• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 12:48
CEST 18:48
KST 01:48
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
TL.net Map Contest #21: Voting10[ASL20] Ro4 Preview: Descent11Team TLMC #5: Winners Announced!3[ASL20] Ro8 Preview Pt2: Holding On9Maestros of the Game: Live Finals Preview (RO4)5
Community News
Chinese SC2 server to reopen; live all-star event in Hangzhou7Weekly Cups (Oct 13-19): Clem Goes for Four0BSL Team A vs Koreans - Sat-Sun 16:00 CET6Weekly Cups (Oct 6-12): Four star herO85.0.15 Patch Balance Hotfix (2025-10-8)80
StarCraft 2
General
RotterdaM "Serral is the GOAT, and it's not close" DreamHack Open 2013 revealed The New Patch Killed Mech! Chinese SC2 server to reopen; live all-star event in Hangzhou Team Liquid Map Contest #21 - Presented by Monster Energy
Tourneys
SC2's Safe House 2 - October 18 & 19 INu's Battles #13 - ByuN vs Zoun Tenacious Turtle Tussle Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament $1,200 WardiTV October (Oct 21st-31st)
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 496 Endless Infection Mutation # 495 Rest In Peace Mutation # 494 Unstable Environment Mutation # 493 Quick Killers
Brood War
General
Is there anyway to get a private coach? The Lose More Card BW General Discussion BSL Season 21 OGN to release AI-upscaled StarLeague from Feb 24
Tourneys
300$ 3D!Community Brood War Super Cup #4 [ASL20] Semifinal B Azhi's Colosseum - Anonymous Tournament [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
[I] TvZ Strategies and Builds [I] TvP Strategies and Build Roaring Currents ASL final Current Meta
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Path of Exile Dawn of War IV ZeroSpace Megathread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion LiquidDota to reintegrate into TL.net
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread SPIRED by.ASL Mafia {211640}
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Chess Thread US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Men's Fashion Thread
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Series you have seen recently... Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
MLB/Baseball 2023 2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NBA General Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
SC2 Client Relocalization [Change SC2 Language] Linksys AE2500 USB WIFI keeps disconnecting Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
Certified Crazy
Hildegard
The Heroism of Pepe the Fro…
Peanutsc
Rocket League: Traits, Abili…
TrAiDoS
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1194 users

Ram Usage Problem

Forum Index > Tech Support
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Goodseed
Profile Joined December 2010
Korea (South)270 Posts
June 09 2011 02:15 GMT
#1
Ok, I've been having trouble with the amount of ram used on my computer. Also, I dont understand where all the ram is being used from because on task manager, I've barely anything running that uses high ram.

[image loading]

If you can look, I dont have anything running high yet it says im using 30percent+ of my ram. When I play like sc2 or HoN, I go up to 80percent and it causes me lag.

I'm not an expert at computer so if someone could explain how to reduce the ram usage, it would be great!
안녕하소~
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 02:18:16
June 09 2011 02:17 GMT
#2
Are you aware that you actually are using 30% of your RAM, and that's not that unreasonable for what you have running? If you think you need more, add RAM. If you want to reduce RAM usage, use less software at once, or google the processes that are running and stop stuff that isn't important.
Goodseed
Profile Joined December 2010
Korea (South)270 Posts
June 09 2011 02:24 GMT
#3
I have a 4g ram and if you look at the picture, all the stuff that is being used is not even near 1g of ram which is 25percent.
안녕하소~
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 02:28:41
June 09 2011 02:27 GMT
#4
Those numbers are in KB. As in, multiply by 1000.

Which suddenly puts the number much higher.

Edited to sound slightly less hostile.
skyR
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada13817 Posts
June 09 2011 02:27 GMT
#5
That's just how memory is managed in Windows 7. If you don't like it, disable superfetch.
Madoga
Profile Joined January 2011
Netherlands471 Posts
June 09 2011 02:31 GMT
#6
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%
Grobyc
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Canada18410 Posts
June 09 2011 02:32 GMT
#7
Yeah memory is managed to act as somewhat of a cache in Windows 7 by default. I have 16GB and I idle with about 3GB in usage.
If you watch Godzilla backwards it's about a benevolent lizard who helps rebuild a city and then moonwalks into the ocean.
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
June 09 2011 02:32 GMT
#8
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.
Madoga
Profile Joined January 2011
Netherlands471 Posts
June 09 2011 03:16 GMT
#9
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 03:21:39
June 09 2011 03:20 GMT
#10
On June 09 2011 12:16 Madoga wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.


Actually that just causes Windows to freak out and freeze. HDD's are slower than RAM by roughly a metric asston. Fragmentation can also affect it, although that's unlikely unless he turned off the automatic defrags.

