has Windows 10 become more ram hungry recently?

[Ashleyyyy]

i just noticed my pc is using 4.8gb of ram... all i have open is this:

 

- 2 chrome tabs (one youtube video, and this forum)

- steam

- battle.net

- Corsair iCUE

- usual background stuff like onedrive and antivirus 

 

4.8gb seems a bit much with such a light load... 

[PlayStation 2]

12 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i just noticed my pc is using 4.8gb of ram... all i have open is this:

 

- 2 chrome tabs (one youtube video, and this forum)

- steam

- battle.net

- Corsair iCUE

- usual background stuff like onedrive and antivirus 

 

4.8gb seems a bit much with such a light load... 

If your PC is left on for long periods of time, that could potentially do it.

That or it's downloading updates in the background.

[Ashleyyyy]

7 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

If your PC is left on for long periods of time, that could potentially do it.

That or it's downloading updates in the background.

it's been on for a few hours... 

 

Windows is fully updated. 

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, firelighter487 said:

it's been on for a few hours... 

 

Windows is fully updated. 

:thinking:

Eh, Windows does tend to spread its legs and compress data into RAM less often if you have more of it, so there's that.

[FrowningHippo]

It isn't you. Windows seems to like to hog some more for more responsiveness of the system if it get's the chance. I never run into problems though. How about you?

[GoodBytes]

Yes. New features usually cost RAM. This applies to ALL software. CPU performance is also affected by the following: Added security features to Windows Defender (accessible in opening the Windows Defender panel, then go to Device Security > Core isolation, and to App & browser control > Exploit protection settings)

 

Both Intel and AMD (especially Intel), has been found to have a number of really serious security flaws recently, which even affected ARM based CPUs on phones, where patch work can cause up to 10% performance drop each, depending on what you do (more like 0-5% drop for some games), and so considering that on average for the same range model CPU by Intel, we only had a boost of 10% or so each generation, these patches (which are past as BIOS/UEFI updates if the motherboard/OEM cares to support and Windows updates), kinda, in a way, depending on what is happening on the system, and what you do, for these cases, brings you back almost a generation, each, fixes. It is not really true as it is not an overall performance drop, but rather really specific instructions that the CPU does, and that is why it is difficult to asses the performance impact. But that is all CPU performance, not RAM.

 

For RAM:

 

In addition, Microsoft separated services into individual process if your system has enough RAM. So you know the process "svchost.exe" that you see a bunch in the Task Manager (under Details tab), well to put it briefly, svchost.exe is a process that provide the grounds works for developers (including MS) to make a secure and reliable Windows service, that is why you have many of them. Previously, you had 1x svchost.exe for a group of services that were running as threads. Now, if you have the RAM, it will run each service as its own process. This was done for a few reasons:

• If 1 service crashed, it only crashed that service, and not a bunch of others.
• If 1 service had an issue (memory leak, for example, or hangs), than you can identify the service with much ease, and not guess which of the group is causing issues.
• Added security. If an exploit is found in 1 service, it is now much harder to use that service to do things with the other service in the same group.

You also have newer features in Windows. If you search the Tech News forum section for "Here is everything you need to know", at every release of Windows 10, I present a list of what is new (it excludes region specific changes, like improved Japanese font rendering, 'cause each thread are excessively long as it is, and affects very few, to no one on this forum). Here was the last one:

 

And the general rule of thumb, is that new features always has a cost, and the cost is memory and/or CPU consumption. Same applies to ALL of your software, including Chrome. As things gets fancier, the more system resources are needed. that is why if you install, say, Windows XP or Windows 98 (even if you have no drivers beside the generic ones, and even then), those much older OSs will fly in comparison to Windows 10. But before, the experience was the same or worst as now, and you have, like nothing, as features.

 

That said, Windows 10 adapts it RAM usage based on how much RAM you have. RAM is meant to be used, and Windows works with that. If you need it, Windows will free it. If not, it will load the most it can (with a nice part to spare) to deliver the most rapid and responsive experience, even pre-loads partially programs before you do (based on your usage) so that they start faster (feature is called: Superfetch). If you remove RAM modules, and you are down, to say 2GB, you'll see that Windows will consume less than half, despite consuming more than 2GB as we speak. If you want to do a crazy non-recommended experience on a system that you really don't care about re-installing, care about its data, and has lots of RAM (say 8GB): Make sure your system is truly idle, and Windows is not doing its maintenance work, and pull the HDD/SSD SATA cable out of the system while running. In Windows XP, you'll get a nice BSOD. In Windows 10.... nothing. System will still run, mouse will move, you can interact with things just fine, just programs won't open, and some menus might not show up, as it needs the HDD/SSD which it can't access. Plug the SATA cable back in, and wait a minute or so, Windows will sync up, and you'll see the system execute everything you executed in order. You can do this as large part of Windows is in RAM, while that was not the case before, even if you had plenty of RAM.

[Ashleyyyy]

@GoodBytes oh okay. that would explain why it's using so much. i almost never use the full 24gb of my system.