Maximum RAM Usage

[braveheart0707]

So I was running a 16GB Ram kit, and I've been getting at most 88% ram usage.

I was afraid that I was going into page files, and I tried the counter thing in performance monitor but doesn't show anything.  

I decided to try out using 32GB today and after a regular night's usage, I saw that my max ram usage was 58% of 32GB, at 18.5 GB, which is obviously alot higher than my old kit at 16GB.

What does this mean? Does this 100% indicates 16Gb was not enough for me and that I was dipping into page files? If so, how come maximum ram usage was 88% not 99% or something? 

Also, how come the counter in performance monitor didn't show any page files activity?

I don't understand this.

[Dukesilver27-]

No, software/apps will use more than they need to give themselves room, basically if they see memory headroom, they will seize it.

16GB is still plenty for today's games and general user software.

Unless you do any productivity workloads such as rendering, 32GB of RAM is basically a waste of money, at least for DDR4 and below.

 

[Mark Kaine]

uh... its normal getting "into page files" ... the thing where it starts being not normal is when it happens constantly. 

 

my page file often gets used like ~2% even if there's a ton free ram anyways...

 

i haven't figured out which program does that yet, but it kinda has to be a program doing that i feel... but either way I see no issues,  and most of the time its 0% anyway. 

 

 

thing is how much ram you need depends on what you're doing, generally 16gb is fine.

 

6 hours ago, braveheart0707 said:

don't understand this.

the more ram you have the more windows will use,  its by design. dont like it? get another os, but its really *unnecessary* to worry about it too much, especially if you dont encounter issues.  and if you do, chances are its not because of ram anyhow.

 

for average user 16gb is enough,  heck id argue 8gb is, but thats for a low end system  that generally wont need a lot of ram for everyday usage. 

 

 

edit: here's a funny thing how ram allocation works on windows...

 

also note that you can't just go by how windows calls things, cached may not always refer to the same thing for example. 

 

 

So here's an example of "ram usage" or rather of windows ram allocation: 

 

hmm.. cached, 9.5 (ok)

 

(somewhat "idle" usage)

 

Ok, but what's the important thing you should check to understand ram allocation is "standby memory":

Spoiler

 

YouTube!  lotsa youtube videos, yay! but sure takes a lot of memory,  huh (it does indeed) 

resource monitor,  memory, check the "standby":

276mb "free" sure not a lot, eh...

 

except the standby memory is more a virtual thing than actually used, which you can see in taskmanager that it's not actually using that much...

 

"available" 9.7, hmm, hm, ok.

 

yeah, lots a stuff, still not much "free", oh noes!

 

yay, more memory stuffs!

 

few hours later, no youtube: 

 

 

6gig "free"! 

 

Note: during all that time "page file" was actually at 0 (according to hwinfo64) ... because it doesn't even have much to do with memory allocation or usage and rather is something certain programs and apps use for "reasons" and yes, it will also be used when you're actually out of memory so the system doesn't crash in a "emergency situation " but simply page file being used does *not* mean you're out of memory...

Tldr, as long you don't experience issues (freezing,  stuttering,  crashing...) your memory usage is probably fine and its best to let windows do "its thing", which is shuffling around memory  *all the time*  = )

 

[ewitte]

16GB is tiny and easy to fill up.  Before I went to 64GB there were a few times where Chrome pushed me to like 34GB and there was noticeable lag/paging.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, ewitte said:

16GB is tiny and easy to fill up.  Before I went to 64GB there were a few times where Chrome pushed me to like 34GB and there was noticeable lag/paging.

must have been excessive however,  see above,  65 chrome thingies open, all or most of which are seemingly yt videos,  barely half of 16gb used most of which is "standby memory".

 

and even then, sometimes my page file gets used 2% or so, its barely noticeable if at all, actual network lag (especially on yt) is way more, or rather actually,  noticable.

 

imo if you feel page file makes you lag there's another issue probably,  or you have really excessive ram usage,  due to badly optimized programs (such as chrome) and in that case more ram might be justified,  but its not a normal usage behavior,  imho, why would you have more than 65 youtube videos open (for example)?

