Memory Compression On or Off?

[Klemc]

No it doesn't do that, where do you see it constantly pegging the CPU or not doing "literally" anything? It does free up memory every now on then & has very little impact on the rest of the system!

View attachment 332396

Yes, i think too it's an old good thing well handled by the system

 

[Dr. Dro]

Dude, just no. It took 20 years to get here. In 2000 my main workstation was 64MB of PC133 with an 8MB video card. In 2020 it was 64GB and an 8GB video card.

In another 20 years the best workstation will be 64TB ram and 4-8TB vram. The way everyone is hyping AI, it's extremely believable too.

Anyway look at memory consumption and you'll realize it isn't really an everybody thing, just enthusiasts. Maybe we'll daily 16K streams by then.

10 years ago we had more or less the same capacities we have today. 16 to 32 GB of RAM, although, 16 was more common. This past decade, most of the work has gone through refining the fabrication process, reducing power consumption, and developing new instruction sets. We'll see, but I'm pretty sure that we'll stay in the 32 to 64 range for another 10 years minimum.

 

[Klemc]

I turned it off after a user on another forum suggested it might help with gaming, what are your thoughts?

The problem is:

it helped to be OFF in one game, one time...

... and that's how it became a tweak...

... but could infact eventually break somehow instead the first game you will start after turned it OFF to test, perhaps.

 

[R0H1T]

16 to 32 GB of RAM, although, 16 was more common.

10 years back 4-8GB was common, if you were a power user like many here 16(32?) was generally more popular. It goes along the lines of highest capacity available on a single (memory) module ~ for DDR5 it's 48GB atm but 64GB modules should be coming some time later this year.

This past decade, most of the work has gone through refining the fabrication process, reducing power consumption, and developing new instruction sets.

What's that got to do with memory compression?

We'll see, but I'm pretty sure that we'll stay in the 32 to 64 range for another 10 years minimum.

I doubt that, the highest end phones these days have 24GB RAM so my guess is 128~256GB for PC. You're also forgetting that one of the main reasons RAM has stayed relatively stagnant is that DDR4 was late & we're also reaching the long rope on physics with DRAM as well. If HBM becomes common in the future, as some form of cache or just for IGP, things could change very quickly!

 

[Dr. Dro]

10 years back 4-8GB was common, if you were a power user like many here 16(32?) was generally more popular. It goes along the lines of highest capacity available on a single (memory) module ~ for DDR5 it's 48GB atm but 64GB modules should be coming some time later this year.

What's that got to do with memory compression?

I doubt that, the highest end phones these days have 24GB RAM so my guess is 128~256GB for PC. You're also forgetting that one of the main reasons RAM has stayed relatively stagnant is that DDR4 was late & we're also reaching the long rope on physics with DRAM as well. If HBM becomes common in the future, as some form of cache or just for IGP, things could change very quickly!

10 years ago was 2014, as crazy as that sounds... most gaming PCs were going with 16 GB by then, I reckon. I suppose most still are. I personally had 24 GB on my X58 and that was 16 years ago at this point, that's how far 2008 is

128+ is mostly found on HEDT today, and at that range we're suffering from frequency ceiling issues with current technology, which is where most of the focus has been, not on expanding capacity, but performance instead. Capacity only seems to have doubled every DDR generation, and these have tended to last 8 to 10 years each. The new DDR5 kits that enable 96 and 192 GB configurations are all strictly at the low end when it comes to performance, they're all between 4800 to 5600 at most with super bad latencies when compared to a 6400 C30/C32 kit or a 7600+ C40ish range kit.

 

[R0H1T]

10 years ago was 2014, as crazy as that sounds... most gaming PCs were going with 16 GB by then, I reckon.

I was talking about PC in general & that's why I added "power users" had more. I had 16 or 24GB on my last system, I've forgotten already

128+ is mostly found on HEDT today

Well I have 128GB on a non HEDT AM4 platform, 64GB on this one. The reason is obviously because there's probably zero MSDT boards with more than 4 RAM slots.

The new DDR5 kits that enable 96 and 192 GB configurations are all strictly at the low end when it comes to performance, they're all between 4800 to 5600 at most with super bad latencies

Sure latency is an issue but that's kinda overblown most of the times, from the last testing I saw on Toms higher density(DDR4) modules performed as good or better than low density/faster memory on everything except latencies.

 

[Princess Garnet]

I've left it alone. I do have 64 GB RAM and I usually don't see it compress much anyway, though even at low memory use I sometimes see it compressing some.

But I don't have a problem with things, I don't understand everything about what it does, and I can imagine it might be helpful to some degree and that the theoretical drawbacks to it are likely misunderstood and overblown. The PC community has gone through this with registry cleaning and the page file and so many others.

I've left well enough alone. I even forgot it was a thing until I saw this thread. If I have behaviors I need changed, then I look into changing something. I've grown out of looking for things to "fix", partly because I learned a harsh lesson from it.

