Okay, so I'm a bit confused here.

Vista uses a service called "Super Fetch" which uses RAM/Flash (installed by an SD/CF/etc card or built into the HDD, I assume)


My main question is this: Is it mainly superfetch that's going to cause Vista users to upgrade to so much RAM, or is this more of a Flash memory need?


I'm pretty much lost on the whole subject. Can someone dumb down the concept of superfetch for me?

I realize it's the way vista plans to decrease load times. But I've read that it uses RAM and flash to do so. Is that true, or is it one or the other?

[Edited on October 29, 2006 at 11:09 AM. Reason : lkdvhjaowijrve]

10/29/2006 11:09:06 AM

Superfetch watches your program usage over time and learns what programs you regularly use. Then it preloads that program into memory before it thinks you're going to use it. So like, if you come home every day at 6pm and pop open a media player to watch some porn then vista will have the media player already loaded into ram before you start it, saving you the load time.

The memory stick thing is something different. You can specify things like usb flash drives as disk cache. So when vista goes to load a program, instead of using your hard drive as cache, it will use the usb stick first. Its a nice, cheap middlepoint thats faster than disk, but cheaper than ram. So its a cheap performance boost.

10/29/2006 11:18:21 AM

gotcha.


so disabling superfetch will significantly decrease the RAM needed to comfortably run vista.

10/29/2006 11:37:51 AM

^
Not necessarily ... just the computer knowing your usage habits (Hi, we have recommendations for you!). I think I'd use it a lot more on a business pc (i.e. preloading everything when I come into work at 8am) than a home pc (with more erratic usage patterns).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperFetch

Quote :

"While the necessary files by default are loaded into main memory, Windows Vista has the ability to instead use alternate storage methods, such as USB flash drives, which, though not as fast as RAM, often can be significantly faster than a hard disk drive; thereby freeing up main memory."

10/29/2006 3:28:25 PM

The OS will take a set ammount of ram no matter what. This is whats required to run Vista. Period.

The ram superfetch will use is in addition to that. So turning off Superfetch will net you minimal ram increase. If superfetch thinks you want to watch porn, but you play world of warcraft instead its just going to dump the ram with media player in it and give it to WoW. While superfetch might require a bit of cpu and ram to do its thing, its not going to be anything of consequence. Its a performance boost with little if any drawbacks.

In fact you probably gain more of a boost adding a gig of ram to vista then you would adding it to xp.

10/29/2006 6:29:51 PM