Cache memory fills up RAM so I can't play performance heavy games

Manitis · 15 May 2011

Oh okay, I read that somewhere but it could be wrong. But I checked and it is disabled on my computer.

sygnus21 · 15 May 2011

I actually have less RAM than you (see system specs) and am an avid gamer and have never run into memory problems. I would suggest you check to see if it isn't actually a game related issue as opposed to a Windows memory usage issue. Wishmaster is also an avid gamer and I'm quite sure she hasn't run into your problem either (I think).

BTW I do have a pagefile, I don’t have Superfetch disabled. In fact I don’t have any Windows "tweaks" at all. I’ve also got all my games on a mechanical hard drive as opposed to my SSD drive.

Again, with this configuration, and only 6gig of RAM, no memory issues. I say again, check to see if this isn’t in fact a game issue. Some game are in fact known to have memory issues, so.....

My two cents.

Wishmaster · 15 May 2011

Just a thought ...

The next time this happens look in your services, and show processes from all Users.

See how much memory the audioDG is using.
I remember a while back playing EQ2, that my RAM use would climb up to about 6-7GB of memory use. Which was just a bit overboard.
Eventually I would get a message that memory was low.

After some investigation, I found the audiodg.exe was very high use.
Turned out for me, Ventrillo was the culprit.

It had since been fixed but ...

Perhaps something similar is happening here with Skype?
May not be the issue, but was just a thought.

I have never used Skype, nor know anything about it, but its something to at least look into.

And as Sygnus has suggested, some games have leaks. I've seen it myself.
If, for example,they attempt to write to memory outside of thier 2GB allocated space, it will cause a memory error. This usually causes a crash though.

Airbot · 17 May 2011

whs said:

Amother suggestion - turn Superfetch off (in Services). That should stop the caching. It is not something I recommend on a permanent basis, but as a test it may give us some clues.

Manitis said:

It is actually disabled, it happens automatically in Windows 7 because I have a SSD. Windows then disables disk defragmentation, Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching.

whs said:

Manitis said:

It is actually disabled, it happens automatically in Windows 7 because I have a SSD. Windows then disables disk defragmentation, Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching.

Superfetch is not automatically disabled because of the SSD - at least not on my 5 systems with SSDs. Did you actually check that in Services?

It's not disabled right off with a new install on newer SSD's, until you run the WEI for the first time. Then it automatically disables it. If you don't ever run the WEI, it won't ever automatically turn it off.

I believe on old first gen SSD's they didn't auto disable it at all.

sygnus21 · 18 May 2011

Airbot said:

It's not disabled right off with a new install on newer SSD's, until you run the WEI for the first time. Then it automatically disables it. If you don't ever run the WEI, it won't ever automatically turn it off.

I believe on old first gen SSD's they didn't auto disable it at all.

Hmmm.... never knew that. Is there a place to find this info?

Thanks.

Never mind I found it.....

Windows 7 Optimizations and Default Behavior Summary

Windows 7 will disable disk defragmentation on SSD system drives. Because SSDs perform extremely well on random read operations, defragmenting files isn’t helpful enough to warrant the added disk writing defragmentation produces. The FAQ section below has some additional details.

Be default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck.

Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives - Engineering Windows 7 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

whs · 18 May 2011

Disabling Superfetch is a BIG mistake. RAM is a lot faster than the fastest SSD.

sygnus21 · 18 May 2011

Microsoft apparently doesn't think so. However in regards to early gen SSD's....

Will Superfetch be disabled on SSDs?

Yes, for most systems with SSDs.

If the system disk is an SSD, and the SSD performs adequately on random reads and doesn’t have glaring performance issues with random writes or flushes, then Superfetch, boot prefetching, application launch prefetching, ReadyBoost and ReadDrive will all be disabled.

Initially, we had configured all of these features to be off on all SSDs, but we encountered sizable performance regressions on some systems. In root causing those regressions, we found that some first generation SSDs had severe enough random write and flush problems that ultimately lead to disk reads being blocked for long periods of time. With Superfetch and other prefetching re-enabled, performance on key scenarios was markedly improved.

Wishmaster · 18 May 2011

whs said:

Disabling Superfetch is a BIG mistake. RAM is a lot faster than the fastest SSD.

I agree.
While the benefit is not immediatey apparent, after a few days there is a bit of a difference.

I turn mine back on.

sygnus21 · 18 May 2011

Honestly I never even knew mines was off, had no performance issues or drive degredation so I'll leave mine as is.

Cache memory fills up RAM so I can't play performance heavy games-superfetch.jpg

pparks1 · 18 May 2011

I leave SuperFetch enabled on my box with my SSD.

To the OP, Windows 7 should use RAM and it should free up that RAM as needed. That is normal and what you want. However, in your case, it's not cached RAM that is filling up your memory, but rather a memory leak that is causing RAM to be fully used and thus running out. So, those are two different things.