Basically, you're wrong.
manawah
Profile Joined May 2011
123 Posts
June 09 2011 03:42 GMT
#11
My only advice to you would be better management of what programs you have running when you startup the PC.
Use msconfig app and uncheck all the programs you don't need starting up with the PC. Lots of useless programs hide here like adobe reader helper apps and app helpers that just take up memory and wait for you to run the main app, and their only purpose is getting the program to start in 10 seconds instead of 20 or whatever.
Doesn't matter if its one program using 30% ram or 10 programs using 3% each it still adds up to the same thing.
It looks to me you also have a bunch of useless services running in the background. Companies like Adobe and Apple love to install their helpers as services also to avoid the avg. user uninstalling them since they are not always listed as user processes but rather as system ones in TM.
You need some PC spring cleaning that's all.
Madoga
Profile Joined January 2011
Netherlands471 Posts
June 09 2011 12:24 GMT
#12
On June 09 2011 12:20 JingleHell wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 12:16 Madoga wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.


Actually that just causes Windows to freak out and freeze. HDD's are slower than RAM by roughly a metric asston. Fragmentation can also affect it, although that's unlikely unless he turned off the automatic defrags.

Basically, you're wrong.


Actually no I'm not. 1. 80% ram utalization wouldnt cause sc2 to lag.
2. If he had insufficient virtual memory space for whatever reason it would allso cause sc2 to lag.

As for your 30% idle usage its normal cus windows preloads programs.
Now if you're going towards the 90% ram utalization and higher just close some stuff like forefox/torrents w/e you're doing.
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 12:48:09
June 09 2011 12:37 GMT
#13
On June 09 2011 21:24 Madoga wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 12:20 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 12:16 Madoga wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.


Actually that just causes Windows to freak out and freeze. HDD's are slower than RAM by roughly a metric asston. Fragmentation can also affect it, although that's unlikely unless he turned off the automatic defrags.

Basically, you're wrong.


Actually no I'm not. 1. 80% ram utalization wouldnt cause sc2 to lag.
2. If he had insufficient virtual memory space for whatever reason it would allso cause sc2 to lag.

As for your 30% idle usage its normal cus windows preloads programs.
Now if you're going towards the 90% ram utalization and higher just close some stuff like forefox/torrents w/e you're doing.


That's a moronic blanket statement. 80% RAM usage with no multitasking wouldn't cause SC2 to lag. 80% RAM usage with heavy multitasking, even if most of the processes are background services, could.

Also, the speed of the paging HDD, which is currently an unknown, is a big variable on performance when paging.

Insufficient page file is an unlikely culprit compared to the speed of the paging file, since filling 12GB of physical and virtual memory takes a fair amount of effort, and unless he changed some settings, that's what he should have.

Windows avoids using 100% of your system memory like the plague. As a guess, it's an intentional tradeoff between slightly worse performance all the time due to swapping a little here and there and a sudden, massively noticeable dip in performance if you do use all your memory and everything suddenly needs the page file.

For the average user on Facebook and MS Word, that's a pretty logical way to go about things.

Right now, idle browsing, out of 6GB of RAM, I'm using 2GB, and 2.5GB of my page file. That wouldn't fill my memory, but Windows is still opting to do it that way, which kind of supports that line of reasoning.
Madoga
Profile Joined January 2011
Netherlands471 Posts
June 09 2011 13:12 GMT
#14
All your assuptions come from the fact that he is heavy multi tasking, who sais he is?
He just sais hes playing SC2/HoN and running firefox/vent and some other minor programs in the background. (Allso note he sais up to 80%, which means mostly below)
As for my "moronic blancket statement" thats pretty much all you can say without making illogical assumptions.
So I dont really see why you're making such a big deal of out it.
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
June 09 2011 13:15 GMT
#15
On June 09 2011 22:12 Madoga wrote:
All your assuptions come from the fact that he is heavy multi tasking, who sais he is?
He just sais hes playing SC2/HoN and running firefox/vent and some other minor programs in the background. (Allso note he sais up to 80%, which means mostly below)
As for my "moronic blancket statement" thats pretty much all you can say without making illogical assumptions.
So I dont really see why you're making such a big deal of out it.


Did you look at his screenshot of his resource monitor? Pretty hefty list of services, background or otherwise.

Any blanket statement is moronic, including this one.

Everything I said is actually useful, instead of just trying to argue against the most likely culprit, which is what you're doing.
xarthaz
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
1704 Posts
June 09 2011 13:22 GMT
#16
On June 09 2011 12:20 JingleHell wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 12:16 Madoga wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.


Actually that just causes Windows to freak out and freeze. HDD's are slower than RAM by roughly a metric asston. Fragmentation can also affect it, although that's unlikely unless he turned off the automatic defrags.

Basically, you're wrong.

They USED to be a lot slower than ram. But the fundamentals are no longer like this. You see, RAM bus is outside the chip, hence subject to abysmally slow speeds compared to intra-chip solutions. It also means that the speed growth of the connections is limited. And while harddrive read/write speeds are increasing EXPONENTIALLY, similarly how hard drive sizes are, the linear growth of ram speed cant keep up. So hard drives ultimately have come close to the speed of RAM read and write, only being limited by the same outside-chip fundamental problems.
Aah thats the stuff..
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 13:34:50
June 09 2011 13:31 GMT
#17
On June 09 2011 22:22 xarthaz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 12:20 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 12:16 Madoga wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:32 JingleHell wrote:
On June 09 2011 11:31 Madoga wrote:
How does using 80% ram make you lag? there is still 20% free, thats a bit less than a gb.
Anuways, its normal, so if something is making you lag its not your ram. Unless its getting to near the 100%


80% is near enough to 100% that things are going to be bouncing in and out of the page file fairly regularly if he's multitasking, so it actually makes sense.

