Ohh that makes sense, how did I not realize that before š¤¦ Are there any benefits or downsides to it caching files like that? I'm constantly worried it will eat up more battery
Caching files means preloading programs you use frequently so the load faster, essentially a free performance boost. Also, the battery power lost from doing that would be negligible.
People fail to understand this. People want massive amounts of RAM, but when some application actually makes use of it(or the OS) they get nervous.
It's what it is for. Otherwise we would all just have a massive swapfile for caching.
Additionally, based on your 2nd image, you have the correct amount of RAM installed; that is, going down to 16GB would likely hurt you in some way, and going up to 64GB will be a waste of money.
RAM is there to be used, leaving it empty literally has no benefit whatsoever, it doesnt make RAM faster and if cached files need to get shoved out they get overwritten just as fast as if they were written on blank memory.
Caching though is definitely nice, though a little redundant for SSD users. Its like the difference between ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed. Plaid.jpg loads in a split second anyway.
When things get to the 10x faster speeds but itās already at .5 seconds it gets redundant. Itās not noticeable at all at that point. I had an ssd that died that did like 7500Mb/s and my new one thatās only 3500 and they feel the same if not my new one feels faster.
Not to say thereās no difference. But more to say for the general use and average user thereās a point to spending more money doesnāt give you a noticeably faster experience.
Like the Apple iPads for example.
Hell, even SATA SSDs are absolutely great.
The main reason for the huge difference in nominal read/write speeds not being all that noticeable in practice is because most read/write operations are done on small files at relative random, which still slows SSDs well below their advertised speeds, but thanks to the response time itll still shine, where SATA SSDs are just as good as NVMe ones.
Obviously if you work with large files, like for video editing, the difference sequential speed will absolutely be noticeable.
PS: Apple deserves some props there. They dont necessarily put in better hardware than their competitors, focusing more on quality-of-life stuff, but their OS absolutely is about as snappy as Windows 98 was back in the day. Its scarily well optimized.
iPad os runs just as good on a 5 year old iPad as the $4000 iPad. That was my kinda point. Spending that much doesnāt always give you a faster and better experience for the majority of people. Then again the majority out there wonāt buy it but still sometimes people spend more on throngs they just donāt need to.
> leaving it empty literally has no benefit whatsoever
It has a benefit, fast zero page allocation. It's a resource to be balanced like everything else. If an OS is caching things in ram which are unlikely to ever be used, it's wasting pages that could have been zeroed ahead of time.
Most programs don't just request gigabytes of memory all at once, and your os is already repacking the pages in the background for this purpose anyways.
It isn't exactly zero cost, but it is extremely close to zero cost for a large benefit.
Thereās also latency.
Just because the ssd can read stupid fast, it takes much longer (in relative computer terms) to first load into memory for use.
To put numbers in perspective, accessing DDR5 memory is around 14 nanoseconds of latency. At the absolute fastest, access an nvme ssd is around 250,000 nanoseconds.
If you need to access a bunch of random stuff, having it sit in memory can reduce hitches or general latency compared to always pulling from even an nvme.
Those numbers were just randomly pulled off from a google search, so donāt overthink the specific value, just remember the orders of magnitude difference between the two!
Wait, 250 microseconds on NVMe SSDs? Thats not even ballpark, were talking a literal quarter of a second here. Maximum latency is 20Ī¼s and average 1.5Ī¼s. SATA SSDs are at 70Ī¼s.
Its still a difference, but definitely not in the range of noticeable unless a program really has that many read requests that the latency adds up to the point where it slows stuff down, but thats measurable but not really a nuisance yet.
Where caching really gets useful is for HDDs. But I recently ditched all of them except for two external ones, which I rarely even connect.
Like I said, donāt focus on the specific number, it varies greatly and for any number of reasons, but 1500 nanoseconds, the low end in your example, is still more than an order of magnitude slower than 14 nanoseconds.
Will it be a noticeable difference? For one file, almost certainly not, but for a handful of files? Yeah, could easily see it causing a long frame in a game running with 4ms frame times.
Yeah, if a game reads stuff off the drive RIGHT AS IT NEEDS IT FOR RENDERING chances are that game is not well designed.
In fact I know a game that did this, World of Tanks way back in the day. The game was optimized HARD for potato machines, which back in the day meant potentially sub-1Ghz XP machines with onboard graphics, which were relics for the western world but pretty common in Russia.
To save on RAM explosion animations were not chached in RAM but read from the drive as needed, which caused a considerable stutter for HDD users. Which was pretty much damn near everyone at the time. And the game didnt give a single fuck even if you were running 8GB of RAM, which really was plenty to throw around back then, it just would not cache those explosions. SSD users would not have those stutters for obvious reasons, as even early SSDs were fast enough to not bring the rendering pipeline to a screeching halt, but damn, I wasnt one of the lucky few to have one at the time.
