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Ars Analysis Calls Windows 7 Memory Usage Claims "Scaremongering"

Posted by timothy on from the nothing-but-dihydrogen-monoxide-to-drink dept.

Via newsycombinator comes a reaction at Ars Technica to the recently reported claims of excessive memory use on machines running Windows 7. From the article: "I installed the XPnet performance monitoring tool and waited for it to upload my data to see what it might be complaining about. The cause of the problem was immediately apparent. It's no secret that Windows 7, just like Windows Vista before it, includes aggressive disk caching. The SuperFetch technology causes Windows to preload certain data if the OS detects that it is used regularly, even if there is no specific need for it at any given moment. Though SuperFetch is a little less aggressive in Windows 7, it will still use a substantial amount of memory—but with an important proviso. The OS will only use memory for cache when there is no other demand for that memory."

3 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. So by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Though SuperFetch is a little less aggressive in Windows 7, it will still use a substantial amount of memory—but with an important proviso. The OS will only use memory for cache when there is no other demand for that memory.

    I really wonder when people will get this. In the earlier thread I saw people commenting that Windows 95 didn't need so much memory and so on..

    To state it again. This is not RAM memory you need, use or have purpose for. IF you do need it, it is zeroed-out and free'd to application in like 30ms (one frame in usual FPS games).

    If you have fast memory, do use it to it's full extend.

    1. Re:So by berboot · · Score: 5, Informative

      SuperFetch also keeps track of what times of day that applications are used, which allows it to intelligently pre-load information that is expected to be used in the near future.
      Source: Wikipedia
      Their work, says Horvitz, was able to predict which applications users would open by time of day and also by day of the week.
      Source: InfoWeek

  2. Linux does that by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    Linux uses available memory for cache, and rather aggressively. All available memory can be filled with cached file blocks. This happens routinely on systems which have big randomly-accessed files open, like databases.

    There's nothing wrong with this, except that, once in a while, Linux hits a race condition in prune_one_dentry, causing an "oops" crash, when there's an unblockable need for a memory page and something is locking the file block cache.

    This is one of the Great Unsolved Mysteries of Linux. Linus wrote about it in 2001 ("I'll try to think about it some more, but I'd love to have more reports to go on to try to find a pattern.. "). As of 2009, this area is still giving trouble. The locking in this area is very complex.