Windows 10 memory usage on Asus T100

Hi everyone,
I've finally finished installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 on my Asus T100. First impressions are great. If I'm not mistaken, it doesn't use as much disk space as Windows 8.1. I have 20 gigs of memory free out of the 29 available. Which is great. Plus, the OS feels smoother and faster.

I have a question. I've noticed in the Task Manager that the OS when idle uses only 500-600 MB of ram. Is it possible? Win 8.1 used up to 1.2-1.3 GB when idle. Are 500MB final, or when the OS is released is it going to use more ram?

"Idle" really doesn't tell you much. If you just booted up, then it won't have a lot of memory allocated. However, once you start using it, then it will start caching more things and use more memory. This memory is typically available to be reclaimed by applications running in the system though, so you typically don't have to worry about it.

The OS allocates its initial buffers and caches based on the size of available memory in your system, so a system with 2GB of free RAM will start with less memory "available' than one with 4GB or 8GB.

I understand. Thanks for the answer. Yet, Windows 8 would use more memory at the beginning of each session. I know the official system requirements are the same as Windows 8, but I was just wondering whether someone had noticed a lower memory usage or it was just me.

Yes, I noticed that on my desktop pc with 8 gigs of ram. Windows 10 allocates like 2.5 gigs on boot up.

Within reasonable limits the more memory you have the more Windows will use. This is a good thing and the reason why a computer with 16 GB of RAM is faster than one with 2 GB, when running the exact same software.

The basic principle is that at any given time the amount of code and data in use is almost always larger then the size of RAM. So Windows can only keep a subset of this in RAM while the rest must remain in the original files or the pagefile. This isn't as bad as it sounds because most of the data that is not in RAM isn't used very often anyway. The more RAM you have the larger this subset will be and the less often the OS will have to go to the disk. Windows knows what data has been recently accessed and what has not so it is able to make intelligent choices about what should be in RAM and what should not. And these choices are continually being revised as the situation changes.

None of this is new. NT 3.1 was doing all of this back in 1993 but modern systems do it better. With only 12 MB RAM (the specified minimum for NT 3.1) there wasn't room for sophisticated memory management.

LMiller7 said:

Within reasonable limits the more memory you have the more Windows will use. This is a good thing and the reason why a computer with 16 GB of RAM is faster than one with 2 GB, when running the exact same software.

The basic principle is that at any given time the amount of code and data in use is almost always larger then the size of RAM. So Windows can only keep a subset of this in RAM while the rest must remain in the original files or the pagefile. This isn't as bad as it sounds because most of the data that is not in RAM isn't used very often anyway. The more RAM you have the larger this subset will be and the less often the OS will have to go to the disk. Windows knows what data has been recently accessed and what has not so it is able to make intelligent choices about what should be in RAM and what should not. And these choices are continually being revised as the situation changes.

None of this is new. NT 3.1 was doing all of this back in 1993 but modern systems do it better. With only 12 MB RAM (the specified minimum for NT 3.1) there wasn't room for sophisticated memory management.

Very interesting. Thanks for the thorough explanation

LMiller7 said:

Within reasonable limits the more memory you have the more Windows will use. This is a good thing and the reason why a computer with 16 GB of RAM is faster than one with 2 GB, when running the exact same software.

The basic principle is that at any given time the amount of code and data in use is almost always larger then the size of RAM. So Windows can only keep a subset of this in RAM while the rest must remain in the original files or the pagefile. This isn't as bad as it sounds because most of the data that is not in RAM isn't used very often anyway. The more RAM you have the larger this subset will be and the less often the OS will have to go to the disk. Windows knows what data has been recently accessed and what has not so it is able to make intelligent choices about what should be in RAM and what should not. And these choices are continually being revised as the situation changes.

None of this is new. NT 3.1 was doing all of this back in 1993 but modern systems do it better. With only 12 MB RAM (the specified minimum for NT 3.1) there wasn't room for sophisticated memory management.

So here's my sitation: I'm sharing my desktop between working and playing games. I have 16GB and v10041 (which can't upgrade to v10130 but that's a different issue)

When Windows boots, it's using about 2.8GB of RAM. After a day of working with it, the memory appears to be fully used, but I can't find the RAM consuming processes in the Task Manager or Procexp.exe (the sum of RAM used by processes shown doesn't add up to total use), so I can't free the memory. Contrary to your claim, the OS doesn't release memory for the game, so the game is unplayable. Now I have to reboot the computer. I don't think this concept was fully thought through.

EDIT: I didn't have this problem with Windows 7

m0sh3g said:

So here's my sitation: I'm sharing my desktop between working and playing games. I have 16GB and v10041 (which can't upgrade to v10130 but that's a different issue)

Why can't you download the 10130 ISO from Microsoft and upgrade directly?

m0sh3g said:

When Windows boots, it's using about 2.8GB of RAM. After a day of working with it, the memory appears to be fully used, but I can't find the RAM consuming processes in the Task Manager or Procexp.exe (the sum of RAM used by processes shown doesn't add up to total use), so I can't free the memory. Contrary to your claim, the OS doesn't release memory for the game, so the game is unplayable. Now I have to reboot the computer. I don't think this concept was fully thought through.

EDIT: I didn't have this problem with Windows 7

What game? What else are you doing? Are you running virtual machines?

When you say "appears to be fully used", what do you mean? Can you post a screenshot of your Peformance tab with the Memory section selected? As well as a list of processes?

Mystere said:

Why can't you download the 10130 ISO from Microsoft and upgrade directly?

Of course I've tried ISO upgrade. It just says error, can't upgrade and asks to reboot. The automatic upgrade also says so without helpful information. Another annoying part is that automatic upgrade requires reboot each time it mandatory tries to upgrade and fails. The Internets says it's a common issue with v10041. Too bad the Windows 7 upgrade script downloads this version even though newer ones are available.

Mystere said:

What game? What else are you doing? Are you running virtual machines?

BF4, no virtual machines.

Mystere said:

When you say "appears to be fully used", what do you mean? Can you post a screenshot of your Peformance tab with the Memory section selected? As well as a list of processes?

For the purposes of demonstration, I've closed my current tasks which freed up couple of gigs. But you can see that the list of processes doesn't warrant current 11G consumption. If I'd leave it overnight it would go back to using 15.8G

TinyGrab - Simple. Screenshot. Sharing.
TinyGrab - Simple. Screenshot. Sharing.