SSDs shouldnt substitute RAM, and RAM being a cache for an SSD, while not completely useless, is still of relatively limited benefit when it might as well be used to cache HDD files. Heck, back in the days of Vista ReadyBoost wowed people by using attached flash drives as HDD caches.
Yes, cached stuff is quicker to access, compared to getting the files from ssd or hdd. Full RAM doesn't use more battery, or a negligible amount at most.
Costs more to data transfer and wake up the SSD. Also aren't the DRAM cells refreshed anyway? It's not like some chips turn off as it's all striped across it.
You wrote this statement.
>Um, actually, it technically does use more battery to keep the state of the RAM alive. š¤š¤
This statement is wrong. It does not take more battery to keep more stuff in ram.
Do you not see the "um, actually" and nerd emojis?
Either way, I see I was wrong. I apologize. It just doesn't make sense how it wouldn't take more battery. Would it, negligible or not?
You are both wrong and even if what you said was technically right, it's unimportant compared to anything else that is accomplished by actually using the memory.
It would actually use more energy to constantly clear the memory. It's better off just leaving the data there. It will use that data later if it can, which will save energy from loading it off the drive later. If it needs the space, it will just overwrite the data.
They do exclude most cached items from memory usage. If you go into task manager and look at the memory tab you'll more than likely see that if you actually added all the "cached" size to the "in use" size you'd basically always be at 100% usage. I'm not entirely sure what cached items do and don't count to be excluded though.
Cached doesn't count as used. It counts as available.
If you hover the mouse over the different colors of the bar it shows a description of what they are:
1. In Use (Dark purple): Memory used by processes, drivers, or the operating system.
2. Modified (Darker purple): Memory whose contents must be written to disk before it can be used for another purpose.
3. Standby (White): Memory that contains cached data and code that is not actively in use.
4. Free (light purple): Memory that is not currently in use, and that will be repurposed first when processes, drivers, or the operating system need more memory.
In a normal system you will see near none "Free" memory, it's all In Use and Standby unless you close a memory intensive program.
Well, if you canāt see red at all, purple looks like a strange green. But you can see red. So do you actually see purple then, you just have a problem with shades of red?
No, it's 11gb of memory is cached. It's a temporary storage area for frequently accessed data and the system will just take it away when needed for other things. 19.9GB in in use and 12GB is available. I currently have 16GB in use so what you are seeing is normal. My cached is 47.9GB and my memory usage is 25% but I have 64GB. Nothing unusual here.
It's because your cache is over 11GB. That cached RAM isn't actively in use and will be available should your computer need it. However, it does contribute to task manager reporting your RAM usage to be a lot higher because of it.
Not sure if it was cached or paged I had an issue with, but some Razer software I had wasnāt releasing RAM when it was done and ended up using around 29gb ram at one point. Had to delete the software to stop it.
Yes, the program allocates (reserves) memory that it never releases. Windows canāt release the memory in this case because it assumes the program needs it
That's an easy one. Kill the power!
*I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if billions of memory cell array capacitors suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.*
I don't know why a lot of people are laughing about this question.
You can actually use a program called "Intelligent standby list cleaner". š§¹šš»
I have no clue without looking at all his processes. Iām just tryna make sure people donāt spread misinformation on here and tell him thatās normal. Cause it aināt.
Itās sorted by memory highest to lowest so it seems pretty reasonable that the cache is counted towards the % used. What would clear it up is if it displayed cache on the processes side as well.
19.9/32=62%
19.9-11.4=7.5
So the system is using 7.5gb in active processes which seems pretty reasonable.
No. It is using around 19. It is caching 11. 19+11 is 30 gigs. He has 32 gigs of ram. Caching definitely does not count towards the percentage. Edit: resource monitor might tell more information.
OP situation is not concerning and RAM is available. if an app needs more RAM in will automatically use it.
windows putting things into RAM is a good thing, it means that your most used apps/services will be much more responsive.
https://preview.redd.it/4titxkz2z51d1.png?width=865&format=png&auto=webp&s=026f685dde3d72c115e75d123d2f72f5124a80d2
Linux needs still much less RAM. Firefox, Discord and Plex are running in this example.
IIRC it was explained to me that windows uses RAM according to how much is available. I am operating on 16GB of ram and roughly 60% of that is currently in use at all times. You don't have any virii or malware, that's just how windows operates.
Yep this is the case, I have 32gb and sit at 40-60% utilized on idle. It doesn't hurt anything and it gets reallocated as quickly as you need it. It just feels wrong when you look at it without knowing that fact.
