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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. 2GB on XP isnt enough anymore by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think it's just a sign of the times. I regularly bump up against my 2GB ram limit (once a day) if I have GIMP/Photoshop open, 3 or 4 Chrome windows open with 10-20 tabs each (many of those being youtube videos), usually a videogame in the background (Windowed No Border mode at full or almost full screen resolution rules), along with whatever else I'm doing, a paused VLC video, steam, and any other background apps + whatever I'm working on currently. This isn't a problem in Win7, it's a problem of Leaving a Bunch of Shit open all the time.

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  2. Re:Byte vs. megabyte by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If one byte takes 10^-9 s, a million bytes take 10^3 s.

    Only if you do them one at a time, one after another, waiting till each had been cleared. That'd be... Wait this is Microsoft we're talking about here... Carry on.

     

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  3. Re:It's a matter of definitions by Suiggy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If Windows 7 actually uses that much memory it's not scaremongering, it's memory hogging. Whether it's using it on not is a pretty fine distinction, it's still using it just because it can. If something else needs it, Windows has to decide if it wants to let go of it or not.

    So are you saying Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and pretty much every other modern desktop OS other than Windows XP are also memory hogs as well? Because they also do the exact same thing and use up all of the free memory for caching, marking it as available.