'm abouts to download data or launch the browser)

Physical memory (MB):

Total 3069
cache 2398
FREE 1 <---- JUST ONE MEG!!!!

Page file 914/6340

I find vista does lag, and lags very often. I start any browser (firefox/ie/opera/avant/safari/netscape and others) they launch no problems, but soon as I click in a search box, I get the mouse pointer change to its 'busy' icon, and it stays like this for around 3-5 seconds, WHY? all i've done is click an input box. doesn't matter what input box I select, the same happens. This is clearly a major problem, and must be something to do with my free memory being 1 meg.

I use a whole bunch of different apps, I'm also a big games player, do lots of web designing and video editing, I'm very random on what I'm going to do, with 320 gb harddrive capacity, theres absolutely no way that the computer can predict the next thing I'm going to do, when its memory is no more than 2 percent of the amount of data actually on the drive.

This superfetch is a good idea though, but must be user limited to prevent this lagging.

The latest games all require that the cpu in a vista system must be more powerful than the cpu for an xp system, on avergae it looks like vista needs an extra 0.2 - 0.6 ghz of cpu power to play the same games, surely this tells you that vista is a p*ss poor os and slower than xp don't you think?

I'm very spontaneous and have a great lack of concentration, I can be working on some web stuff, and within half hour be either bored or just have the urge to launch fear, juiced 2, COD4. All games play fine. Then I get bored of that, decide on some video editing, get bored again and have a good few hours of browsing the net. My vista experience can sometimes really be a pain in the neck with all these lags in the os environment.

On some websites, if its a long page, I can often find myself happily (sarcasm) watching the menu bar display '(Program Not Responding)' for anything upto 5 minutes while the cache is emptied to make room for the web page. No sh*t. Thats an extremely pleasent experience, and Bill should get a baseball bat across the back of his head for making us all so happy and thrilled with the smooth running of vista.

My systems not exactly top notch in the high end market for a laptop, but is one of the good ones, and I certainly dont expect the slowness I experience. My last xp laptop was only 1.6 single core with 1 gig, and was far far faster without lags within the xp enduser experience.

So, anyone found a way of limiting the amount of ram used for caching yet? I'd be happy to have 512meg of real unused memory, so when I do launch something superfetch didnt predict, i dont have to wait so long for the program to launch. 512meg would also give me a good amount spare to fill up while browsing the net without having to wait before I can interact with the browser again.

Sorry if not made much sense, been awake 45 hours now so not thinking too good lol.

A do have another question, if I increase my ram from 3gb to 4gb, will the other half a gig that cant be used by the os, instead be accessible by my graphics card? (256 meg dedicated, upto 1.5gig shared)?

Thanks, and so far this thread has been a good read.

Same here. I have 8gb of RAM in dual channel mode (1066), Intel CoreDuo 3.16ghz, etc. Just finished playing a racing game, and only had 30 mb free. Now it is 10 minutes later, and I opened Firefox, and TaskManager says I still only have 39 mb free, and 6292mb cached, with a total of 7166mb reported. Seems like it won't go down. Total paging file size for all drives is reported as 7466mb. This is running Vista x64 of course.

Well that was a great article, I didn't take the time to read all those reply's to it. It did answer my question though. I been using Vista on my home laptop for a few months now. It only had one GB of ram to start with so I assumed Vista was just that hungry for memory. After adding more and getting it up to 4GB's (3 for system and 1 for Video) I went in the task manager and to my horror I was staring at 7MBs or less of free Ram. I was still thinking on the old XP system memory usage.

I was like, well if its all full whats using it. I knew it had to be some free memory some where because all my programs were loading fast as hell and the computer was even cutting off faster. I just wanted to know why it was so full all the time. I tried killing processes and all kinds of stuff but it was always full! So then I hit up Google for the answer, and it led me here. Now I just feel silly, I was trying to unknowingly break the one thing that makes it run so well.

