Windows 8 Memory Usage and Handling

Joe S

Excellent Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
We've talked about the faster boot speed and lower memory usage some already. Something else I noticed is memory usage stays lower over time. In Windows 7 as you opened and closed browsers and other things memory usage kept creeping up even when idle. Windows 8 seems to be keeping it cleared out much better. That will be better for lower powered and older PCs.
Joe
 
Joe, you are talking to this... w/out heaps of techno jargon, this is what you are seeing manifest itself. As reputed, this is another of the Win8, under-the-covers, attributes that positively affect performance. (Now) In Windows8 memory handing is & was designed, by intent, to work as & when needed. It works 'on demand' & staying 'active' or actively 'available', in use or still needed/wanted. I know, not deny, I am not explaining this well yet, I trust you get the gist.

And, yes, if, one watches the gauges, for roughly conducting the same activities, 8 will be using less RAM than, 7.

As an aside, this is what I try to convey... that it's a worry that so much that this OS is that's valuable & virtuous & peculiar to it, ('cuse the run-on sentence) may get missed; spotlight & focus being on Start & navigating... technically it's a brilliant piece of work!

Cheers,
Drew
 
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Joe:
Here's a an article from the Building Windows 8 Blog that discusses some of the concepts that are being implemented into Windows 8 to enhance memory usage. It's only a couple dozen paragraphs long and relatively free of tech jargon and gives a brief explanation of some of the basic concepts including one called "Memory combining" which I found particularly interesting.
For when you have the time or inclination to have a look Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Regards
Randy
 
From the resource picture, it looks like the example was from something previous to Windows 8. My new resource monitor looks nothing like that.
However, Sinofsky is actually focussing on battery usage. Whilst the power consumption, as he says, is higher, the more memory is in use, this does not, in any respect, have an influence on the desktop user. With todays users, most seem happy to stack up memory. I am sure the game fanatics run into problems, but, in my own case, as an average desktop user and experimenter, I have never exceeded my memory usage to a point where it is slowing my computer down, hence, I have not those stated advantages, whilst using Windows 8.
I don't have the in depth tech knowledge, but, if you have X amount of memory installed, it is consuming power accordingly. Imo, I cannot believe that its actual use increases that consumption to any marked degree.
 
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