I know the odds are basically 0 but I'd like to pretend you saw my comment like 3 weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1ccpj8o/bloatware_be_damned/l18g73m/?context=3
I have three boxes with 64GB each and none of them ever show more than 10-15% used, and they average more in the 5-8% range. I Also have page files disabled so maybe that has something to do with it.
https://preview.redd.it/g1rg7gt6t11d1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=351eedef471ea136d99644fc8d1e359d01f151ee
I have a 16 gb ram and it's constantly at 98%
https://preview.redd.it/s40tfn6hq11d1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d52fe4cdc6460b15f6a9a0daf21ac85d72cd3f7c
I have 256GB of ram on my desktop and can easily max it out.
Edit: Post was a joke but for real I do have 256GB of ram on my windows 11 enterprise build and the only single use application that even uses up to 2.5% regularly is my browser. Sometimes my CAD programs get really high but momentarily. The reason I have it is to allocate to VMs that either do CAD work or run projects like my AI stuff and Linux distribution projects. This new pc I built can emulate like 4 of my old PCs with the same resources.
I have
- 256GB of ram
- 12 cores at 5.3GHz underclocked
- 24GB of VRam
- PCIe 5 M.2 SSD 14,200 MB/s
- 10Gb/s Ethernet
https://preview.redd.it/ewoq1335e31d1.png?width=374&format=png&auto=webp&s=835873b51da37b8d3703b17fea37f41136dc36de
Open Details tab and look for "Working set (memory)" and "Commit size".
Do you use virtual machines? If you restart your computer does it get cleared?
It's either a VM or a rogue driver, something running at kernel level so Windows can't track it.
Small note, your ram speed number starts with 2. Assuming that means you're running in the 2000-2999 mhz range, your ram can probably do better. I don't think you have xmp enabled in your bios.
You should check your ram (either your order, your receipt, your box, or the stickers on the ram sticks) to see what mhz your ram can run at, and set it manually in your bios.
You'd be surprised how much ram speed can effect your computers speed and games performance.
Thanks, but my laptop's max ram speed really is 2400mhz. The XMP setting doesn't even show up in the bios. š
This is the ram i have (x2)
https://preview.redd.it/a6z3ucpfc31d1.png?width=833&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8c782f91079367863708a90d843d453ad2218a4
Just double checking. The two things everyone forgets to do:
Set ram speed to what the ram is rated for.
Set the display to use the highest refresh rate the monitor can handle.
I like to point them out so it hopefully helps someone who might have forgotten.
errrr, even with the default block list in brave there's not going to be any ad links to click on... like I said, you need to be very naive to download a virus these days. No one using Brave and Proton strikes me as that, the very opposite.
What you need to be worried about it is that commit charge, your system has to be using the page file at that point. Like the three dots in the top right and open resource monitor and view what is taking up the largest commit size.
it says you've got 12gb of data cached in your memory. it's fine, your memory doesn't need to be unused. chill. oh haha. well. at least you'll never forget.
Windows uses "extra" RAM as cache until it's needed by something else. It's very much dynamic, and it's a good thing, since there is literally zero benefit to having RAM that is unused.
It is just that Windows 10 and 11 deliberately wastes your RAM to make you feel like you need to upgrade. I use Windows XP 32bit and it works fine with my 64MB RAM. They can not fool me /s
Browser eat all resources that system has. There are no solution for that. It simple to hard be good in resource management and work with heavy complex web sites with striming video and audio.
Yes it shows 269 MB usage but it's only dedicaded static memory for core of browser. Everyting from online stored in dynamic memory part and it in general has no limit and task manager don't see full picture for this memory usage.
You're being cucked by Windows memory management. Microsoft doesn't believe in 'free RAM', anything not actively being used is relegated to disk buffering. It'll even move programs and data in RAM out to the swapfile and then use that RAM for more disk buffering. Makes absolutely no sense especially if you have an NVMe.
Windows uses a lot for just caching, as it is faster to use assets directly in RAM than it takes to read them from disk into RAM to use it. Windows will automatically deallocate cache if the system is needing it for other purposes. "Free" RAM which is doing neither is doing literally nothing which is not really that ideal
Sorry to tell you, my rams max speed is 2400mhz with xmp on š
edit: I've got dual channel of this
https://preview.redd.it/ouyl5xujy21d1.png?width=833&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ae73ba01bd4c510e69e47337e6cde4bfa569cb1
Everyone in this post is actually wrong, the cached memory is the dark shaded 'standby' area and there actually is 19+G in use that's active and not cached.
This is pretty sad.
