Solved is it worth it clearing standby list?

Hey guys!

I have used RAMMap to clear the standby list.

There are also some tools like WJ32 that do the same thing.

Is it really worth clearing? Does it make your PC faster if you re-run it every 5 minutes?

Edit:
I have an 8GB non-upgradable RAM and Windows 11 is using more than 50% of it without any tweaks. Unfortunately, the RAM is not upgradable, and I accept any recommendations to fix the full RAM issue.


Thanks!

Most likely not. If you have spare RAM (not running out of memory issues) then more RAM should be used for caching etc.

Unused RAM is useless RAM.

SlicEnDicE said:

Most likely not. If you have spare RAM (not running out of memory issues) then more RAM should be used for caching etc.

Unused RAM is useless RAM.

Click to expand...

For future advice, I have an 8GB non-upgradable RAM and Windows 11 is using more than 50% of it without any tweaks. Unfortunately, the RAM is not upgradable, and I accept any recommendations to fix the full RAM issue.

To get a good idea about memory usage you need to use Resource monitor.
Open task manager then click on the let side click on the performance section.
On the right side at the top click on the three dots then select resource monitor.

In resource monitor click on the memory tab and at the bottom will be a physical memory graph.

Explanation of what you are seeing in that graph:

“Hardware reserved” is dedicated by Windows for bios, some drivers and peripherals.

“In use” is memory actually being accessed in real time.

“Modified” is memory that's backed with the pagefile, (unmodified memory does not get backed in the pagefile, unmodified are backed in the exe’s and dll’s that data originated)

“The standby list” is memory not in use, but retaining data for launch since you’re not under memory pressure, Windows caches some data from programs you launched and closed and superfetch pre-loaded items according to your use, all of this is for faster access.

“Free” is ram doing absolutely nothing, the more free memory, the more going wasted.

My first recommendation would be to turn off every app and service you don't need. This will save quite a lot of resources.

I used to have this one computer with only 8GB RAM. But it was very usable for programming tasks. I did not turn off anything either, but that would help quite a lot.

Sheikh said:

Is it really worth clearing? Does it make your PC faster if you re-run it every 5 minutes?

Click to expand...

No, free ram is wasted ram in a modern OS like Win 11.
The OS is designed to use as much ram as possible without issue.
The more ram in the cache the better.

"Priority Summary" shows the amount of RAM in the Standby allocation type sorted by priority. Standby memory can be reused by the working set it was released from or repurposed to satisfy new allocation requests, as shown in the Repurposed column. If you see high repurposed numbers for priority 5 and higher, the system is or was under high memory load.
Cleared after reboot.

It is not worth it - it will decrease performance. Stand-by memory is a cache of recently used memory that is left there in case a recent program or shared library requires it again. Otherwise the program/library would need to be read from disk into memory again, which is very slow. If a program needs memory and there is no free memory, the OS will very quickly free up some standby memory for the program's needs. It is detrimental to performance to reclaim the standby-cache.

Problems can only be with games or the like.
For example, Stalker 2 for high settings
Recommended system requirements:
RAM: 32 GB Dual Channel
Windows copes on a computer with 32 GB of RAM, but it might be worth considering buying 64 GB.

If you want to run a small background program that will clean up your Standby List, I've used Intelligence List Standby Cleaner from Wagnard Soft. They have an active forum for questions and recommendations.