Limit RAM Cache?

[Eblim]

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.

I haven't made any changes, so I'm assuming Windows is managing it. I have tried a RAM freeing application, it does very little to nothing.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[profdlp]

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

Look at mine (attached). I have 16GB RAM, yet our percentages are virtually the same in all four categories under "Physical Memory".

I do notice that you have twice as many processes running with only two programs open. When I snapped mine just now I had Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird and Q-Dir (an Explorer-type program) open. Are you sure your sluggishness isn't due to too much background stuff running?

 

[Duzzy]

So when you run your game you ALT+TAB out and check your cache and it's still around 4000 and something?

Here is a something you could try, more out of interest than help.

Fresh boot the PC, let it idle for 10mins before checking and recording the cache.
Next open msconfig.exe click on the Services tab, check Hide all MS services and then click Disable All.
Next click on the Startup tab and click Disable All.
Now close msconfig and restart. Let the PC idle for 10mins again before checking the cache.

Mine before using msconfig is 1375mb and after it's 1128mb. Now you can see there's not much difference, so taking a guess my extra services and startup processes only add 247mb to my cache. I wonder what yours add?

If it's still around 4000 after disabling the services and startup processes how well does your game run?

I found this program RAMMap.
I ran it, clicked Empty on the menu bar then clicked Empty Standby List and my cache dropped to 150mb-350mb depending on how much I clicked it and closed/reopened it, clicked it again.

The only thing here is the cache would rebuild instantly close to what it was.

 

[stormy13]

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

One thing to remember that when looking at those numbers in Task Manager is that "Available" is +/- a few MB the total of cached and free memory.

 

[Layback Bear]

Go go msconfig and check Start Up and see what is starting up when booted. While your in msconfig go to Services. Check Hide all Microsof Services and see what is checked. You could have many things running in the background. Let us know what you find. I recommend not messing with Microsoft Services. I know this has been requested before but I don't see a answer.

 

[Eblim]

So when you run your game you ALT+TAB out and check your cache and it's still around 4000 and something?

Here is a something you could try, more out of interest than help.

Fresh boot the PC, let it idle for 10mins before checking and recording the cache.
Next open msconfig.exe click on the Services tab, check Hide all MS services and then click Disable All.
Next click on the Startup tab and click Disable All.
Now close msconfig and restart. Let the PC idle for 10mins again before checking the cache.

Mine before using msconfig is 1375mb and after it's 1128mb. Now you can see there's not much difference, so taking a guess my extra services and startup processes only add 247mb to my cache. I wonder what yours add?

If it's still around 4000 after disabling the services and startup processes how well does your game run?

I found this program RAMMap.
I ran it, clicked Empty on the menu bar then clicked Empty Standby List and my cache dropped to 150mb-350mb depending on how much I clicked it and closed/reopened it, clicked it again.

The only thing here is the cache would rebuild instantly close to what it was.

I unchecked many start-up items in msconfig. My cache has cut in half! 2GB more to work with, thank you. Any other ideas to knock off another GB?

 

[logicearth]

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.

I unchecked many start-up items in msconfig. My cache has cut in half! 2GB more to work with, thank you. Any other ideas to knock off another GB?

I want to see for myself if the cache is causing you problems first. Otherwise, just be chasing phantom geese with bad advice.

 

[Eblim]

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.

I unchecked many start-up items in msconfig. My cache has cut in half! 2GB more to work with, thank you. Any other ideas to knock off another GB?

I want to see for myself if the cache is causing you problems first. Otherwise, just be chasing phantom geese with bad advice.

I can tell you that when I was playing the game, I had 0mb Free, 4.3k MB Cached, and 3.78GB in use. And I saw that the free memory was bouncing between 0 - 20mb. I just saw the cache was not freeing up and I'm assuming that was the case.

As far as the game goes, it's been better for whatever reason, without lag. I find that it requires more RAM the longer I play the game, so it may take me awhile to find that problem I was looking for in the beginning.

 

[profdlp]

...As far as the game goes, it's been better for whatever reason, without lag. I find that it requires more RAM the longer I play the game...

That may be just a case of less-than-stellar programming by the game designers. You can tweak Windows all day long, but if the game ends up being a black hole for RAM there is little you can do about it.