Thanks for answering that one for me

-Britton

I see a lot of you complaining about your Vista experience, I was like that at first. I didn't want to switch to Vista either, but since I have been using it. I would never go back to XP now, XP was a good one though. It doesn't lag for me, and loads all my games fine, even Diablo II which did take a few work arounds to make it play with out having to run in Admin mode. With the extra video memory the upgrade gave me, I can run Dynasty Warriors 6 in full on video mode now and it looks freaking awesome just like on PS3.

OH yeah one more thing as I scan your comments its like some of you just didn't read that article at the top or your rambling on about something I missed. I figured this out though, you can determine on your own what is in the cache and what is being used by your programs. Here's an example, I'll use my current task manager info for you.

I have 59 processes running, 16403 handles, 731 threads, and the page file is at 1050/3906M

Physical Memory is

Total 2813
Cached 1982
Free 1

So what is being used by my programs? Simple 2813 - 1982 = 831

831MB of ram is being used as the storage for the active programs, which are yahoo messenger, a folder, an IM on yahoo, firefox, the task manager, AVG, Screenthemes, and winamp. Those are are just the visible ones on the surface and don't forget that "memory hog" vista.

As you can see it not hogging anything 831MB and you consider that hogging??? That's a drop in the bucket on your 8 gig systems running some ungodly fast processor. The cache memory just unloads stuff as you need more ram, so just think of the cached memory as your "free" memory if your trying to compare it to XP's task manager layout.

Sure, this is a big debate, but just doing a web search for any XP vs. Vista (32 or 64 bit versions) benchmark tests shows the truth.

Vista is a resource hog, and there's really no list of technical jargon, or opinionated statements for that matter, that will convince me otherwise.

XP runs programs faster, and it's painfully obvious! I mean, come on... Caching has always been a double-edged sword, but only for CPU's and other miscellaneous hardware, has it worked as well as it had been expected. Otherwise, the human being, using their home computer, often does something different every time he or she uses it.

With the unpredictable nature of people, leaving it to Vista to "guess" what they're going to need ahead of time is pointless and consumes too many resources at this point in time.

At this rate, it won't be long until we'll have invented another stage in computer memory. A caches of caches, then a cache for that... It's pointless.

What's the point of vista superfetch when it takes < second of so for loading apps into memory anyhow? With superfetch on my PC is slow and sluggish, particularly my hard disk continually being access by Vista which does_not know best. Users should be given the choice of what they want cached. Sometimes programmers are too smart for their own good. Thankfully Windows 7 will fix this feature!

This is a good article but is does make one error. A common misconception is that the "Available" memory in XP is actually free. This is not true. A great deal of this will usually be in use. In Windows "available" and "in use" are not contradictory.

As a part of it's normal activities Windows will trim rarely used memory from a process's working set to make more available for other uses. This wil be saved to the pagefile if necessary. But this memory is not made free, if the owning application requires the data it is still there. On the other hand, if the memory is needed for other purposes it is immediately available. All NT based systems use this system.

But as good as this stystem is it does not make as full use of memory as possible. This is where Vista's Superfetch comes in.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA

donno why the heck vista consuming all the memory is good!!@#@#........can't run any game properly with even huge ram and best processor...vista consumes everything and runs out of memory!!!..linux on dumb machine works better

Ok, than why is Vista using up all my memory and still swapping like crazy? :S

I think it's amusing how some people post comments, strongly defending Vista...

Here's a question for the people who defend MS: Have you ever stopped to think, this software is designed for people to use? Since that's the case - if the people don't like it, doesn't that mean the software didn't quite do what it was intended to do?

It's like, if an automaker was building only one model of a car that could only be driven on rainy days... After that, the automaker (and it's sworn followers) tell everyone else they're stupid for not wanting to buy it, or for being frustrated with it not working on dry days, just to get them to work and back.