Paging is the devil.


I doubt it unless the harddrive he uses for his virtual memory is nearly full.


Actually that just causes Windows to freak out and freeze. HDD's are slower than RAM by roughly a metric asston. Fragmentation can also affect it, although that's unlikely unless he turned off the automatic defrags.

Basically, you're wrong.

They USED to be a lot slower than ram. But the fundamentals are no longer like this. You see, RAM bus is outside the chip, hence subject to abysmally slow speeds compared to intra-chip solutions. It also means that the speed growth of the connections is limited. And while harddrive read/write speeds are increasing EXPONENTIALLY, similarly how hard drive sizes are, the linear growth of ram speed cant keep up. So hard drives ultimately have come close to the speed of RAM read and write, only being limited by the same outside-chip fundamental problems.


Lets see. No seek times, higher bandwidth, multiple channels. Nope, RAM is still faster.

Feel free to get a system that uses nothing but a page file for memory, let me know how it does.

You going to tell me next that SSD's aren't noticeably faster than HDD's?

Basically, faster is faster is faster, and if he's relying on something slower, such as his paging file, while gaming, it can noticeably affect performance.
DooMNoThx
Profile Joined January 2011
Bulgaria185 Posts
June 09 2011 14:09 GMT
#18
why dont you just disable the paging ? and see if it helps.
Only those who can see the invisible ... can do the impossible ... NoThx's TV : http://www.twitch.tv/doomnothx
JingleHell
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States11308 Posts
June 09 2011 14:17 GMT
#19
On June 09 2011 23:09 DooMNoThx wrote:
why dont you just disable the paging ? and see if it helps.


He has nowhere near enough RAM for that. Anyway, some software is designed to expect paging to be there, and will spaz out and cause various problems, including freezes, if you do that, or even if your page file is too small.

Better yet, if disabling paging causes problems, re-enabling it can cause problems too sometimes.

In Vista x64, when I learned the joys of Windows not liking disabled paging files and tried to re-enable it, I kept getting freezes, and had to reformat.
DooMNoThx
Profile Joined January 2011
Bulgaria185 Posts
June 09 2011 14:29 GMT
#20
well i have also 4gigs of ram and i never allow paging, i never had problems so i tought that would help ^^
Only those who can see the invisible ... can do the impossible ... NoThx's TV : http://www.twitch.tv/doomnothx
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Wardi Open
14:30
October Qualifier #2
WardiTV1447
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
BRAT_OK 66
UpATreeSC 64
MindelVK 12
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 35489
Calm 4012
Rain 2088
Jaedong 1593
Bisu 854
Horang2 833
EffOrt 795
Mini 739
Soma 567
Larva 551
[ Show more ]
Light 457
firebathero 431
Shuttle 390
ZerO 273
Snow 246
actioN 207
Soulkey 133
Pusan 127
Rush 107
Free 86
Hyun 74
sSak 72
ggaemo 64
Shine 48
Killer 39
sorry 25
Shinee 21
Movie 19
scan(afreeca) 13
Bale 13
Sacsri 12
Aegong 12
Dewaltoss 10
Terrorterran 9
Hm[arnc] 4
Noble 3
Mong 1
Dota 2
Gorgc6359
qojqva3592
Dendi1430
Fuzer 255
canceldota90
Counter-Strike
fl0m792
byalli355
FunKaTv 44
Other Games
singsing2299
FrodaN765
ceh9600
Lowko393
Sick154
Hui .144
Skadoodle141
ArmadaUGS116
C9.Mang087
KnowMe78
QueenE78
Mew2King52
Trikslyr47
ZerO(Twitch)21
B2W.Neo8
Organizations
Counter-Strike
PGL402
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• Noizen30
League of Legends
• Jankos2969
• TFBlade898
Other Games
• Shiphtur106
Upcoming Events
PiGosaur Monday
7h 12m
Replay Cast
17h 12m
OSC
23h 12m
Tenacious Turtle Tussle
1d 6h
The PondCast
1d 17h
OSC
1d 19h
WardiTV Invitational
2 days
Online Event
2 days
RSL Revival
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
[ Show More ]
WardiTV Invitational
3 days
Afreeca Starleague
4 days
Snow vs Soma
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
WardiTV Invitational
4 days
CrankTV Team League
4 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Wardi Open
5 days
CrankTV Team League
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
WardiTV Invitational
6 days
CrankTV Team League
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #4 - TS2
WardiTV TLMC #15
HCC Europe

Ongoing

BSL 21 Points
ASL Season 20
CSL 2025 AUTUMN (S18)
C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
EC S1
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual

Upcoming

SC4ALL: Brood War
BSL Season 21
BSL 21 Team A
BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
RSL Offline Finals
RSL Revival: Season 3
Stellar Fest
SC4ALL: StarCraft II
CranK Gathers Season 2: SC II Pro Teams
eXTREMESLAND 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
SL Budapest Major 2025
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.