4GB of RAM is no longer feasible

[Noo]

Didn't realize how much of a bloated resource hog Windows update is. Just running windows update uses 3gb of ram. wtf

 

[tsupersonic]

Does the memory usage decrease when Windows Update is completed, and also what programs did you have running?

Here's mine on Win. 8.1 x64. I'm running a bunch of apps: Chrome, iTunes, Firefox, Audiosurf 2 in the background, etc.

 

[postmortemIA]

it would've ran fine on 2GB, just it wouldn't cache as much, so it would take more time to install. i have laptop with 2GB that works just fine for light to medium use.

 

[Noo]

Does the memory usage decrease when Windows Update is completed, and also what programs did you have running?

Here's mine on Win. 8.1 x64. I'm running a bunch of apps: Chrome, iTunes, Firefox, Audiosurf 2 in the background, etc.

I don't know, just installed windows 7 and installing the massive amount of updates it have. I was wondering why the PC was running choppy and checked the resource monitor.

 

[pcgeek11]

A computer that uses the RAM Available is just making good use of the resources available. That is what it is suppossed to do, You should be happy.

Unused Ram is just wasted RAM.

 

[evident]

my work computer thrashes and grinds to a halt if it only has 4gb of ram. I had to put my own 8 gb modules in it to actually be able to work sanely.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

A computer that uses the RAM Available is just making good use of the resources available. That is what it is suppossed to do, You should be happy.

Unused Ram is just wasted RAM.

Omg yes the above x infinity.

The most illogical, silly thing ever perpetuated by the tech community is this stupid idea that using RAM you bought and paid for is for some reason a waste.

 

[KingFatty]

Why does Windows Update behave this way?

Are there any other programs that do this, where they expand to fill a lot of RAM, and work better the more RAM you have?

 

[postmortemIA]

Why does Windows Update behave this way?

Are there any other programs that do this, where they expand to fill a lot of RAM, and work better the more RAM you have?

OS will cache any opened file in RAM, but that RAM will be available for other programs upon request for memory. What WU appears to be doing is reserving the memory for updates, and that is usually done by software that processes lots of data like media creation software, simulators, etc.

 

[Coup27]

There is nothing wrong here. What you need to do is run a typical workload for this machine and have resource monitor open and track your RAM usage. If it reaches near the limit during a typical workload then you need more RAM. As mentioned already, WU is just making the most of available RAM to speed up the process. Once WU is finished and you have rebooted, that RAM will go back to free again.

 

[Compman55]

Windows 7 has a very good memory managment routine, however what you are seeing is normal. 2GB, 4GB is prety much for basic stuff. You would want 8GB today or more.

Two rules in computing: 1.) You can never have too my ram, 2.) You can never have too much hard drive space.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Omg yes the above x infinity.

The most illogical, silly thing ever perpetuated by the tech community is this stupid idea that using RAM you bought and paid for is for some reason a waste.

Android has been doing the same thing and stupid people still believe having apps being cached in RAM when nothing else is using the same RAM is a waste.

 

[alkemyst]

Omg yes the above x infinity.

The most illogical, silly thing ever perpetuated by the tech community is this stupid idea that using RAM you bought and paid for is for some reason a waste.

Not really illogical nor silly. If you have 16 GB of RAM and never go above 8GB, you wasted money buying it.

That's just factual.

 

[tweakboy]

Give yourself a present buy a SSD for pete sake.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Not really illogical nor silly. If you have 16 GB of RAM and never go above 8GB, you wasted money buying it.

That's just factual.

I said the following:

that using RAM

You said:

If you have 16 GB of RAM and never go above 8GB

You obviously completely misunderstood what I stated.. :hmm:

 

[tortillasoup]

I always hate reading these discussions because there seems to be great confusion between cache and actual ram usage. Yes I want my ram to be utilized but I don't want a calculator app that requires 4GB of ram, leaving precious little memory left over for other tasks. Let's face it folks, programmers have gotten lazy and there is much code bloat because increase in computer specifications has enabled wasteful coding practices.

 

[beginner99]

my work computer thrashes and grinds to a halt if it only has 4gb of ram. I had to put my own 8 gb modules in it to actually be able to work sanely.

similar here with the limitation that we are forced to work on Windows 7 32-bit. WTF...

