To Vista or not to Vista?

[nihil]

Well, I have done a bit of research, and apparently this is "normal" for Vista.

It uses something called "superfetch" and uses a lot of RAM as a sort of cache.

I found this suggestion:

open up a command prompt, type 'net stop superfetch', and press enter. (you'll probably need admin privileges).

You might have to fiddle with the UAC if you have that enabled............ "run as" even though you might have logged in to an administrator account?

Personally, I will wait a bit before I try messing with the settings. I know that Vista works differently, I will have to wait and see if "differently" works......

In theory I have no problem with high memory usage provided it is released to what I want to run when I want to run it. After all, RAM that is never used might as well be in your desk drawer.

I did repair a machine the other day that had been upgraded to home premium from XP home. I think it had a 1.8GHz single core processor. I removed a defective RAM strip that left it with 512Mb of DDR400.

I tried navigating around it and opening Office 2007 applications. It seemed to work reasonably well for someone who was just wanting to do office type functions.

I wonder if this "superfetch" only cuts in if you have a certain amount of resource to begin with?

[HTRegz]

A GB of RAM + Vista is bad.. but I dunno that it's as bad as people are saying... I'm running Vista on 1GB of RAM (I bought an upgrade but I got PC-6400 and needed PC-5400).

Firefox is my biggest culprit.. .using 450MB of RAM... With the latest noscript it uses 750MB RAM... Vista itself (for me anyways) is using under 200MB. You just have to run it appropriately... My 1GB RAM loses 128MB to the video card, meaning I really have 896MB RAM... Since I have such little RAM I just abandoned various services / process that I didn't need running. Vista has become like a Mac... running a shitload of things that you don't need / use... However when you streamline it (I even went with a standard 2K look instead of the fancy new theme)... You have Vista but faster.

[nihil]

Wow! 750Mb.................. that is enormous!

I have the latest FF with adblock and noscript and it is using about 75Mb (Windows 2000). It is big compared to IE, even at that level. I also notice that TeaTimer (Spybot S&D) uses a fair amount at 26Mb.

The guy whose PC I fixed had gone out and bought a new machine with some >2GHz dual core and 1Gb of DDR2. I helped him set it up (he had broken his hip and was in a wheelchair so crawling around under desks wasn't an option). I got the impression that this new machine actually ran slower than his old one with only 512Mb of DDR 400 and a 1.8GHz single core?

You are right about the video card as well. It reminds me of the old days and people complaining about ME and XP. They hadn't allowed for the fact that 16 or 32Mb was being taken by their onboard video chipset.

I am looking forwards to playing with it

[HTRegz]

Wow! 750Mb.................. that is enormous!

I have the latest FF with adblock and noscript and it is using about 75Mb (Windows 2000). It is big compared to IE, even at that level. I also notice that TeaTimer (Spybot S&D) uses a fair amount at 26Mb.

750MB is enormous... I'm fairly certain there's a bug in the latest NoScript that's causing it... 400-450MB I'm fairly used to on Firefox2, especially if I leave the browser open overnight (which I usually do)... On my Windows XP machine that I'm using right now... Firefox has been opened for about 3 hours and it's up to 200MB of RAM, by morning it'll be closer to 400 and then it'll steady out.

It's a huge flaw in Firefox that really needs to be resolved.

[nihil]

Hi there HT~,

I am using 2.0.0.12, NoScript is 1.4.9.5 and AdBlock is 0.7.5.3 which are the latest AFAIK. I don't get the rising memory problem under Win 2000.

It certainly is a known issue, and has been for some time

I found this:

Firefox has a special settings screen called about:config. To access it, open a new tab and type "about:config" (without quotation marks) into the URL bar. Press Enter.

You'll see a long list of text entries. Each line is a different setting, like lines in an .INI file or System Registry entries. You're looking for this line: browser.cache.memory.enable.

There's a type-ahead feature, so just start typing. Once you get there, check to make sure its "Value" setting reads "true," then follow these steps:

1. Right-click any blank area in the about:config window and choose New > Integer from the pop-up menu.
2. The New Integer Value box will open. Copy and paste this setting name into the open dialog box: browser.cache.memory.capacity
3. In the Enter Integer Value box that opens, enter -1 to preserve Firefox's default operational mode.
4. To customize the setting to your computer's physical memory, consult this MozillaZine page. For RAM sizes between 512BM and 1GB, start with 15000. For RAM sizes between 128MB and 512M, try 5000. Note: If you have less than 128MB of RAM, that's probably the cause of your Firefox issues.

It might help?

EDIT:

Some more ideas here:

http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_c...e_on_Firefox#6

[LateNightLurker]

By default it has a lot of services running (ie.- Sidebar, Desktop Window Manager Session Manager, ReadyBoost, etc). I recommend slipstreaming it with vlite - http://www.vlite.net/about.html - if HD space (it will take @ 12gigs of space) and memory (you should have 1 GIG or ram to run everything smoothly) are an issue.

I think I'm one in the few to say I like UAC. When I first installed vista I made the mistake of downloading a virus. UAC blocked the virus from executing, and I was able to delete it rather easily.

[Ouroboros]

"trusted installer" will chew on your RAM like beef jerky. Nom, nom, nom....

Wait it out for 10 mins or so...

O

[Cider]

Nihil - Tried your idea of about config. Got 2 GB ram installed here so I set it to 20000. Not much of a difference. Dropped it by about 100kb.

However with the 100Kb drop on a PC with only 512 Ram is a considerable amount.

[nihil]

I will build me a box this week. Nothing fancy:

1.5Gb PC3200
Athlon XP 3200 single core
2 x 7200 120Gb EIDE HDDs............... hell, I might even try RAID1.....
256Mb vid card
DVD R/W/RW
CD R/W/RW
3.5" floppy ............... the Zip100 and LS120 can wait?

As I am treating this as a pure education exercise, hmmm; I am just going to load it "out of the box" and take it from there

So I will doubtless be coming here on a regular basis squealing for help.

I know that I will like UAC.............. you see I have been using third party stuff to do that since Win98................only with UAC, I only have the one application covering my 4$$.............. normally I get three that all ask the same question

I am looking forwards to this exercise, and (hopefully) having a box that is mine to trash

[JPnyc]

I've only used it a few times, and those few times were enough to make me dislike it. It seems incredibly sluggish and those constant confirmation boxes will be enough to send me to a roof with a sniper rifle. I don't think I'll be trying it anytime soon.