Solved Can RAM be reduced?

[metaguy]

Using Firefox. I'll often have several tabs open with the most recent being "blank." When I minimize Firefox, is there a way that all the RAM being used is reduced until I go back to a particular tab?

 

[LMiller7]

In XP and earlier when a window was minimized the memory of the process that owned it would be reduced. That is a large portion of it's working set would go to the standby list. With the benefit of hindsight it was later decided that this was not a good thing and the code was not implemented in Vista and later. There is no provision to enable it. I suppose there were too many applications for which this had undesirable results.

 

[RolandJS]

Wisecleaner.com has a utility called Wise Memory Optimizer, however, such is not recommended by many. I used it briefly to "see" where the memory was going to. I very seldom tried to "adjust" memory usage.

 

[Alejandro85]

Windows automatically does a lot of this handling automatically on the background. In fact, chunks of memory untouched for a long time are very likely to be moved out to the pagefile, freeing the RAM for other programs. When the memory is requested back, it's restored to RAM from the pagefile.

Minimizing a window is of no significance to the operating system. The only practical effect is that the user interface is not drawn, but the process itself continues running and using up the resources, either CPU, memory, GPU or disk accesses, everything continues running (that's why you continue to hear music from minimized webpages, for example).
The usage patterns of RAM is what dictates what is moved out of physical memory and what's keept for fast access. Windows is already VERY optimized in this regard.

Do you have any concrete problem with RAM usage? Does it harm the system in any way?

 

[townsbg]

If you are worried about memory consumption it would be better to turn off services for third party software that you don't need running all the time. Many of them have such processes. There are also system processes that can safely turned off using this guide. Black Viper's Windows 7 Service Configurations | Black Viper | www.blackviper.com Just look under the safe column. Note that depending upon what you do with your computer turning off certain processes can be done but might disable using external devices. For example if you turn off print spooler you can't use a printer. If you turn off bluetooth any bluetooth devices won't work. I have certain processes I always turn off and others I control using a bat file but with 8 gb of ram I don't worry about it as much as when I only had 2 gb.

 

[metaguy]

Thank you all for the feedback, recommendations and wisdom. I'm glad you're there.

 

[RolandJS]

I read somewhere, forgot where, that it is aok for the computer to use as much RAM as it wants, because that means less hard-drive thrashing, less Pagefileing, and so on. After reading that, I very seldom concern myself with RAM usage -- unless a problem develops.

 

[metaguy]

Thanks Roland. When Task Mgr shows RAM at 96+ I do worry. But I'll watch to see if system slows down. Thanks again.

 

[townsbg]

With all I have to run on my work computer at any one time I had to have me employer upgrade to 16 gb because I was constantly at 80+% and that concerned me. However I only encroach my 8 gb on my primary personal computer if I run a couple of virtual machines at the same time (and that's rare). I have some services turned off such as print spooler and really the only third party services I run all the time are for vmware. Others, such as itunes, I start from bat files when needed. Right now running 2 browsers I'm at 52% which surprised me. Usually I'm at about 30-40% I think (I don't have a need to check it often). It is important to have a sufficient amount of ram but I don't believe in maxing out how much your computer can handle as long as you have enough to run your everyday tasks. My primary computer can handle 16 and my secondary computer can handle 64 but I don't have a need to spend more money to max them out. My work laptop is maxed out due to the insane number of programs I have to have open at any one time however I didn't have to pay for that.

 

[Alejandro85]

Thanks Roland. When Task Mgr shows RAM at 96+ I do worry. But I'll watch to see if system slows down. Thanks again.

But do you have noticed any concrete negative effect? Other than task manager showing 96% used RAM?

Ideal RAM usage is 100%, that is, every byte of RAM used for something, either a running program or a cache to speed up something else. Windows will manage it and drop data out to pagefile as needed. If both RAM and pagefile become full, that's time to worry, either by closing programns or increasing pagefile size.