Limit RAM Cache?

[Eblim]

How do I limit or reduce memory (RAM) caching?

"Why would want that?"

Because my cache takes 4GB of memory, and I only have 6GB total. I'm already using 1.4GB for open applications, which only leaves me 400 - 900mb of RAM for a heavy graphic video game (I need approximately 2GB at the very minimum). FPS is ridiculously low (frame lag).

 

[Eblim]

I think I found a temporary solution!

Is it a good idea to disable "Superfetch" before I play a graphically intense video game, and re-enable it after I'm finished? I'm finding this to be a good possibility for my needs.

 

[stormy13]

How about you just leave it alone. Cache is just what it says it is. It will also be freed up the minute you start a game or something else that requires the memory.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/52731-can-someone-please-explain-cached-memory.html

 

[Eblim]

Didn't mean to upset you. As I said, it's for gaming. I know what caching does, but no memory frees when I start a game, at all. I have disabled Superfetch, and it's performance has increased significantly.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[GeneO]

I don't quite get that. Superfetch will preload frequently used applications, but if a running game requires RAM, it should replace the RAM used by the preloaded programs at no cost. Not arguing with what you see but maybe there is something more subtle at play.

Disabling superfetch before the game play should make no difference if it has already preloaded frequently accessed programs.

When you say no memory frees, what exactly do you mean? The working set of the game doesn't grow? How are you measuring this?

 

[M1GU31]

I set prefetch and superfetch to only cache the bios for that reseaon, I just hate seeing so much ram being used. Would use 1.50-2.25gb out of my 4gb and i got it down to 1.15 and I saw no benefit in leaving it on as it would run about the same. Only thing i left it cache was the bios for the faster boot but that's about it. Anyways reason i did this is because it be using around 3gbs out of 4 when gaming and now it only uses 2. I did it by following this tutorial here on sevenforums http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77119-superfetch-change-prefetch-data-cached.html?filter[2]=Performance%20Maintenance

 

[OldMX]

I set prefetch and superfetch to only cache the bios for that reseaon, I just hate seeing so much ram being used. Would use 1.50-2.25gb out of my 4gb and i got it down to 1.15 and I saw no benefit in leaving it on as it would run about the same. Only thing i left it cache was the bios for the faster boot but that's about it. Anyways reason i did this is because it be using around 3gbs out of 4 when gaming and now it only uses 2. I did it by following this tutorial here on sevenforums http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77119-superfetch-change-prefetch-data-cached.html?filter[2]=Performance%20Maintenance

If you disable one of the best performace options included on windows vista and seven, file and application prefetching, why dont you go back to XP then? :huh:

Prefecth does not steals memory, if you launch a game that requieres the memory used by prefetch it gets released and assigned to the needed application, and as stated o all computer related forums: Unused ram is wasted ram.

 

[M1GU31]

I set prefetch and superfetch to only cache the bios for that reseaon, I just hate seeing so much ram being used. Would use 1.50-2.25gb out of my 4gb and i got it down to 1.15 and I saw no benefit in leaving it on as it would run about the same. Only thing i left it cache was the bios for the faster boot but that's about it. Anyways reason i did this is because it be using around 3gbs out of 4 when gaming and now it only uses 2. I did it by following this tutorial here on sevenforums http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/77119-superfetch-change-prefetch-data-cached.html?filter[2]=Performance%20Maintenance

If you disable one of the best performace options included on windows vista and seven, file and application prefetching, why dont you go back to XP then? :huh:

Prefecth does not steals memory, if you launch a game that requieres the memory used by prefetch it gets released and assigned to the needed application, and as stated o all computer related forums: Unused ram is wasted ram.

Because windows 7 has dx11, that's why. And i like windows 7 whats wrong with me thinking differently from what you think if i see no benefit in leaving it on Why would i go back to xp if I can do this and xp only supports dx9 so that is irrelevant to this topic.Plus i don't mind the 1sec difference for a application to open because anyways it will have to unload in the ram anyways, if it's just sitting there it's not helping or hurting me anyways.

 

[Layback Bear]

Can you show us this on your computer so we can see what your ram is doing.
Go to Start and type in resmon

 

[OldMX]

Because windows 7 has dx11, that's why. And i like windows 7 whats wrong with me thinking differently from what you think if i see no benefit in leaving it on Why would i go back to xp if I can do this and xp only supports dx9 so that is irrelevant to this topic.Plus i don't mind the 1sec difference for a application to open because anyways it will have to unload in the ram anyways, if it's just sitting there it's not helping or hurting me anyways.

Lol, seriously, with a radeon 5450 and gaming in dx11? Do you even have an idea about gaming in DX11? I bet you're one of the guys who vlite windows7 to get more fps on games.

 

[M1GU31]

Because windows 7 has dx11, that's why. And i like windows 7 whats wrong with me thinking differently from what you think if i see no benefit in leaving it on Why would i go back to xp if I can do this and xp only supports dx9 so that is irrelevant to this topic.Plus i don't mind the 1sec difference for a application to open because anyways it will have to unload in the ram anyways, if it's just sitting there it's not helping or hurting me anyways.

Lol, seriously, with a radeon 5450 and gaming in dx11? Do you even have an idea about gaming in DX11? I bet you're one of the guys who vlite windows7 to get more fps on games.

why would i still use xp if its outdated? why does my card matter? And ye i can game in dx11 with OC the card fyi. And lastly umad? Doesn't matter anyways will be buying a xfx 6870 in two weeks once i accumulate all the money i need. Only reason i got this card was because i was on a tight budget. You can say all you want still won't agree with you about the cache thing

 

[Layback Bear]

Don't agree or agree no body cares. If you post your resmon we might be able to help explain even better.

