Good RAM cleaning software?

[XabbaRus]

What is a good one to get for optimizing my RAM and clearing things out of memory?

I don't know if this is technically RAM cleaning but I use it before I run any game. Its called endit all. I think it mainly ends anything running in the background which in effect frees more processing power for the game.

http://www.docsdownloads.com/Tier1/enditall.htm

[Letum]

RAM optimisers are not allways the best solution. Usualy it is better to eliminate the problem rather than the symptoms.
Do you have a lot of background programs running?

[XabbaRus]

Well before I play IL2 I go offline and then turn off my firewall and other things so I only have about 25 processes running.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Well before I play IL2 I go offline and then turn off my firewall and other things so I only have about 25 processes running.

Most processes that you can eliminate will already have no affect on your game anyway, so why bother? These are called sleeping processes. The ones that will have an affect on your game are typically system procs and you can't do anything about them anyway.

Badly behaving processes are typically ones found from the 95/98/ME era. XP does an excellent job of eliminating any processes with memory leaks the moment the app is terminated, so its not really an issue anymore.

-S

PS. THis is assuming you haven't loaded up your system with a lot of spyware apps that call home all the time.

PPS. If I am running a benchmark app, I will eliminate all terminatable procs myself still however - can't have a proc affect my score by even a single point in 3DMark now can we! :p But in reality, it will have no affect on real gaming performance.

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Most processes that you can eliminate will already have no affect on your game anyway, so why bother? These are called sleeping processes. The ones that will have an affect on your game are typically system procs and you can't do anything about them anyway.

-S

PS. THis is assuming you haven't loaded up your system with a lot of spyware apps that call home all the time.

So using endit all is a waste of time?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

So using endit all is a waste of time?

Pretty much. That is assuming a clean system. Most processes take absolutely 0 CPU power. Pull up task manager and your CPU should be stuck at 99% idle most times. The only time it is not is when either you are doing something, or a system process is doing something. Task manager will show you that. There are better apps out there though if you want to monitor it while in game.

-S

[Spoon 11th]

SUBMAN1 wrote:
"The ones that will have an affect on your game are typically system procs and you can't do anything about them anyway."

On XP you can turn off many unnecessary services. I have 17 processes running after boot up and memory usage is about 140M.

See:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Pretty much. That is assuming a clean system. Most processes take absolutely 0 CPU power. Pull up task manager and your CPU should be stuck at 99% idle most times. The only time it is not is when either you are doing something, or a system process is doing something. Task manager will show you that. There are better apps out there though if you want to monitor it while in game.

-S

What is a clean system?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Spoon 11th

SUBMAN1 wrote:
"The ones that will have an affect on your game are typically system procs and you can't do anything about them anyway."

On XP you can turn off many unnecessary services. I have 17 processes running after boot up and memory usage is about 140M.

See:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

I have about that without turning off unncessary services. I use about 180-200 MB, and maybe 20 procs running. If you are after the benefits of saving an additional 20 MB to 40 MB of RAM, then you may need to do this. I don't care however since I have 2 GB in the system. Most people have at least 1 GB so it is not even an issue. THat is not the point. The point is, it is not going to make your game run any faster to turn off a couple services. The sleeping services do not eat any CPU power. They sit idle in RAM.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by waste gate

What is a clean system?

A clean system is one where you are not loading any extra CPU eating proceses. These can be anything that requires a percentage of CPU time and run constantly. You can take a look at your own system to see if something using constant cpu power by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del, and choosing task manager. You can also look for apps that have memory leaks here, as well as check on what kind of RAM requirments your games are eating.

If you have a game that uses ever last ounce of RAM on your system, it might make sense then to use an app like enditall. But to use it when you have plenty of spare RAM is pointless.

-S

[XabbaRus]

Well I only have 512 at the mo. to be honest I don't see any naughty apps in there though I don't let much thourgh zonealarm is set to only allow subsim and the bbc to ahve active things. Everything elses has to ask. with 25 procs running I have 0 CPU load.

[SUBMAN1]

Here is a quote from the Elder Geek site that SPoon 11 posted above. Says pretty much what I've been trying to say in more than one post:

Frankly, I don't recommend you change any of the services from the default installation of XP. Yes, you may pick up a tiny performance gain by fiddling with the settings, but it won't be anything substantial. It's just my opinion, but if you are in a situation where these gains are necessary to achieve an increased level of system performance, it would be wiser to upgrade the physical system to one that is adequate to benefit from the XP operating system.

[SUBMAN1]

One more thought just crossed my mind - Do not let me discourage you from tweaking and messing with your system and OS. Tweaking, fixing, and ultimately screwing things up is the best way to learn because you can never really break it, and if you actually do manage to break it, you can then learn how to fix it. Ultimately, this is the direction you need to go if you plan to get into the computer field as a career, or even as a hobby.

And the best part - It's fun!

-S

PS. I just thought of an even better part! THe more you screw and learn from XP, the more bored you will get, and we then get a new Linux convert (A real operating system)! :p

[Reece]

Tweak XP Pro has a ram optimizer that works very well, I hit alt-ctl-del to bring up task manager & when you click on optimize (shows current free memory) you can see, especially with svchost, the ram used dropping, after around 10 seconds process stops updates & displays free memory, usually around 100 to 150 megs, without removing any services or programs running in background. If you do try this application, be sure to tick "clear the clipboard" & "force windows to unload dll's from memory", these settings will stay, there are a lot of other very good tweaks for performance etc here. Once done I then continue to run SHIII etc!
Mines an old version but still works well:

Cheers.