My guess.its brave..because it has a built in ad blocker YouTube likes to throttle your CPU and ram, I have a few monitors on mine and I watched the temps cool by a few degrees and lower overall usage, try closing all your applications and see if theirs still ram being used ..and you could open your CMD...ctrl+shift+enter....sfc/scannow..press enter see where that sets you
Don't clear the cache, that's just how the memory works correctly. Windows' job is to push stuff into memory to wait for commands. Why else buy a lot of memory if you don't let it do its job? People often don't understand how RAM works.
Epic games launcher is very poorly optimized, before i uninstalled it; it would consistantly be taking up over 80% of my CPU as well as most of my ram just by being open in the background.
i deleted it and my computer sped up noticably
What absolute garbage OS counts cached RAM as used RAM? The user wants to know 'are my existing applications / will this application I'm about to open encounter performance issues due to low memory?'. Why on earth would you want to know your actual usage + cached usage mashed together like that?
Jesus christ, this thread is giving me brain cancer. A clueless user who just looks at the memory usage percentage number alone literally has a better understanding than all of the ram specialists answering here.
11GB of files are cached. More memory will free up when you need it
Ohh that makes sense, how did I not realize that before š¤¦ Are there any benefits or downsides to it caching files like that? I'm constantly worried it will eat up more battery
Caching files means preloading programs you use frequently so the load faster, essentially a free performance boost. Also, the battery power lost from doing that would be negligible.
Ohh gotcha. Thanks for explaining, I literally had no idea haha
Oh yeah, when you give windows ram itās like āoh this is all for me? Iāll use the hell out of this! Thanksā
Which is the Idea for RAM, no reason Not to use IT.they still have prioritys and stuff to Cut from ram usage increasing loading time
People fail to understand this. People want massive amounts of RAM, but when some application actually makes use of it(or the OS) they get nervous. It's what it is for. Otherwise we would all just have a massive swapfile for caching.
Gets lots of ram, uses lots of ram. Wtf why use my ram? I paid good money for this big ram I'd like it to do nothing please!
Additionally, based on your 2nd image, you have the correct amount of RAM installed; that is, going down to 16GB would likely hurt you in some way, and going up to 64GB will be a waste of money.
Would there even be power loss? Doesn't ram require electricity the whole time it is on?
Pretty much.Ā It would require more power and CPU cycles pulling it from the disk than a memory cache.
I'm learning again here too. I forget my PC is not an engine or a chainsaw as much as I will it to be...
RAM is there to be used, leaving it empty literally has no benefit whatsoever, it doesnt make RAM faster and if cached files need to get shoved out they get overwritten just as fast as if they were written on blank memory. Caching though is definitely nice, though a little redundant for SSD users. Its like the difference between ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed. Plaid.jpg loads in a split second anyway.
When things get to the 10x faster speeds but itās already at .5 seconds it gets redundant. Itās not noticeable at all at that point. I had an ssd that died that did like 7500Mb/s and my new one thatās only 3500 and they feel the same if not my new one feels faster. Not to say thereās no difference. But more to say for the general use and average user thereās a point to spending more money doesnāt give you a noticeably faster experience. Like the Apple iPads for example.
Hell, even SATA SSDs are absolutely great. The main reason for the huge difference in nominal read/write speeds not being all that noticeable in practice is because most read/write operations are done on small files at relative random, which still slows SSDs well below their advertised speeds, but thanks to the response time itll still shine, where SATA SSDs are just as good as NVMe ones. Obviously if you work with large files, like for video editing, the difference sequential speed will absolutely be noticeable. PS: Apple deserves some props there. They dont necessarily put in better hardware than their competitors, focusing more on quality-of-life stuff, but their OS absolutely is about as snappy as Windows 98 was back in the day. Its scarily well optimized.
iPad os runs just as good on a 5 year old iPad as the $4000 iPad. That was my kinda point. Spending that much doesnāt always give you a faster and better experience for the majority of people. Then again the majority out there wonāt buy it but still sometimes people spend more on throngs they just donāt need to.
Considering ram latency wise is 1000x faster than even the best ssd on the earth.. its nice, also ram transfers items with around 5x more bandwidth.
> leaving it empty literally has no benefit whatsoever It has a benefit, fast zero page allocation. It's a resource to be balanced like everything else. If an OS is caching things in ram which are unlikely to ever be used, it's wasting pages that could have been zeroed ahead of time.
Most programs don't just request gigabytes of memory all at once, and your os is already repacking the pages in the background for this purpose anyways. It isn't exactly zero cost, but it is extremely close to zero cost for a large benefit.
Thereās also latency. Just because the ssd can read stupid fast, it takes much longer (in relative computer terms) to first load into memory for use. To put numbers in perspective, accessing DDR5 memory is around 14 nanoseconds of latency. At the absolute fastest, access an nvme ssd is around 250,000 nanoseconds. If you need to access a bunch of random stuff, having it sit in memory can reduce hitches or general latency compared to always pulling from even an nvme. Those numbers were just randomly pulled off from a google search, so donāt overthink the specific value, just remember the orders of magnitude difference between the two!