* * * +
People can talk about VISTA'S underlying infrastructure til the cows come home, but given a set of working softwares/environment (even if you limit this to just the popular softwares around), VISTA simply fails to provide a high standard of observable performance.
* * * +

I have read half of the comments on this page - and that's a lot...

Regardless which side you're on, or on the fence,
THE MARKET (that's everyone)
DEMANDS AN OS THAT FULFILLS ITS NEEDS.
(and of course like EVERY INDUSTRY, this NEED 'EVOLVES', constantly.)

Whether techie or not, based on superficial/apparent observable results, the MARKET'S NEED/DEMAND IS FOR VISTA TO RUN SMOOTHLY WHEN OTHER MARKET-POPULAR SOFTWARES ARE LOADED.

Fact is simple: Any standard SALE OF VISTA/LAPTOP/PC will see a handful of STANDARD APPLICATIONS loaded onto the OS.

INSPITE OF ALL THE apparently increase in physical specs, VISTA DOES NOT DELIVER PERFORMANCE - there is no excuse because the people PAY for some quality assurance based on forcasted/expected market appetite.

Vista clearly doesn't deliver a lot.
People can talk about VISTA'S underlying infrastructure, but given a set of working softwares/environment, it simply doesn't provide a high standard of observable performance.

* * *
This is not news, i have advised everyone requiring performance to get away from Vista - not as an anti-MS stance, but really as a performance decision.
* * *

That's why I returned to my Good old XP.
http://winguard.blogspot.com

and.
http://crackzsl.blogspot.com

I FIND THAT WINDOWS XP AND WINDOWS VISTA, IS VERY POOR

My sister as had both ,for example when viewing items on ebay, the browser pixels are to light . you can not make out the jpegs.

were as at home I have Windows ME ,its and old system, but does not give half the problems of XP and vista. people think by up grading to XP or Vista, they are onto a good thing, but in actual fact they are a load of rubbish ,give me Windows ME any day, yes I do have teething problems from time to time. but its served me well.over the last 6 years.

my email address is les-hughes@blueyonder.co.uk

can some one give my the correct pixcels setting for windows Vista aspire 7520. I need to ajust the browser setting on my sisters laptop.
for when I check out Ebay items
any help will be greatly appreciated.
Les Hughes,
Liverpool ENGLAND

I was horrified initially when I found 10 mb out of 3 GB of physical memory left on my system. This description clarified my doubt.
Thanks :)
Regards
Jyotiraditya

I have vista and iv been freaking out because my computer is running at 100% usage, starting about an hour after i turn it on, bofore then it runs great. So what your saying is that whats going on is a good thing, because i changed everything on my computer my security center and my internet explorer and everything, but nothing brought my cache down. i thought it was bad that i put in almost 5 G's of RAM and came out with 179 mb because of cache? would that not freak u out?

I play this warrock game which is masivley multiplayer online with like 36 people rooms,and i try to free up as much RAM as i can but it seems the more i try to free up space it takes more away.....

Cmon Dan. Seriously. You are either a MAC person or you are still using Windows 98SE... lol.

Look, when Windows 2000 was the best, people whined and moaned about how XP was worthless. Now, people who can't afford Vista or current hardware are whining again. This time its how XP SP3 is the best and how VISTA is worthless. I laugh when I read posts such as yours (6 up from this one).

Vista (32 or 64-bit) perform just fine. SP1 cleared up quite a few issues. This was the case with XP as well. Most people didnt even consider it until SP1 was out.

In any case, get used to it bud. Windows 7 will be here before you know it - and its even more stable than Vista (not that Vista isn't stable, it is). That's right. Just google Windows 7 and see what people are saying. Time to roll with the changes Dan.

Vistas Memory Management is broken. It pages out every crap and is not even close to the efficient Memory Management of Linux - which by the hand does NOT cache out everything back to the disk in that slow and endless manner like vista does. I had Vista and it is damn slow even *with that *neat approach to using the RAM as much as possilbe. If you use your Computers Ressources.. DONT use VISTA because it uses them first. (that should be the slogan TM) Windows 7 is just another Marketing joke. Nobody needs it.

