Bad memory management?

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First of I'd like to point out that this is not one of those other
complaints about Vista using much memory, rather I've observed some
behavior of Vista that I find a bit odd.

After having been running vista for some 5 days now (since last remote
that is) with my normal usage patterns and with the applications I
usually run (1) my memory-consumption (Commit Charge) has risen to about
1.5GB. However summing up the memory used by all running processes gives
me only some 370MB which means that the rest is used by file-caches and
what not (2).

Now as I said I'm using this computer as I usually do but under XP the
memory-usage never reached this high during normal operation. At it's
highest it would go to some 7-800MB. Considering that Visa uses more
memory in general (more features and all the debug-code etc) I'm aware
that I can not expect the same (not yet at least). But now we are
talking about a memory consumption twice as big as XP's, and most of it
is not applications.

I've heard somewhere that Vista is supposed to release memory used by
caches and such when it is needed by other applications (as any sensible
OS would do) however in my opinion it does not do it fast enough.

Since I only have 1BG or RAM that means that 1/3 of all virtual memory
resides on a pagefile and I'm experiencing a very noticeable slowdown of
the system: it becomes sluggish when switching between applications,
especially after the computer has been idle for a long while. I suppose
this is because the unused applications gets swapped out in favor of
file-caches for files transfered over the network (this computer serves
files to other computers in the house in addition to being my main
computer for daily usage).

So my question is if anyone else has experienced (what I'd call) an
abnormal amount of memory consumed by non-application data? Does anyone
have an explanation of this behavior?


1. I use Vista as my primary computer and all my daily computer-usage is
done one Vista, after all I'm evaluating the OS I'll be using after XP.
(And yes I'm aware that this might not be the best of ideas but I've got
my back covered with backups etc.)

2. http://www.itstud.chalmers.se/~eriwik/Vista1.PNG
 
I am using Vista on a Gateway laptop with 512 mb of Ram and a very slow HD.
It really helps if you go into the control panel and shut off all the eye
candy. Also make sure you set performance for programs. I can say my
laptop's performance isn't entirely bad. Ok, I'm running an AMD mobile
Athalon 3500+ cpu, so it's fast anyway. I will eventually add another gig of
ram and a fast hd.
 
I am using Vista on a Gateway laptop with 512 mb of Ram and a very slow HD.
It really helps if you go into the control panel and shut off all the eye
candy. Also make sure you set performance for programs. I can say my
laptop's performance isn't entirely bad. Ok, I'm running an AMD mobile
Athalon 3500+ cpu, so it's fast anyway. I will eventually add another gig of
ram and a fast hd.
Click to expand...

You're missing the point, right after booting Vista and starting up my
applications there is hardly any difference in performance between Vista
and XP. But after running for some 5 days straight the amount of used
virtual memory is 1.5GB.

Since my original post I have rebooted my computer and started up the
same applications and all but the memory-usage is only 850MB. This much
fits nicely in my RAM and the computer is quick and snappy.
 
That screenshot you posted shows a HUGE amount of nonpaged kernel
memory. How does that number change as you see the commit charge
rise? It looks to me as though that is squeezing out everything else.
I think the max nonpaged pool on XP would have been 256MB, but Vista
must allow a larger amount.
 
It is interesting ... when I had 512mb I saw CPU and Mem utilizations for a
week climb over 85%.

Upgraded to 2 gig today and now I see about 30% mem util and CPU still
spikes to 100 with IE & Explorer & installs.

Will monitor for a week and report.

Things are definitely less sluggish with the added memory!

I have noticed that the sidebar reports more usage than task manager though.
Not sure they are on the same page ... monitoring equally. When TM was at 2%
.... sidebar was at 80%!

ed

PS If this is a repeat then it's beacause I could not post with IE7B2 ...
had to use FF 1.5
 
That screenshot you posted shows a HUGE amount of nonpaged kernel
memory. How does that number change as you see the commit charge
rise? It looks to me as though that is squeezing out everything else.
I think the max nonpaged pool on XP would have been 256MB, but Vista
must allow a larger amount.
Click to expand...

Have since then restarted and the system has been up for 8 days now and
the memory has stayed at more sane levels (below 1GB) and the total
Kernel Memory has not risen above 128MB (divided quite nicely 50/50
pages and non-paged) since. My conclusion: some kind of freak error/bug
must have caused the behavior observed last time.
 
Betas are always like that. It's no indication of how things will play out
in the final product.
 
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