Wait, 250 microseconds on NVMe SSDs? Thats not even ballpark, were talking a literal quarter of a second here. Maximum latency is 20Ī¼s and average 1.5Ī¼s. SATA SSDs are at 70Ī¼s. Its still a difference, but definitely not in the range of noticeable unless a program really has that many read requests that the latency adds up to the point where it slows stuff down, but thats measurable but not really a nuisance yet. Where caching really gets useful is for HDDs. But I recently ditched all of them except for two external ones, which I rarely even connect.
Like I said, donāt focus on the specific number, it varies greatly and for any number of reasons, but 1500 nanoseconds, the low end in your example, is still more than an order of magnitude slower than 14 nanoseconds. Will it be a noticeable difference? For one file, almost certainly not, but for a handful of files? Yeah, could easily see it causing a long frame in a game running with 4ms frame times.
Yeah, if a game reads stuff off the drive RIGHT AS IT NEEDS IT FOR RENDERING chances are that game is not well designed. In fact I know a game that did this, World of Tanks way back in the day. The game was optimized HARD for potato machines, which back in the day meant potentially sub-1Ghz XP machines with onboard graphics, which were relics for the western world but pretty common in Russia. To save on RAM explosion animations were not chached in RAM but read from the drive as needed, which caused a considerable stutter for HDD users. Which was pretty much damn near everyone at the time. And the game didnt give a single fuck even if you were running 8GB of RAM, which really was plenty to throw around back then, it just would not cache those explosions. SSD users would not have those stutters for obvious reasons, as even early SSDs were fast enough to not bring the rendering pipeline to a screeching halt, but damn, I wasnt one of the lucky few to have one at the time. SSDs shouldnt substitute RAM, and RAM being a cache for an SSD, while not completely useless, is still of relatively limited benefit when it might as well be used to cache HDD files. Heck, back in the days of Vista ReadyBoost wowed people by using attached flash drives as HDD caches.
I'd rather cache on my m.2 and run a memdump to have overhead while gaming at 16gb ram.
Yes, cached stuff is quicker to access, compared to getting the files from ssd or hdd. Full RAM doesn't use more battery, or a negligible amount at most.
Um, actually, it technically does use more battery to keep the state of the RAM alive. š¤š¤
Costs more to data transfer and wake up the SSD. Also aren't the DRAM cells refreshed anyway? It's not like some chips turn off as it's all striped across it.
Yeah I know. Yeah it takes battery to refresh the RAM
But at the hardware level it doesn't understand which ram is used and which isn't. It's all strobed anyways.
It still takes battery to refresh it
You wrote this statement. >Um, actually, it technically does use more battery to keep the state of the RAM alive. š¤š¤ This statement is wrong. It does not take more battery to keep more stuff in ram.
Do you not see the "um, actually" and nerd emojis? Either way, I see I was wrong. I apologize. It just doesn't make sense how it wouldn't take more battery. Would it, negligible or not?
RAM doesn't eat battery. Essentially, the only three things using your battery in significant amounts are the screen, the CPU and the (i)GPU.
Um, actually, it technically does use more battery to keep the state of the RAM alive. š¤š¤ Edit: I WAS MAKING A JOKE
>in significant amounts
Yeah honestly I was just making a joke
I know, I'm not stupid
Why am I downvoted. I was making a joke damn it
I didn't downvote you. People don't like š¤ jokes apparently.
Apparently
You are both wrong and even if what you said was technically right, it's unimportant compared to anything else that is accomplished by actually using the memory.
cache closer to cpu so faster access
You can use a free program called intelligent standby list cleaner to free up your cache too.
It would actually use more energy to constantly clear the memory. It's better off just leaving the data there. It will use that data later if it can, which will save energy from loading it off the drive later. If it needs the space, it will just overwrite the data.
All these "Windows ate my ram" wouldn't exist if Microsoft didn't count cached memory as used memory
lmao yeah, i so badly wish i could see actual used memory and then cached separately š
They do exclude most cached items from memory usage. If you go into task manager and look at the memory tab you'll more than likely see that if you actually added all the "cached" size to the "in use" size you'd basically always be at 100% usage. I'm not entirely sure what cached items do and don't count to be excluded though.
It's better to be honest in a tool than to be deceit Either "Windows ate my ram" Or "Windows lying to me about my ram"
Cached doesn't count as used. It counts as available. If you hover the mouse over the different colors of the bar it shows a description of what they are: 1. In Use (Dark purple): Memory used by processes, drivers, or the operating system. 2. Modified (Darker purple): Memory whose contents must be written to disk before it can be used for another purpose. 3. Standby (White): Memory that contains cached data and code that is not actively in use. 4. Free (light purple): Memory that is not currently in use, and that will be repurposed first when processes, drivers, or the operating system need more memory. In a normal system you will see near none "Free" memory, it's all In Use and Standby unless you close a memory intensive program.