I have been skimming over all the info but I didn't see where you type in the command of not having superfetch or what ever it's called.
I got on here because I have the same problem.
I have 4GB of ram and I am running VISTA 32.
My Task Manager says:
PHY MEM
TOTAL 3029
CACHED 2122
FREE ANYWHERE FROM 50 DOWN TO 25 when I run IE7
So I was hopeing to get answers on what to do.
I was going to contact DELL support to logon and see what my problem is.
thanks

Great feature

You turn SuperFetch on and off with the services command:

services.msc

You input that command in the Start > Search box.

When the Microsoft Management Console launches, scroll down through the services to the Superfetch entry and change the Startup type as you wish.

XP is best at all times.
I don't think Vista can retain in market in the future.
http://slsecurity.blogspot.com/
The Lanka Reporter

You know, every other modern OS in the world solves this "problem" by improving the buffer cache logic. Only Microsoft would make the problem WORSE instead of actually fixing the lousy caching algorithms in XP.

now thnx to you I finally know why is my vista SUCKS lot of memory.

the unforgetable experience on my is half of my memory has been decreased because i OPEN notepad and create HTML project for only 8kb -.-.

sometimes if i done nothing to my computer it will refresh its memory!..

PLS. reply me at RiVeramaya_brian@yahoo.com

Or in my friendster
* http://profiles.friendster.com/riveramaya

The real thing is that Superfetch un-necessarily loads all the files that might be used. This is not quite intelligent. It slows down boot up time and although runs as a background tasks it constantly accesses disk drive for caching contents. So, this has a considerably reduces battery life.

When superfetch service is disabled my computer stops disc reads in a few minutes of start up. when superfetech is enabled the disc is accessed for a longer period.

the act of using RAM as a temporary cache for all the files that one may not use is a pretty dumb idea. Superfetch needs to be more selective to what it loads into the memory. Although it might learn over time, I have grown impatient with it constantly hogging up disc access and consuming RAM for no good reason. So I prefer to have it turned off!

I posted some time ago here (great article Jeff) about getting 8gb of ram to run Vista x64 with. At the time superfetch on vista SP1 would leave pretty much no ram left. Yes it may be putting it to good use but still.

Anyway after running Vista *SP2* for about 7 days now I have noticed that Superfetch only uses 3GB out of the 8GB I have now. Less than *half* compared to SP1!

My usage of Vista has not changed between Sp1 and Sp2 so clearly something to do with Superfetch has changed for the better. It is guessing and prioritising my ram far better than before.

It may not be perfect but right now it is a considerable improvement (50% I would say)over it's SP1 version. Much more sensible and beneficial now.

YMMV but that is certainly my experience so far.

HTH

good thread...

at the end of the day i think whether this is a good feature or not remains with how one uses ones machine. i'm in the IT business and work exclusively on an xp machine with 2gigs. i just bought my wife a laptop running vista64 with 4 gigs so i thought that i would be drooling over the speed of that machine. not so!

the question will be whether superfetch can actually determine what you need ahead of time! i'm afraid that with the huge number of applications that i need at anyone time then its not going to be able to help me much. and what is the cost of it stopping what it is doing in the background simply to service my 'page down' key? too much for me...

good. think you will make these projects into a success also!

I have a HP a6220n running Vista SP2. It came with 2 GB; today I installed another 4 GB. Task manager shows: Total 3317, Cached 2691. Restarts are perhaps a bit faster but booting cold now is much sloooooower. Could this be a function of Superfetch? If so, is there anything short of turning off Superfetch to fix this behavior?

Ever since Microsoft introduced their super aggressive superfetch in Vista/Windows 7 my PC is sluggish and slow when performing everyday PC jobs such as web surfing, alt-tabbing between open apps etc

I have a DELL PC 3.2GHZ/HT with 3.4Gb of RAM

My main uses of the PC are for Opera (with speed dial to my websites), Outlook Express, and Office from time to time).