 

[R-T-B]

Dude, just no. It took 20 years to get here. In 2000 my main workstation was 64MB of PC133 with an 8MB video card. In 2020 it was 64GB and an 8GB video card.

In another 20 years the best workstation will be 64TB ram and 4-8TB vram. The way everyone is hyping AI, it's extremely believable too.

Anyway look at memory consumption and you'll realize it isn't really an everybody thing, just enthusiasts. Maybe we'll daily 16K streams by then.

Yeah that was kind of my point man... sorry if that was unclear.

 

[Macro Device]

10 years ago was 2014, as crazy as that sounds... most gaming PCs were going with 16 GB by then

High tier maybe. Below $1200 mark, it was pretty common to limit the RAM to 8 GB. 16 GB became common by 2016 and by 2018, it's become uncommon to only have 8.

In another 20 years the best workstation will be 64TB ram and 4-8TB vram.

I'd say, about 4 times lower than that.

 

[iameatingjam]

Dude, just no. It took 20 years to get here. In 2000 my main workstation was 64MB of PC133 with an 8MB video card. In 2020 it was 64GB and an 8GB video card.

In another 20 years the best workstation will be 64TB ram and 4-8TB vram. The way everyone is hyping AI, it's extremely believable too.

Anyway look at memory consumption and you'll realize it isn't really an everybody thing, just enthusiasts. Maybe we'll daily 16K streams by then.

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to disagree. Advancements have been fast because computers were relatively young. The more we improve them, the harder future improvements will become. Your average amount of memory has only gone from 8gb to 32gb in like 15 years. I could be wrong, but I just don't see us having the same speed of advancements we had in 90s and 00s, the lowest hanging fruit has already been picked.

 

[Franz]

I did some quick test here with the most shitty cpu game I have:


No compress HT on:

Normal and no HT:

Despite those numbers seems close I think that was a good improvement, this benchmark is a pain in the ass..... When I disable HT it almost change nothing on this benchmark but in gameplay was 15~20+fps... And now even with HT on I have better results

I notice a better behaviour on Firefox, my pc works 24h and in that time I game, work in remote access and HTPC (almost 24h per day, I hate open tv channels). I never notice this feature in task manager and now I think one of BUNCH crap windows features has beens disabled here

After 3~4 days I need to kill firefox process in taks manager and restore session to get firefox working 100%, it become VERY slow with no reason, NO cpu sage, NO disk usage.... nothing seems busy or working, only seems windows messing up those process.

When I seen this topic I had 3,3gb compressed and half of that belonged to firefox, I will do more tests with fc6 gameplay and other games, time will tell if that slowdown in firefox will disapear.

 

[lawood]

Very interesting.

 

[GerKNG]

mine was already disabled by default?

 

[Dr. Dro]

mine was already disabled by default?

It's not disabled by default but it won't compress unless memory pressure is too high.

I did some quick test here with the most shitty cpu game I have:


No compress HT on:
View attachment 332450



Normal and no HT:
View attachment 332451




Despite those numbers seems close I think that was a good improvement, this benchmark is a pain in the ass..... When I disable HT it almost change nothing on this benchmark but in gameplay was 15~20+fps... And now even with HT on I have better results

I notice a better behaviour on Firefox, my pc works 24h and in that time I game, work in remote access and HTPC (almost 24h per day, I hate open tv channels). I never notice this feature in task manager and now I think one of BUNCH crap windows features has beens disabled here

After 3~4 days I need to kill firefox process in taks manager and restore session to get firefox working 100%, it become VERY slow with no reason, NO cpu sage, NO disk usage.... nothing seems busy or working, only seems windows messing up those process.

When I seen this topic I had 3,3gb compressed and half of that belonged to firefox, I will do more tests with fc6 gameplay and other games, time will tell if that slowdown in firefox will disapear.

How much RAM do you have? Your system specs say it's a 6900K on X99, so hope you're not running just 4x4 GB on that. That'd probably be why memory compression has such an effect for you. Otherwise... ol' Broadwell has definitely gone past its prime.

 

[ThrashZone]

mine was already disabled by default?

Hi,
You turn off hibernation ?
Might be why.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Hi,
You turn off hibernation ?
Might be why.

I don't think that does it? At least, I have hibernation disabled and memory compression was not disabled for me.

 

[ThrashZone]

I don't think that does it? At least, I have hibernation disabled and memory compression was not disabled for me.

Hi,
I can't confirm it yet I'm not using a system with same amount of memory yet
Here's one I'm on atm that has hibernation activated/ laptop but has 32gb memory like my desktop with hibernation off.

Okay here's my desktop hibernation off

So on this besides one having onboard graphics and this one not could also be a variable.
But memory compression seems like a sticky feature lol

 

[Franz]

It's not disabled by default but it won't compress unless memory pressure is too high.



How much RAM do you have? Your system specs say it's a 6900K on X99, so hope you're not running just 4x4 GB on that. That'd probably be why memory compression has such an effect for you. Otherwise... ol' Broadwell has definitely gone past its prime.