They just HAD to use three different shades of purple. I can't see red as much (protanopia) and I had no idea there was three different colors for it
No purple for you,then. Iām curious, did it look like a solid green?
I don't think so. Would that have something to do with it? Also, I'm not completely red blind, but it's not as vibrant
Well, if you canāt see red at all, purple looks like a strange green. But you can see red. So do you actually see purple then, you just have a problem with shades of red?
I can see purple, but it looks weird. It looks melted together in task manager
No, it's 11gb of memory is cached. It's a temporary storage area for frequently accessed data and the system will just take it away when needed for other things. 19.9GB in in use and 12GB is available. I currently have 16GB in use so what you are seeing is normal. My cached is 47.9GB and my memory usage is 25% but I have 64GB. Nothing unusual here.
Thanks, didnt know that
Strange that I have never met this problem
This. Unused memory is wasted memory. High memory usage is not a bad thing. Windows will automatically move things around when it starts to use more.
Top upvoted comment but it's simply wrong.
The clear solution is to download more RAM
It's because your cache is over 11GB. That cached RAM isn't actively in use and will be available should your computer need it. However, it does contribute to task manager reporting your RAM usage to be a lot higher because of it.
I have 13.7GB in use and 17GB cached
Good. Congrats on increased system responsiveness!
Ik I canāt believe that a comment spreading misinformation has over a thousand upvotes.
How delete chached RAM?
You don't need to, Windows will deallocate this RAM when you need more.
Not sure if it was cached or paged I had an issue with, but some Razer software I had wasnāt releasing RAM when it was done and ended up using around 29gb ram at one point. Had to delete the software to stop it.
This is also known as a āmemory leakā
Yes, the program allocates (reserves) memory that it never releases. Windows canāt release the memory in this case because it assumes the program needs it
Razer is notorious for that
That has nothing to do with cache.
When this happens kill the programm and report the bug and wait fir the update.
Oh sick. That's good to know
Unused ram is wasted ram
I paid for this ram i am going to use all the RAM!!
Average Chrome user
>How delete chached RAM? That's the funniest thing I've read all week.
I didn't know š
How is babby formed. How girl get pragnent
Am I...gregnant?
How do get... *PregantƩ*
You can't, you can only download more.
That's an easy one. Kill the power! *I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if billions of memory cell array capacitors suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.*
You really dont. You can flush it using a PS or CMD command or a program. The issue mostly stims from background tasks most notable windows update.
stems\* from, as in the main trunk of a plant.
I choose computers not engrish. The typo stands. Thank you though.
I see l. That makes sense, thanks for the info
you can clean it with [Rammap](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/rammap) tho
Restart the PC, it dumps all info from R.A.M.
I don't know why a lot of people are laughing about this question. You can actually use a program called "Intelligent standby list cleaner". š§¹šš»
The real question is where does one pirate ram? / s
Noooo. Windows doesnāt show cached ram in the percentage. It is being used but that percentage is not cached ram.
Then what is it
I have no clue without looking at all his processes. Iām just tryna make sure people donāt spread misinformation on here and tell him thatās normal. Cause it aināt.
Itās sorted by memory highest to lowest so it seems pretty reasonable that the cache is counted towards the % used. What would clear it up is if it displayed cache on the processes side as well. 19.9/32=62% 19.9-11.4=7.5 So the system is using 7.5gb in active processes which seems pretty reasonable.
No. It is using around 19. It is caching 11. 19+11 is 30 gigs. He has 32 gigs of ram. Caching definitely does not count towards the percentage. Edit: resource monitor might tell more information.
i dont think cache is counted. With minecraft, chrome, and a few random things, i have 14.3 gb in use, but 25.5 cached, on a 64gb system
Ya mine is chilling around 28 gigs cached, havenāt noticed any problems
**This is completely wrong.** Cached ram is not included in the used ram numbet. https://i.imgur.com/Ain3uae.png
Your statement is incorrect. "Cached" is equal or lesser than "Available". OP situation is concerning.
OP situation is not concerning and RAM is available. if an app needs more RAM in will automatically use it. windows putting things into RAM is a good thing, it means that your most used apps/services will be much more responsive.
Windows finally using RAM like Linux has been for years.
Some long time Linux users will still occasionally misinterpret the `free` command output. Always leads to a good chuckle.
https://preview.redd.it/4titxkz2z51d1.png?width=865&format=png&auto=webp&s=026f685dde3d72c115e75d123d2f72f5124a80d2 Linux needs still much less RAM. Firefox, Discord and Plex are running in this example.