 

[profdlp]

I was concerned about RAM usage when I first tried out Windows 7 during the beta period. I guess that was from habits formed back in the Win 95/Win 98 days when if available RAM dropped below 70% you saw significant performance degradation.

It's a whole new ballgame with Windows 7. It manages RAM much more effectively and is quick to respond to sudden demands from new programs being launched. You paid good money for that RAM - why not use it?

 

[M1GU31]

because on my other low end machine when i disabled it i saw a performance increase so I thought it would benefit this one also on my newer machine and it seems a bit more responsive to me. That's why I did it though if you can convince me that it helps and won't degrade performance especially when heavy gaming then i might reconsider it. Have this habbit since I tried vista and saw a big boost in that OS .

 

[profdlp]

Most people I know who used Vista (especially early on) felt like it needed all the help it could get when it came to performance. Most people I know who used Vista extensively and later moved on to Windows 7 tell me that there is little difference between the two, other than the huge improvement in performance under Windows 7. I personally never used Vista as my day-to-day OS.

A couple big things to remember about performance:

1) Benchmarks are all well and good and may be quite useful, but they do not always translate to "real world" performance.

2) The placebo effect is real. Six or seven years ago there was a big stir around a lot of tech forums about adding some sort of superfetch registry tweak that was supposed to speed up Win XP like crazy. I tried it and thought that it really sped things up, as did the majority of people I knew who tried it. No one seemed to think about the fact that if boosting performance was as easy as changing one registry value, maybe Microsoft might have done that by default. After all, you'll sell a lot more software if it performs well.

Apparently Microsoft got wind of the rumors about this "magic" registry tweak, because a few months later they released a white paper proving it to be a crock. Those of us who tried it "thinking" it would work actually thought it did work. When I sheepishly restored the setting to its default value I saw no decline in performance at all. In both case I saw exactly what I expected to see - a big boost after enabling it when I believed it to be true, and no difference when I believed it to be false and disabled it.

This is why they do a lot of blind studies about things like this. If you really want the truth, get a trusted friend to tweak the settings behind your back at various times, then keep track of how you feel things are working. If the system almost always seems to work better with the new settings then it probably actually did make a difference. If there is no correlation, it's all in your head.

 

[Eblim]

I don't quite get that. Superfetch will preload frequently used applications, but if a running game requires RAM, it should replace the RAM used by the preloaded programs at no cost. Not arguing with what you see but maybe there is something more subtle at play.

Disabling superfetch before the game play should make no difference if it has already preloaded frequently accessed programs.

When you say no memory frees, what exactly do you mean? The working set of the game doesn't grow? How are you measuring this?

For example:

Let's say I have 4GB of RAM cached, and 1GB currently being used. That leaves me with 1GB memory available. Next, I'll start a graphically intense game. That 1GB of available memory will quickly be used. Now I'm left with 0 memory available, 4GB of Cache, and a game with very, very low FPS. The memory doesn't free up while I play a game. Not sure if the client I'm playing on has to do with it or not, because it's only one game specifically so far.

 

[profdlp]

Try running that particular game at a higher priority and see what happens. I know that's "CPU" priority, but it might be interesting to see if the RAM caching behaves any differently.

 

[logicearth]

Let's say I have 4GB of RAM cached, and 1GB currently being used. That leaves me with 1GB memory available. Next, I'll start a graphically intense game. That 1GB of available memory will quickly be used. Now I'm left with 0 memory available, 4GB of Cache, and a game with very, very low FPS. The memory doesn't free up while I play a game. Not sure if the client I'm playing on has to do with it or not, because it's only one game specifically so far.

Do this. Open Resource Monitor by typing it into the start menu search. Go to the Memory tab, make sure Physical Memory is open. Then run your game for a few minutes, return to Resource Monitor while the game is active. Take a screen shot and show us.

 

[Duzzy]

How do I limit or reduce memory (RAM) caching?

"Why would want that?"

Because my cache takes 4GB of memory, and I only have 6GB total. I'm already using 1.4GB for open applications, which only leaves me 400 - 900mb of RAM for a heavy graphic video game (I need approximately 2GB at the very minimum). FPS is ridiculously low (frame lag).

How many programs do you have open when you want to play a game or how much memory does the largest consume?

I opened 2 56mb tiff files in Photoshop, 24kb svg in Illustrator, a blank doc in Word 2010, a 2mb jpg in Paint, Winamp with empty playlist, 1mb pdf in Acrobat, small project in Visual Studio, Nokia PC Suite, PowerDVD, Firefox, a folder in Explorer, Notepad and Resource Monitor, this is on top of my Anti-Virus, Firewall and a few others that load with Windows (76 processes on boot). Now this is what Resource Monitor tells me

In Use: 2540
Available: 1475
Cached: 1538
Commit: 4242/8188 (From Task Manager)

Then I ran Crysis2 and loaded my game then ALT+Tab out, fps were a little dodgy.
In Use: 3483
Available: 594
Cached: 608
Commit 7976/8655

Then I closed all programs except Crysis, fps good again.
In Use: 2801
Available: 1291
Cached: 767
Commit 5166/8188

One question I would ask is, have you made changes to the page file or does Windows manage it?

If Windows does not free the ram when you run the game you could try running a ram freeing program before playing and I would also suggest closing all unnecessary programs before playing.

 

[Eblim]

This is with 1 tab open in Google Chrome, and iTunes with a song playing.