32gb and even with the best top processor, sometimes its not enough to handle those crap windows features.

Three years ago I had serious and frustrating problems in my pc, stutters, 1 second freezing stutters, 10~15s delay in usb and very poor disk performance. I wasted a bunch of hours to figure out that a shit 2004 version destroyed the system overall performance and stability. Drivers didint nothing, just blue screen.

For me when I dont use something I disable and see if not make things worse, if get worse enable again and live with this, if not I just smile and listen "I gotta feeling" music

 

[chrcoluk]

The problem is:

it helped to be OFF in one game, one time...

... and that's how it became a tweak...

... but could infact eventually break somehow instead the first game you will start after turned it OFF to test, perhaps.

Yep, welcome to the internet. Some guy posts something that gave him a good result, few years later, few dozen websites have it as a tweak guide, 100 or so posts across the internet, 1000s of users routinely applying it likely without any proper analysis on their own systems of the effect of it or researching the feature.

 

[Franz]

Hi,
I can't confirm it yet I'm not using a system with same amount of memory yet
Here's one I'm on atm that has hibernation activated/ laptop but has 32gb memory like my desktop with hibernation off.
View attachment 332903

Okay here's my desktop hibernation off
View attachment 332910

So on this besides one having onboard graphics and this one not could also be a variable.
But memory compression seems like a sticky feature lol

To know if you are using compress just type in powershell (adm permission): Get-MMAgent and this will appear

True: using and false: you know

And if compress is enabled on your pc, it just in stand by and can work without you notice

 

[Princess Garnet]

Hi,
I can't confirm it yet I'm not using a system with same amount of memory yet
Here's one I'm on atm that has hibernation activated/ laptop but has 32gb memory like my desktop with hibernation off.

I'm seeing this on a PC with hibernation disabled that was started not long ago (few hours maybe) that hasn't done anything intensive since it turned on (hence the low cache amount).

It's a low amount but it's there. But it's almost nothing. Yours just isn't compressing anything in that situation because it's not. I could check mine after first starting it and maybe it'd be nothing too.

Hibernation is off, so disabling hibernation doesn't disable compression. They are two separate things.

 

[ThrashZone]

To know if you are using compress just type in powershell (adm permission): Get-MMAgent and this will appear

View attachment 333056

True: using and false: you know

And if compress is enabled on your pc, it just in stand by and can work without you notice

Hi,
I don't need power shell to tell me what task manager already shows but thanks.

Plus I wasn't saying hibernation disables memory compression I was saying it might reduce the amount of compressed memory.

 

[electronicsguy]

The OS isnt constantly trying to compress everything, I am suspect over the odd potential snake oil report on gaming and think the more likely culprit is probably page combining, a feature that scans for duplicate pages in memory and replaces them with pointers.

So I would suggest if you want to tinker to try this first, and leave memory compression alone.

Disable-MMAgent -PageCombining

Memory compression has a very nice benefit, it basically fixes Windows page file management, without it Windows is prone to start using the swap file before physical memory usage is even at 50%, with compression enabled it wont use anything more than a small amount until it needs to when approaching critical memory utilisation.

Sadly the internet is prone to masses of copy and paste, and is a ton of articles on disabling compression, but thats my 5 pence worth anyway.

Then methinks, MS should fix its MMU algorithm and swap policies, rather than forcing memory compression to take care of it. In any care, any reference to what you claim? (about 50% level)?

 

[Ruru]

Never even knew that it could be disabled so I did that. Running with 32GB so should be fine.

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to disagree. Advancements have been fast because computers were relatively young. The more we improve them, the harder future improvements will become. Your average amount of memory has only gone from 8gb to 32gb in like 15 years. I could be wrong, but I just don't see us having the same speed of advancements we had in 90s and 00s, the lowest hanging fruit has already been picked.

4GB was the typical amount 15 years ago and budget users still had 2GB. I remember having 8GB and I ended up selling half of it (I had 4x2GB DDR2) as I simply didn't need 8GB.

I get your point though.

 

[iameatingjam]

It's not disabled by default but it won't compress unless memory pressure is too high.

Really? Mine always says compressed... even though I have 32GB, and at least according to task manager ( which I know isn't always 100% accurate) I rarely use even half of that. But even if close petty much everything (within reason) and I'm running idle... still says compressed. Is that still too much pressure? Or.... some other explanation?

So that means only 146mb is compressed, right? Thats how that works? Hmm wonder why its compressing at all. Perhaps to do with the hardware reserved or something?

I guess its of little consequence but I'm still curious as to why.|

EDIT: I tried opening up as many apps as I could and... compressed memory... went down.... I understand even less now. Tried opening up like 50 firefox tabs and compressed memory went down even more (to a low of 105mb) so I just kept opening up more until memory was maxxed. At that point it did start going up again, but not until I was using every pretty much every last MB. Yeah.... I don't get it.