 

 

edit:

1 hour ago, ewitte said:

Chrome pushed me to like 34GB and there was noticeable lag/paging.

ah, ok, that's actually interesting (perhaps)!

So i wonder how much ram did you actually have installed at that time?

And what did your standby memory look like at this point? 

Lastly did you actually check the page file, or was it more like that you felt the issues were probably caused by page file? 

[ewitte]

21 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

edit:

ah, ok, that's actually interesting (perhaps)!

So i wonder how much ram did you actually have installed at that time?

And what did your standby memory look like at this point? 

Lastly did you actually check the page file, or was it more like that you felt the issues were probably caused by page file? 

I had 32GB at that time.  I felt the problem when I opened a game on top of already having 32+ in use.  It has never been an issue with 64GB even though usage has gotten worse such as:

Chrome currently has 186 tabs, plus edge, firefox, lightroom, sometimes photoshop and a second user profile logged in with things for work.  I'm sitting at 42.3GB used right now with all of the above.  I'm sensitive to performance a hesitation of 1/10 of a second annoys me.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, ewitte said:

I had 32GB at that time.  I felt the problem when I opened a game on top of already having 32+ in use.  It has never been an issue with 64GB even though usage has gotten worse such as:

Chrome currently has 186 tabs, plus edge, firefox, lightroom, sometimes photoshop and a second user profile logged in with things for work.  I'm sitting at 42.7GB used right now with all of the above.

 

 

yeah, i mean if you use that much and also a game on top you're going to need more than 16gb, but for average user it should be enough. 

 

i dunno,  i always close any programs that run in background when i play a game, and if anything i have *one* tab open in chrome to stream.  : p

 

 

[ewitte]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, i mean if you use that much and also a game on top you're going to need more than 16gb, but for average user it should be enough. 

 

i dunno,  i always close any programs that run in background when i play a game, and if anything i have *one* tab open in chrome to stream.  : p

 

 

I started that way but if I have 30 minutes to play and it takes 10-15 minutes just to close and re-open everything...

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, ewitte said:

I had 32GB at that time.  I felt the problem when I opened a game on top of already having 32+ in use.  It has never been an issue with 64GB even though usage has gotten worse such as:

Chrome currently has 186 tabs, plus edge, firefox, lightroom, sometimes photoshop and a second user profile logged in with things for work.  I'm sitting at 42.3GB used right now with all of the above.  I'm sensitive to performance a hesitation of 1/10 of a second annoys me.

 

 

I hope people reading this understand what you're saying.

 

You need more ram when you don't close applications.  If you insist on having 186 tabs in chrome you'll need more ram.  

 

This is a YOU issue not a ram issue.  Answer the ops question in a logical and reasonable manner.  Not some outlier because YOU can't do something.

 

Do you close or exit a game when you're done playing and go to the next?  Why ?  You don't close browser windows?

 

1/10th of a second annoys you?  Really?

 

[Poinkachu]

3 hours ago, ewitte said:

I had 32GB at that time.  I felt the problem when I opened a game on top of already having 32+ in use.  It has never been an issue with 64GB even though usage has gotten worse such as:

Chrome currently has 186 tabs, plus edge, firefox, lightroom, sometimes photoshop and a second user profile logged in with things for work.  I'm sitting at 42.3GB used right now with all of the above.  I'm sensitive to performance a hesitation of 1/10 of a second annoys me.

 

 

186 tabs...  I have to say, even with my internet that only gives me like 300kb/s download speed at most, I never keep that many tabs open.
Chrome + Edge + Firefox at the same time?  err... why ?
Second user profile ? why and what for ? If somebody else in your home sometimes uses your PC just log them out after they're done?

if the logic is "I want to keep everything open all the time" then sooner or later even 128gb won't be enough.

 

1 hour ago, ewitte said:

I started that way but if I have 30 minutes to play and it takes 10-15 just to close and re-open everything...