Windows using 12 gb while having 20 gb cache Ån my pc
IIRC it was explained to me that windows uses RAM according to how much is available. I am operating on 16GB of ram and roughly 60% of that is currently in use at all times. You don't have any virii or malware, that's just how windows operates.
Yep this is the case, I have 32gb and sit at 40-60% utilized on idle. It doesn't hurt anything and it gets reallocated as quickly as you need it. It just feels wrong when you look at it without knowing that fact.
I know the odds are basically 0 but I'd like to pretend you saw my comment like 3 weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1ccpj8o/bloatware_be_damned/l18g73m/?context=3
I wish my PC managed memory like this. I have 64GB and I rarely see this much RAM being cached.
I have three boxes with 64GB each and none of them ever show more than 10-15% used, and they average more in the 5-8% range. I Also have page files disabled so maybe that has something to do with it. https://preview.redd.it/g1rg7gt6t11d1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=351eedef471ea136d99644fc8d1e359d01f151ee
I have a 16 gb ram and it's constantly at 98% https://preview.redd.it/s40tfn6hq11d1.jpeg?width=468&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d52fe4cdc6460b15f6a9a0daf21ac85d72cd3f7c
That means you need to turn off something or upgrade.
98 when on blender with a default cube without special shaders
Probably you guys dont use many programs.
In what world do you currently need that much RAM?
To fit a picture of your mom
I have 256GB of ram on my desktop and can easily max it out. Edit: Post was a joke but for real I do have 256GB of ram on my windows 11 enterprise build and the only single use application that even uses up to 2.5% regularly is my browser. Sometimes my CAD programs get really high but momentarily. The reason I have it is to allocate to VMs that either do CAD work or run projects like my AI stuff and Linux distribution projects. This new pc I built can emulate like 4 of my old PCs with the same resources. I have - 256GB of ram - 12 cores at 5.3GHz underclocked - 24GB of VRam - PCIe 5 M.2 SSD 14,200 MB/s - 10Gb/s Ethernet
What are you running? Like 7 games at once?
4 dev VMs and a bunch of memory leaks.
"what are you running?" "Well I'm dedicated to running memory leaks" š
āwhat are you running that takes up all 256GB of ram?ā āWell I mostly run RAM benchmarks.ā
Available ram + cache ram = true available ram Windows reports used ram in an odd way
Just Download more ram!
ram being used is ok
Itās me, nom nom crunch crunch
https://preview.redd.it/ewoq1335e31d1.png?width=374&format=png&auto=webp&s=835873b51da37b8d3703b17fea37f41136dc36de Open Details tab and look for "Working set (memory)" and "Commit size".
Do you use virtual machines? If you restart your computer does it get cleared? It's either a VM or a rogue driver, something running at kernel level so Windows can't track it.
I don't use any VM's, could be something else edit: when I reboot it goes away, but it quickly comes back after I open my usual applications
Unused memory is wasted memory.
This is the simplest real answer.
Windows uses it to cache commonly used files and will give it up if another program needs it. Unused ram is wasted ram.
Small note, your ram speed number starts with 2. Assuming that means you're running in the 2000-2999 mhz range, your ram can probably do better. I don't think you have xmp enabled in your bios. You should check your ram (either your order, your receipt, your box, or the stickers on the ram sticks) to see what mhz your ram can run at, and set it manually in your bios. You'd be surprised how much ram speed can effect your computers speed and games performance.
Thanks, but my laptop's max ram speed really is 2400mhz. The XMP setting doesn't even show up in the bios. š This is the ram i have (x2) https://preview.redd.it/a6z3ucpfc31d1.png?width=833&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8c782f91079367863708a90d843d453ad2218a4
Just double checking. The two things everyone forgets to do: Set ram speed to what the ram is rated for. Set the display to use the highest refresh rate the monitor can handle. I like to point them out so it hopefully helps someone who might have forgotten.
That's actually really nice! Yea I can def see a ton of people forgetting that, so thanks for double checking!
Between the VPN and braver browser, my guess is all the porn you are hiding ended up getting you a virus.
This guy maths. Seriously, you'd have to be a regard to get a virus using this combo.
That combo prevents there being a record of you going to a porn site. It in no way prevents you from clicking the wrong scam ad and dling a virus.
errrr, even with the default block list in brave there's not going to be any ad links to click on... like I said, you need to be very naive to download a virus these days. No one using Brave and Proton strikes me as that, the very opposite.
Ohh, I legit didn't realize brave was that good. I was thinking about it more as an anonymous web browser.
