3 replies to this topic

[Rigaudon]

Ever since they've been released, I've heard complaints that XP is better than Vista or 7 and that they use up too much memory. Naturally, people began asking, "Why does vista and 7 take up so much memory?"

The answer is simple: it lies in a new service known as SuperFetch.

Have you ever had a program that took forever to load up that you use a lot? If you use Vista or 7, then probably not. You can thank SuperFetch for that.
What SuperFetch does is it seeks to populate all of your RAM with bits of memory that you use the most. If you use Internet Explorer (God forbid), then you'll notice that it starts up much faster than the first run of another browser like FireFox. This is a great detriment to gamers, however. Lets say you have 4 gigs of RAM, and a game took up 2 gigs. When you're playing, SuperFetch will populate the RAM with other programs so that barely any space is left available. If you, for instance, move into a new map area and had to import the map, your computer would have to take out what it doesn't need first and then bring in the map, rather than simply bringing it in.

So the question is not necessarily "Why does Windows Vista and 7 Use so much Memory", but "Why do other versions of windows use memory so ineffectively?".

When I'm gaming, I like to turn superfetch off so it doesn't make me lag. To do this, go to start>run>cmd and type "net stop superfetch".

If you don't like superfetch on your machine, you can disable it by going to start>run>msconfig, going under services, and unchecking superfetch.

You can find more information about superfetch at the Microsoft website here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...superfetch.aspx
and in other sites.

[Saint_Michael]

Personally everyone knows its the GUI i.e. Aero that takes up much of the memory that was one of the big factors for why Vista was a memory hog. Of course, the only solutions back then was either replace the hardware or add more memory to the computer. XP was great because everyone has beening using it since the OS came out and the reason why it become even more popular because was such crap. However, Windows 7 has greatly improve on the problems that Vista cause and personally it is a lot faster and that is a good thing.I say if your going to m ake the move, go to windows 7, of course, you could always dual boot XP if you wanted to.

[Rigaudon]

Saint_Michael, on Apr 9 2010, 06:59 PM, said:

Personally everyone knows its the GUI i.e. Aero that takes up much of the memory that was one of the big factors for why Vista was a memory hog. Of course, the only solutions back then was either replace the hardware or add more memory to the computer. XP was great because everyone has beening using it since the OS came out and the reason why it become even more popular because was such crap. However, Windows 7 has greatly improve on the problems that Vista cause and personally it is a lot faster and that is a good thing.I say if your going to m ake the move, go to windows 7, of course, you could always dual boot XP if you wanted to.

By personal experience, the GUI (aero) only takes up around 1/10th of the total amount of memory when everything's running smoothly in Vista. Usually, useless applications such as the sidebar were extremely detrimental to Vista's performance.

I do concur, however, that Windows 7 uses memory more efficiently than XP and still maintains the benefits of SuperFetch.

[truefusion]

Though i don't use or own Windows Vista and above, the SuperFetch feature sounds like something i would want disabled at all times. I don't mind having things take a while to load the first time i open them up, but they should take less time to open up every other time. Things i use the most i tend to have them open almost all the time anyway. I have enough RAM on my system to have many things opened all at once. If the SuperFetch feature causes the system to slow down while keeping other programs that it thinks you give a high priority to, then perhaps it is better if it is simply disabled.