I have tri boot XP / Vista / Windows 7

Even with superfetch disabled in the registry, vista and windows 7 still cache everything leaving free RAM next to zero and destroying.

Microsoft haven't done anything right on the desktop right since XPSP2/SP3

switch vista to xp or xp /vista

What is the point of PREFETCH when SSD drives are gradually gaining a foothold over traditionally "slow" HDD??? Microsoft is sooo 1990's on this. I want my RAM back, thanks.

I think 4gb for SuperFetch is perfect. Its sluggish on 2GB...

It's a sad day when an operating system needs a crutch with this abundent amount of system resources!

It's a sad day when an operating system needs a crutch with this abundent amount of system resources!

Thats all well and good but you are beating around the bush. The truth is I've never seen a vista system in this condition that was not completely bogged down. I found this page while trying to figure out why my system has 2.3gb of my 3gb ram allocated for system cache and is running like CRAP.

Well now I know, and will be deactivating superfetch immediately. Decent idea executed poorly I'm guessing.

I dunno why everybody is STILL bashing Vista. I was a late adopter of Vista (have used it since the summer of 2008), and went straight for the 64-bit version with a properly configured computer (C2D E6550 overclocked to 3.67GHz, 8GB RAM, HD3870), and i couldn't be happier with it. The only change i did to my computer when i installed Vista was upgrading the RAM from 2GB to 8GB, and that's because i intended to run XP and 98 in a virtual machine for some older programs, and virtual machines take a ton of RAM. I have also disabled the pagefile and have never needed it, most RAM i ever managed to use was 7.3GB. That still left 700MB free and the system was still responsive.

Indeed, i was a bit worried when my hard disk kept churning for about a month as i installed more and more stuff. However, i found that every day, my favorite applications load faster. It's extremely pleasing to load up something huge like a game or Photoshop and have it running in a snap.

I want to clear up some common misconceptions about Vista.

Does it use more resources than XP? Yes. Are you better off not upgrading your computer to Vista? Yes. Are you better off downgrading to XP on your new computer? No. Vista does need better hardware to run well, but it makes good use of it.

But my friend's computer came with Vista and it runs slow! It sucks. That's not Vista's fault. Brands like Dell, HP and so on, like to install a lot of crap on their computers when they ship it from the factory. Actually, they are paid for that, that's why there's all those "free trials" and nagware programs asking you to buy it. Make a clean install of Vista, and go for the 64-bit version (trust me on this one). You'll see that it runs a lot better that the one preinstalled by your computer maker. Or even better, learn to custom build your computer.

Same goes for laptops, and laptops due to their requirements for power saving, often run slower than desktop computers, making them even more sensitive to any crapware that may come preinstalled.

Want to get the best of both worlds? Get Windows 7. To sum it in one sentence: It's better than Vista, with XP requirements. I even installed it on my mom's computer (Pentium 4 3.6GHz, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9250) and it runs better than XP. And consider that it's not even retail yet.

Case: I have two HP laptops. A DV5-1120eh that i bought new and spent $750 on, and a DV9750ed that i got for $300, looked like new but it would shut down due to overheating. The overheating was caused by fan failure, so it was an easy fix and now i have two nice laptops. :)

Both are about the same in terms of hardware (Turion processor, 2GB RAM etc, look up the model numbers above), and both came preinstalled with Vista Home Premium 32-bit, AOL, Norton trial version, a stupid on-screen display when i would use the touch controls or the Fn key combos and other junk like that. Both exhibited the same problems such as: Dropouts/stutters in sound, framerate drops in games, and slow performance in general.

