High Standby Memory usage

In my opinion, I think that when you are using your computer just for normal day to day work, SysMain (If you don't know that, basically it is a service in windows which previously was called SuperFetch, and it is what takes care of the standby memory) will come in handy, but when your playing games and want to give all of your computer resources, disabling the SysMain service might help, but remember to clear the standby memory before launching the game. And yes, standby memory actually contains data and CANNOT be used as free memory, UNTIL there is "DESPERATE" need of memory. Also I think what you are saying is that you have 32 GB RAM but still has about 10 - 300 MB of memory free right? That is a bit unusual even if you have SysMain enabled. The problem lies where how SysMain dumps cache into memory (standby). This service analyzes what all programs you daily open and need, and what all programs the system daily needs, It then saves these analysis in a folder. But the problem is, the analysis needs a cleanup, because SysMain might be storing cache in the memory of programs you no longer use or the data that the system no longer needs. To cleanup all the SysMain files, do Win+R, then type "prefetch"

this will take you to the prefetch folder which is controlled by the SysMain service. Delete all of the files inside the folder. Don't worry it is safe, its just that all of you programs after the cleanup and a reboot will run/open slow, but its only for the first time. Then SysMain will again analyze and store cache in the memory, but it will be significantly less cache, because of the cleanup you did. But still it seems like you have a pretty powerful system, if your system runs out of memory, because of the standby, the performance shouldn't drop by much, because the system always can clear the standby when needed. If you still experience maxed out memory usage, try the chrome hack I used to clear memory in my first comment of the thread. But remember to not to open a lot of windows, so that you do not clear a lot of memory, so that SysMain won't start caching memory again. Just free a little bit of memory. Also if your storage device is fast, like maybe you have an SSD instead of a hard disk, you might just go and disable SysMain completely. Your apps might load slowly, but the actual performance should be increased. Although remember that in a whole complete windows session, after disabling SysMain, your apps will load slow, but it will be only for the first of your session (meaning on another session, it will slow for the first time again), but when you open your apps for the second time (in the same session), it should load faster, that is because even though SysMain is disabled, Windows still stores cache in the memory of the apps you open in the existing session, but at least after disabling SysMain, cache won't be stored before you even start using Windows, and the cache will be stored of the apps you only open in that existing session. I am trying to find a registry hack where is puts a limit on how much standby memory can exist in the memory.

Curious as well. I have 32GB of ram and I have read where standby is not a problem. In my daily experience, my system ends up using 14 to 16 GB in standby and leaves 10 to 300 mb free? The reason I looked into this is my laptop performance would start to crawl like every click was on a bad vpn, ridiculous slow performance. For comparison, this is an alienware laptop and typically has great performance. When i came across RAMmap and actually emptied the standby list, the system performance increased almost instantly. Unfortunately, this does not last, but a couple of hours if that. Although the standby memory is available to use by other application, it is not as available as free memory in my experience. This has not always been the case and not sure what windows update has created this new problem of crappy performance? Any ideas?>

Hi,

My name is Igor, I'm Independent Advisor. I have 12 Microsoft MVP awards. It's a pleasure for me to help others and I'll do all my best to help you.

1-5MB free memory is absolutely normal in your case. Standby memory can be used instantly in most cases, mostly it reflects data that lay on disk already.

I'm sorry but nowadays 4GB RAM is not enough for active Internet using unfortunately

Please check the Commited pair of numbers. And you may analyze RAM usage with RamMap tool. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/d...

Please note, in 64-bit systems many apps use so called memory mapped files. They are not counted into processes' memory consumption but are counted as standby RAM instead.

I did not tell "enough", I've told "it is normal". System may succesully operate without free memory at all, it may free some memory instantly from standby memory.

RamMap does not belongs to Windows, it is a part of Sysinternals tool. And it cannot optimize memory usage.

Clearing working set should slowing system for some time.

I may recommend you Windows Internals book, it contains deep enough description of memory managing mechanism.

So you mean that 1-5 MB of RAM is enough for the system to work without stutters? Also I wanted to ask something. I use RamMap tool to optimize my memory, and now that I know it officially belongs to Windows, so now I can ask some questions. I've noticed that in RamMap, whenever I clear the Working set, the memory usage goes down tremendously, but what I also notice is that my system lags a lot. And that is not only the case with RamMap, but also other programs that use the same concepts to clear Ram. But all the other Ram clearing options have positive impact. So how does the "clear Working set" work, and is the problem only for me.