Interesting memory usage tweaks...

[White Stripes]

This is a very odd configuration experement that i found to have very nice results...

a note tho: this is for those who keep their systems running for long periods of time... not those who shutdown the machine at night and start again the next day...

First; some changes to the registry...

go to;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

change;
DisablePagingExecutive to 1 (many here probably have done this)
LargeSystemCache to 1 (this ones not so common)

now go to;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

change;
Max Cached Icons to 8192

if Max Cached Icons does not exsist at this location right click and select New > String Value and create it... and yes... "Max Cached Icons" has the spaces in it... it wont work if it doesnt...

ok... done with the registry editor... close it...

now to the control panel > system > advanced > performance options.....

tick the radio button for 'background applications' .... this will help with the mx when its in the background... (will also help with chat servers and bots)

and change virtual memory size to -- and no im not kidding -- '4090' .... make sure both the inital size and maximum size are the same so that the page file doesnt change size.... (its odd to note that 4092 does not work... windows complains its too much... but its the real value for a size of 4gb.. but hey... whats 2MB between friends)

if you have a defragmenter that can defrag the page file installed (perfectdisk or the aptly named and freeware 'pagedefrag' from www.sysinternals.com ) now would be a good time to tell it to do so on the next boot...


... now simply reboot.... just make note that your machine will be quite a bit more sluggish at booting... but when running for long periods (what this setup is ment for) it will be -very- smooth sailing....

why? cos oft accessed files (winmxs file shares and often used applications for example) are now held by windows in that large system cache... which happenes to be very large indeed because not only does it use much of your system memory (not a bad thing) but that large pagefile as well when you need your system memory.... one might think that holding cached data in a pagefile to be a bit counterproductive but in fact its not... because that pagefile is just -one- file... not many so there is less filesystem overhead... and if it has been defragged its in one continuous 4gb space on your harddrive so the heads dont have to travel very far to get what you need... also... that 8mb icon cache you created will keep your virus scanner from scanning your programs each time windows wants to display its icon since the icon is in the cache... again preventing unneeded harddrive head travel and filesystem overhead....

enjoy

[Forested665]

hmmm this looks like it could help with torrents running wild thnx man i keep mine up for 3-4 weeks at a time. nvr bothered to see what i could do to it

[silicon_toad2000]

I would urge people to be very careful before editing the windows registry.
This particular tweak seems a bit counter intuitive. Disabling the paging executive and setting a large page file seems to contradict each other.
The tweak of disabling the paging executive is held by many as purely an urban myth and does not in fact do what many claim.

Would love to see some benchmarking results.

[White Stripes]

@silicon: its to reduce filesystem overhead... i already know it seems contraditory... but try it... lol...

[silicon_toad2000]

I'll give it a whirl at next restart

[White Stripes]

do remember my note about a sluggish boot... thats the only downside... but it wasnt ment for machines that are rebooted often...

and the longer the machine is running the better it gets... the first few minutes of interaction will be slightly sluggish too.... so if the comp has been running a week with this config its -very- smooth sailing... but if its only just started apps will be slower to load cos of the buffering...


id really like to know how its doing with bacons torrents *hint hint*

[Forested665]

ok so the change actually makes windows usable.
Halite(alpha torrent client) doesnt play well ith e overszed cache
Deluge works great as long as its active port range is under 400

and that instruction set bug in vlc. i fixed that but was still having issues. they seem to be gone now.


but i didnt change cached icons
processor scheduling is sill set to applications but memory is set system cache(duh)
and due to our request for 4090mb the page file s on a network drive(not a smooth move for anyone who has less then a gig of ram or is using wireless)

oh and my screensaver decided to work

[MinersLantern]

This I have been doing since my days under Win2k.

MaxCachedIcons, a fixed value on the swap and such.

It does work very well.

I hate when my icons would suddenly flash and go blank, sit and wait as they restructure themselves.

Some little mods to the registry correcrted that.

[Bluey_412]

And a year or so later...

Windows 10, task manager, right down near the bottom: System and Compressed Memory, should generally be around 150mb, give or take depending on system config.

But I have a machine that is on 24/7/weeks at a time, and that item behaves like a memory leak, sitting on 1081mb as I type and it will get worse, gradually bogging down the system

Occasionally it displays a 'System Low on Memory' message , blaming IE, even if IE is fully closed. Eventually the syatem just stops, blank screen etc...

Annoying.  Thoughts? That memory hog won't let you Stop Process either

[White Stripes]

blaming IE, even if IE is fully closed

IE is never fully closed .. win98 and up its always in memory if only the mshtml.dll rendering engine...

"System and Compressed Memory" is new to me so i dont know really what it is... i stopped using windows at ver 7...

searching MSDN it seems to be a very common problem and the fixes are related to faulty drivers... try upgrading or downgrading your graphics drivers, these seem to be the biggest culprit ... even on microsofts own tablet pcs .... you wouldnt by chance be using an nvidia card would you?

---reads more---

ok so nvidia drivers are the biggest problem child it seems but intel drivers are a big one too.. it seems anything could be at fault but video is where to start...

this also seems to be centered around win 10 build 1511 update KB3124262 if you rule out driver issues...


and if you have enough ram for it, disabling the page file seems to be the kludge fix that works perfectly, but its not a good way to go about fixing this..

um... happy bug hunting? sorry i cant be of more help... do remember win10 is still new and like all versions of windows it takes a few years before a new windows version is actually decently stable (think XP SP2 or vista SP1)..

[White Stripes]

http://www.berkprod.com/Product_Web_Pages/usb_v1_pc_watchdog.aspx  --- if worse comes to worse and you cant bring yourself to switch from windows..

[MinersLantern]

I have changed to win7 a long time ago along with making a pretty fast new pc.

All those changes to things arent needed anymore for me. This OS and hella fast cpu make everything run very smoothly.

It never crashes, it never delays or locks up.

Unless a storm hits and causes a power failure.

Win7, and a fast cpu and modern motherboard kicks ass.

[Bearded Blunder]

do remember win10 is still new and like all versions of windows it takes a few years before a new windows version is actually decently stable (think XP SP2 or vista SP1)..

Unlike all other versions of windows though, Micro$oft keep sliding new versions under your your programs, with new bugs, and old features that WORK removed or hidden in favour of new untested buggy "Apps".

If it wasn't for a few things I kinda need and the pain of migrating years of emails from Outlook.. I'd switch to Debian Stable.