Vista's Ram Usage And You: Superfetch

[Vashypooh]

So you finally installed Vista like a lot of the other people; you decide to take a look at the ram usage to freak out at how much bloat vista is in your eyes. Before you do that and make a post about how upset you are about your ram usage. Read some of this information:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/superfetch.mspx

Windows Superfetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP–based PCs.

When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks—including automatic backup programs and antivirus scans—run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take up system memory space that your programs had been using. On Windows XP–based PCs, this can slow progress to a crawl when you attempt to resume work.

Superfetch monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory so they'll be ready when you need them. Windows Vista also runs background programs, like disk defragmenting and Windows Defender, at low priority so that they can do their job but your work always comes first.

Basicaly what this means is all the ram you give vista Superfetch is going to adapt to you. It is going to try and learn what you love to do on your PC, and then it will take what it has learned into action. It will take that ram of yours and store common files into memory.

For instance:
You use your PC for just playing let’s say Bioshock. Superfetch over a period of time will adapt to that knowledge and start storing common files that Bioshock would request.

This does not mean your computer will run any slower. Superfetch will ONLY make your pc faster. The second that you call an uncommon task on your PC if it cannot meet the requirements for ram it needs it dumps what was in memory for Superfetch. It doesn't store it onto the hard-drive. It just releases it. When you finish what you were doing it will slowly start to rebuild Superfetch into available memory. Superfetch doesn't do anything while you’re gaming or anything. It just simply makes your life easier.

More reading for Superfetch:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/31/windows-vista-superfetch-and-readyboostanalyzed/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_NTFS#SuperFetch
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1224355
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1221416
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1221223

Remember: Windows is actually using your ram for productive things; turning off Superfetch will definitely turn down your computers snappiness. Most people on [H] will all tell you the same thing. That Superfetch is like night and day. Going back to XP everything feels so much slower to start. Why would you want to buy something and not have it used?

-Vash

 

[jimmyb]

The second that you call an uncommon task on your PC if it cannot meet the requirements for ram it needs it dumps what was in memory for Superfetch. It doesn't store it onto the hard-drive. It just releases it.

Re: Not paging out to the disk.
I'm curious what your source for this statement is. I'm not disagreeing with it, it's just that I've looked into this before and never been able to find any authoritative statement as to it's behaviour.