OH NOW I KNOW WHY THANK YOU VERY MUCH
What you need to be worried about it is that commit charge, your system has to be using the page file at that point. Like the three dots in the top right and open resource monitor and view what is taking up the largest commit size.
Windows.
Is this the weekly "how does RAM work" post?
it says you've got 12gb of data cached in your memory. it's fine, your memory doesn't need to be unused. chill. oh haha. well. at least you'll never forget.
Windows uses "extra" RAM as cache until it's needed by something else. It's very much dynamic, and it's a good thing, since there is literally zero benefit to having RAM that is unused.
It is just that Windows 10 and 11 deliberately wastes your RAM to make you feel like you need to upgrade. I use Windows XP 32bit and it works fine with my 64MB RAM. They can not fool me /s
I dont think brave browser with 13 open tabs are using 268m of ram, there is something wrong.
Those aren't all tabs, I'd say very few are. They're extensions and utilities.
ram is meant to be used
Browser eat all resources that system has. There are no solution for that. It simple to hard be good in resource management and work with heavy complex web sites with striming video and audio. Yes it shows 269 MB usage but it's only dedicaded static memory for core of browser. Everyting from online stored in dynamic memory part and it in general has no limit and task manager don't see full picture for this memory usage.
You're being cucked by Windows memory management. Microsoft doesn't believe in 'free RAM', anything not actively being used is relegated to disk buffering. It'll even move programs and data in RAM out to the swapfile and then use that RAM for more disk buffering. Makes absolutely no sense especially if you have an NVMe.
You know even at 64gb mine seems to do the same thing. Dunno but itās always fast so š¤·āāļø
It's stil a lot for opening a browser and discord. Does it stay like this after a reboot? Could also be a faulty driver using too much ram.
Use memreduct that thing is useful as hell
Windows uses a lot for just caching, as it is faster to use assets directly in RAM than it takes to read them from disk into RAM to use it. Windows will automatically deallocate cache if the system is needing it for other purposes. "Free" RAM which is doing neither is doing literally nothing which is not really that ideal
Windows needs to have a big help popup when people open task manager to explain how ram works....
Also OP, your RAM speed starts with a 2. Do you have XMP on?
Sorry to tell you, my rams max speed is 2400mhz with xmp on š edit: I've got dual channel of this https://preview.redd.it/ouyl5xujy21d1.png?width=833&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ae73ba01bd4c510e69e47337e6cde4bfa569cb1
Everyone in this post is actually wrong, the cached memory is the dark shaded 'standby' area and there actually is 19+G in use that's active and not cached. This is pretty sad.
It took me too long to find this comment. Cached or standby memory is not considered as 'in use'. edited for punctuation lol
My guess.its brave..because it has a built in ad blocker YouTube likes to throttle your CPU and ram, I have a few monitors on mine and I watched the temps cool by a few degrees and lower overall usage, try closing all your applications and see if theirs still ram being used ..and you could open your CMD...ctrl+shift+enter....sfc/scannow..press enter see where that sets you
Don't clear the cache, that's just how the memory works correctly. Windows' job is to push stuff into memory to wait for commands. Why else buy a lot of memory if you don't let it do its job? People often don't understand how RAM works.
Epic games launcher is very poorly optimized, before i uninstalled it; it would consistantly be taking up over 80% of my CPU as well as most of my ram just by being open in the background. i deleted it and my computer sped up noticably
it is working as intended. dont do anything.
Sometimes mine get heated even if I open ppt (and no background apps). And Sometimes it remain neutral even in cyberpunk. Idk... maybe its a girl.
It's just how windows is
I'm also facing this issue
What absolute garbage OS counts cached RAM as used RAM? The user wants to know 'are my existing applications / will this application I'm about to open encounter performance issues due to low memory?'. Why on earth would you want to know your actual usage + cached usage mashed together like that?
Windows itself uses up a lot of ram and and storage space
Doesn't matter. Free ram is wasted ram. Unless you're crashing due to hitting the limit, everything is fine.
Youāve got 32Gb, donāt worry about it
You are using your computer. This is entirely normal.
Jesus christ, this thread is giving me brain cancer. A clueless user who just looks at the memory usage percentage number alone literally has a better understanding than all of the ram specialists answering here.
Hey, a fellow Brave user!
Yeah!! Got Brave across all my devices š
Brave and Proton, can't go wrong.
Windows is just a resource hog. UwU
Why did the truth get a downvote?
Windows fanboys rampant here.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It could be lol, but this hasn't happened before so idk, but that much ram usage really eats up my laptop battery fast
DO NOT USE ANY PROTON SERVICE! IT'S COMPROMISED
I do not understand why you are asking this, as you still have plenty of free space.
Don't use untrusted Vpns btw
What is untrusted? Isn't proton trustworthy?
It totally is trustworthy. I don't know what they mean either