Having said that, starting with more free RAM to begin with by having non-essential stuff not loading at boot will postpone the day of reckoning which comes when the game finally maxes things out.

 

[Duzzy]

What is the game? If it's big budget you shouldn't actually need to reduce the size of the cache before playing. You might also find a patch that may fix this issue.

As for dropping down any more my only guess would be too lose more startup and background processes. This may not be what you want though. If your game is running better I wouldn't worry about it.

If you want some of those startup processes back you can add all of them again and start disabling them 2-3 at a time, you might find a single process is using a large chunk of the cache, although I'd say unlikely.

logicearth may provide some better options if you preform his steps and follow his advice.

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.

 

[Eblim]

I'm back here again, exactly one year later with the same problem. 0mb of RAM is free, and over 4,500 cached.

Following applications are open:

• Firefox 19.0
• iTunes 11.0.1
• Teamspeak 3.0.9
• Windows Task Manager
• World of Tanks Client (Video Game)

I'm having difficulty watching YouTube videos, playing video games, and even browsing the web at times. Windows 7 is managing my Physical Memory very poorly, and I'm not sure if there is any new methods to avoid this problem?

 

[logicearth]

Ignore the "Free" field it is meaningless. The only important value is "Available"
Open Resource Monitor and give us a screen shot of the Memory tab with the Physical Memory pane open. While you are running your game.

 

[Eblim]

Ignore the "Free" field it is meaningless. The only important value is "Available"
Open Resource Monitor and give us a screen shot of the Memory tab with the Physical Memory pane open. While you are running your game.

Available memory doesn't become relevant until it becomes Free. Which is my issue.

 

[logicearth]

Available memory doesn't become relevant until it becomes Free. Which is my issue.

Available is free RAM! It signifies what RAM is available to applications without having to page anything out. The standby (cache) memory is not your problem. Something else is involved here. Which is why I asked you for a screen shot of the problem area which you have yet to provide.

 

[Wrend]

"Available" includes "Free" and "Standby."

Unless you managed to come across some crazy Windows 7 bug that no one knows about, your alleged problem is not because of the Standy SuperFetch cache, even if you mistakenly think it is.

 

[justtrolling]

there is a bug - became my problem also

Available memory doesn't become relevant until it becomes Free. Which is my issue.

Available is free RAM! It signifies what RAM is available to applications without having to page anything out. The standby (cache) memory is not your problem. Something else is involved here. Which is why I asked you for a screen shot of the problem area which you have yet to provide.

"Available" includes "Free" and "Standby."

Unless you managed to come across some crazy Windows 7 bug that no one knows about, your alleged problem is not because of the Standy SuperFetch cache, even if you mistakenly think it is.

There is a bug. The Bug is that "Free" and "available" should be transparrent to a running program - BUT DO NOT SEEM TO BE!!11!1!!!!11!!
Look at the last 2 posts in the following thread:
how do you shut off standby memory in windows 7 - Microsoft Community
Quote of Anooshiravan Ahmadi:
"Your problem is that some of the games are designed to look at “free memory” to calculate the available memory. Many windows applications are looking correctly to “available pool” to allocate memory, but some games look at the “free memory”, it is simply a programmer’s choice.
Answer to your question:
Please download RamMap from Sysinternals:
RAMMap
And from the menu “empty standby memory” -> you will see in task manager that all cached memory is added to the free pool. Then you can start your game without having to restart Windows.
Also there is a tool called EmptyStandbyList.exe (please google for it) that does the same action from command line, so you can schedule it for instance."

And one other quote from that thread, Gnostic1977:
"OMG Thank you. RamMap solved the problem for me. memu Empty - Empty standby list
Thank you.
I have been getting the same run around the earlier posters got from people.
I know what standby memory is, the definitions, its use, how it is used and the theory behind "standby memory."
However somewhere in the development of MicroSoft's code the "Standby Memory" evolved into used memory that is not available / free for use.
My system (8G ram) has been thrashing with 100K to 3 meg of "free ram" and "standby memory" has been acting like a memory leak that is constantly chewing up more and more memory.
This problem has keep my company using XP as this sort of issue was not a problem with XP."

Unfortunately, yes, this is a problem, and I flush the "Cached" pool myself with RAMMap, when W7 says that it is running out of memory.

EDIT: I have all sorts of prefetch disabled, both in services and REGEDIT... - does seem to help