Of course, you would blaim Vista for that, right? WRONG. I installed Windows 7 RTM 64-bit on both of them, only installed the drivers from HP, without all the extra crap (i don't need an on-screen display to tell me my brightness and volume levels, i got working eyes and ears you know), and they both run perfectly. No more sound stutters, framerate in games is smooth, battery life is good and i have yet to see a BSOD. Windows 7 is a great improvement upon Vista, but it's for Vista what XP was for 2000. Nothing essential has been changed, but the code has been refined and the graphical interface has been tidied. And yes it still has that SuperFetch you bash, and mind you, i don't see any unnecessary disk use. Current memory usage on my DV9750ed is 966MB, with Shareaza, foobar2000 and Opera (with just a couple sites) open. CPU usage is 10%. That's not even half the memory.

The advantage of SuperFetch in Vista and Windows 7 is obvious - when i had XP on my computer i could not alt-tab out of a game without my disk thrashing for about 2 minutes, during which my system was unresponsive. With Windows 7 i can even alt-tab out of GTAIV without trouble, and my laptop isn't too much above the minimum requirements of the game, as you all know GTAIV is very resource hungry.

You have to realize one thing: Free RAM isn't doing you any good. It's just sitting there unused. Windows 2000 and XP inherited a lot of things from the Win95/98, between them the preference of using the pagefile first, then the RAM. You see, when Windows 95 was launched, memory was very expensive, thus they designed it to use the hard disk as extra memory. At that time RAM was also very slow, so there wasn't too much of a difference between RAM and hard disk anyway. Things have changed today, RAM is over a thousand times faster, but mechanical limits are preventing hard disks to do the same. Install XP on a powerful new computer, open a few applications at once, and you will notice that the system gets slow, even though there is still a fair chunk of RAM available. This is because XP pages heavily to disk even when not needed. Vista only uses the pagefile heavily when the available RAM gets very low. It doesn't hog your memory - it uses it. You paid for your RAM to sit idle? I don't think so.

I've seen a lot of people having trouble with their laptops, so keep a look out for the "Pimp my laptop project", i'll start publishing some nice tutorials soon.

that is really a good question.

really good quesiton.

Th3_uN1Qu3, for Vista and Windows 7 to cache rarely used apps such as Excel or Powerpoint isn't smart use of my RAM. In fact prefetch/superfetch is proven through everyday experience to slow foreground applications down because there is zero RAM available to them.

Even the desktop is slow and sluggish. Seems FREE RAM is good for foreground apps and the background apps as well ;-)

And it takes 1-2 seconds to open Office Apps from HDD, so there's zero advantage to caching when HDD's are 7200 even 10,000RPM

Prefetch is bad practise use of a PC's RAM being poorly put to use by applications that are rarely if ever used.

I don't exactly know which programs your refering too..but every single one of my programs, from graphic design and development, to gaming and general use programs work fine. Lets face it, you have no idea what your talking about.

I am currently experiencing major issues with Vista. Perhaps some extra RAM would do the trick similar to the guy with 8GB.

at work, I had the opportunity to salvage 2 GB of memory. ...
www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html - Cached - Similar http://www.uggboots-zone.com

My system is a C2D 2.0ghz, 2gb ram, 256MB Radeon graphics(temp). My ram usage is rediculous at idle, loading this site on Opera and running my download manger has gobbled up 850mb of ram. I was on Xp sp3 and must say I have seen quite a dramatic improvement especially in games (my harddisk used to thrash like a blender). No intermittent freezing as was very recurrent in UT3. My case is alittle unique as I have vlite-ed Vista Ultimate sp2 down to 713MB and burning it to a normal CD from a full DVD to best suite my gaming machine. I wasnt aware about how much the superfetch affects the system until today after search and finding this site coz I didnt understand why Vista is using up so much memory compared to Xp which was doing 465MB with my premium security firewall shield enabled. Superfetch is actively running in my pc. I got a 15fps performance increase in games after vliting vista and especially after disabling UAC (7fps boost), I have also taken other security measures in compensating UAC absence. I still have aero running and its still faster than xp. Looks like I will return to the drawing board and re-vlite my Vista once again to further optimize performance.