Want to understand what's wrong with Windows 10 memory manager

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delcolux
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Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:20 pm

Want to understand what's wrong with Windows 10 memory manager

Post by delcolux »

I am very familiar with the symptoms of the clogged up standby ram, and ISLC is great as a workaround, but can anyone explain to me how/why/what is happening under the hood in Windows that is causing the problem in the first place? I don't understand how such a cripplingly broken thing has persisted in Windows 10 for years. Does it not affect all ~1 billion PCs running the OS?

On my work PC, it's not stuttering games that is the problem, rather it is SolidWorks, file explorer, start menu, etc that all go batty when the ram gets clogged up. Explorer.exe starts crashing and restarting, the start menu becomes more and more broken, SolidWorks performance will degrade, eventually SolidWorks will warn of being critically low on memory (despite having 20GB "Available" reported in Task Manager, though it's all full of standby data). It can get to where SolidWorks cannot save the file I'm working on, or SolidWorks may just instantly crash hard, but I can take it right to the brink then clear the standby list and everything goes back to working correctly.

Using RamMap reveals the vast majority of the standby data that builds up is "Mapped Files." I wonder if SolidWorks is partly to blame for the standby data not being expunged as new data needs ram allocation, or if the blame is completely on Windows. I run a 4GB capped page file as I got tired of it ballooning to 60+GB and running out of space on C:\

The question I have is - why does this problem exist? I would really love a detailed explanation, if anyone knows.

Want to understand what's wrong with Windows 10 memory manager

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Wagnard
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Re: Want to understand what's wrong with Windows 10 memory manager

Post by Wagnard »

To answer really shortly, the standbylist ram must be freed before usage. So my guess is that its taking a little more of time to free the part that your app need and allocated rather than directly allocate free memory directly without clearing it first
delcolux
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:20 pm

Re: Want to understand what's wrong with Windows 10 memory manager

Post by delcolux »

Thanks Wagnard. I didn't know Windows couldn't allocate ram addresses and overwrite standby data without freeing it first. As for why it takes too long for Windows to do this, others have suggested memory compression may be the culprit, slowing down the process enough that the app doesn't get the ram it needs quickly enough, leading to a crash. That's over my head though.
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