 

[Conker10k]

Hes right about 4Gb of ram. Especially if your trying to run Chrome or any other program that requires a lot of memory. Using the internet can hog around 1-1.5GB of memory. If you got any other programs running then you could run into trouble.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Honestly, with an SSD being used as the OS drive, paging isn't as big a deal as it used to be, although it certainly doesn't hurt to have adequate RAM.
You don't have a choice sometimes, eg. the cheap "almost ultrabook" ASUS X/Q/S200Es that you can get for $150.

 

[Coup27]

Honestly, with an SSD being used as the OS drive, paging isn't as big a deal as it used to be, although it certainly doesn't hurt to have adequate RAM.

That's an interesting point which I came across myself recently. A PLC software developer I know who I look after his IT recently asked me to put a larger SSD in his laptop. I mentioned that he was easily using all of his 4GB of RAM with the software he uses and desperately needs some more RAM. I upgraded it to 8GB and he said that although he noticed a difference, it was actually quite minor.

 

[Chipfiref]

Usage of RAM from a different perspective -

SQL Server, the relational database management system, does not need huge amounts of memory to run. But it will begin to cache the entire database in RAM as time goes by for performance reasons, relenquishing RAM when it is needed by other processes.

In the case of SQL Server on a Windows server box, you would determine how much RAM the OS and non SQL Server apps require (by testing, capacity planning), and reserve the rest of the RAM for SQL Server (then you can give SQL Server the right to lock pages in memory so that it won't have to give that memory up in some unique situation like when someone wants to compress a large file on the server).

SQL Server will use all the available memory for efficiency/performance reasons the same way that Windows will. It is using the RAM for a good cause, but will relenquish it when needed. It looks like the system is low on memory to the uneducated eye with that memory graph. It is merely low on unused RAM Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

 

[tortillasoup]

Usage of RAM from a different perspective -

SQL Server, the relational database management system, does not need huge amounts of memory to run. But it will begin to cache the entire database in RAM as time goes by for performance reasons, relenquishing RAM when it is needed by other processes.

In the case of SQL Server on a Windows server box, you would determine how much RAM the OS and non SQL Server apps require (by testing, capacity planning), and reserve the rest of the RAM for SQL Server (then you can give SQL Server the right to lock pages in memory so that it won't have to give that memory up in some unique situation like when someone wants to compress a large file on the server).

SQL Server will use all the available memory for efficiency/performance reasons the same way that Windows will. It is using the RAM for a good cause, but will relenquish it when needed. It looks like the system is low on memory to the uneducated eye with that memory graph. It is merely low on unused RAM Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

you're assuming the memory consumption is caching, I don't think it is. Windows updates take just as long as they ever did yet use significantly more ram. Btw when the operating system is fully utilizing the memory for caching, it doesn't show up in that graph on the left hand side of task manager. That graph on the left is actual, non cached memory consumption. True, a program could use actual memory for caching purposes and the operating system won't know otherwise like in SQL server but I don't think that's what's happening here.

For example I've got 8gb of my 16GB of ram being utilized due to bloated web browsers being open. However according to windows, I've got 7.3GB available, and 5.6GB cached, leaving only 1.7GB "free" and free meaning completely unutilized.

 

[KingFatty]

Isn't there a Windows update step, ah perhaps one of the .NET things, where it needs to compile stuff specific to your installation? Maybe it's something like that, where it's using up all the RAM for those kinds of updates that are compiled on your system, and not merely downloaded and installed?

 

[Deders]

Hes right about 4Gb of ram. Especially if your trying to run Chrome or any other program that requires a lot of memory. Using the internet can hog around 1-1.5GB of memory. If you got any other programs running then you could run into trouble.

When did it get to the point that chrome needed 3GB of ram? (or even 1-1.5GB with just the browser?) lazy programming!!!

 

[XavierMace]

Keep in mind, it's not just Chrome. It's all the plugins/addons too. I deal with a lot of Terminal Services environments at work and almost every time a server is maxed out, it's users Internet Explorer sessions. 200Mb+ per session and most users have multiple sessions. And it's not limited to browsers, most applications have steadily increasing system requirements version to version.

That said, to play devil's advocate, saying programs should never use more resources is counter productive as is trying to cater to people with old and/or resource limited systems is part of the reason things have stalled out. Windows 8 should have been 64bit only IMO and systems having 2Gb/4Gb of RAM should be a thing of the past.

While lazy/inefficient programming is an issue, people also need to keep in mind that programs are getting more and more powerful and that power comes at a cost. Take YouTube for example. If the video I'm watching doesn't have a 720p/1080p option, I'm like WTF.