10-15 what? minutes? seconds?  Doesn't make any sense with your spec though.

But yeah, I agree with @Dedayog, your problem is more "between the keyboard & chair".
While it's fine if that really what floats your boat. It becomes troubling when you use the same standard for other people. Even more so when you start saying things that is only true when that particular standard is used as a basepoint.

That's why a self-respecting reviewer usually say "16 gb of ram is enough for most things" instead of "You gotta get 128gb ram, it's so that you can keep everything open all the time, and when you open enough things 128gb isn't cutting it, get more"

[ewitte]

39 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

186 tabs...  I have to say, even with my internet that only gives me like 300kb/s download speed at most, I never keep that many tabs open.
Chrome + Edge + Firefox at the same time?  err... why ?
Second user profile ? why and what for ? If somebody else in your home sometimes uses your PC just log them out after they're done?

if the logic is "I want to keep everything open all the time" then sooner or later even 128gb won't be enough.

 

10-15 what? minutes? seconds?  Doesn't make any sense with your spec though.

But yeah, I agree with @Dedayog, your problem is more "between the keyboard & chair".
While it's fine if that really what floats your boat. It becomes troubling when you use the same standard for other people. Even more so when you start saying things that is only true when that particular standard is used as a basepoint.

That's why a self-respecting reviewer usually say "16 gb of ram is enough for most things" instead of "You gotta get 128gb ram, it's so that you can keep everything open all the time, and when you open enough things 128gb isn't cutting it, get more"

Multiple people in the house use the same computer.  Most of the stuff open isn't mine I have to get it back to the state it was in before I started.  For browsers I've got that pretty down by setting it to open where it left off.  Just that I have to be careful that additional windows are not open because that messes everything up...   I've found switching to a 2nd user for myself helps reduce messing things up for everyone else (or having difficulty finding things with so much open!).

 

Still 16GB is at the line where you practically have to have EVERYTHING closed for a lot of modern games.  I still believe most hardcore users need at least 32GB.

[Poinkachu]

Just now, ewitte said:

Yes, most of the stuff open isn't mine I have to get it back to the state it was in before I started.  For browsers I've got that pretty down by setting it to open where it left off.  Just that I have to be careful that additional windows are not open because that messes everything up...

 

Still 16GB is at the line where you practically have to have EVERYTHING closed for a lot of modern games.

Look man, I'm not here to tell you you should change your ways or whatever. If that's what you like, so be it. Your money, your life, your preference.

 

But if you are saying 16gb filled up fast, that even 32gb isn't enough. While in actuality it is based on your personal standard of use (all those tabs, and that many softwares open). That can become misleading information. Like it or not, normal user close the program they finished using. Even when I had to open photoshop and illustrator everyday back then, I still closed it after each use, and that was with HDD.



This is Elden Ring at high settings with 12 tabs of youtube open in firefox, along with some peripherals services (steelseries, icue, gskill, whatever)
Not even reaching 16gb ram. I'd show plague tale requirem as well if I haven't uninstalled it, but yeah, I'm sure it didn't reach 16gb.

[ewitte]

9 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Look man, I'm not here to tell you you should change your ways or whatever. If that's what you like, so be it. Your money, your life, your preference.

 

But if you are saying 16gb filled up fast, that even 32gb isn't enough. While in actuality it is based on your personal standard of use (all those tabs, and that many softwares open). That can become misleading information. Like it or not, normal user close the program they finished using. Even when I had to open photoshop and illustrator everyday back then, I still closed it after each use, and that was with HDD.

This is Elden Ring at high settings with 12 tabs of youtube open in firefox, along with some peripherals services (steelseries, icue, gskill, whatever)
Not even reaching 16gb ram. I'd show plague tale requirem as well if I haven't uninstalled it, but yeah, I'm sure it didn't reach 16gb.

32GB is going to be fine for most people even before I upgraded, I only had issues once or twice a month.

 

I didn't say EVERY game is going to want more than 16GB.  To be clear its more than just usage such as microstutters from having to pull from the drive, etc.