I'd like to decrease my cache size, because I have a slow disk and run a swap-less system (it's pretty snappy that way). I have x86 Vista and 3 GB RAM. The problem is that Windows eats about 1 GB RAM for disk cache (shown in Task Manager under Physical Memory -> Cached), that leaves only 2 GB for applications. A very annoying pop-up pops up every time when Windows thinks it's low on memory and of course apps crash when the memory is used. But there's still 1 GB sitting in the cache!
I've tried AnalogX Cache Booster, but it didn't do anything, memory usage stays the same, warning pop ups are at the same levels.
Best Answer
I used to think the same way. I've since learned that, in MS Windows, this is a bad idea and can actually hurt performance.
Windows thinks of RAM more as an optimization layer over the hard disk. It doesn't want to wait until you have to swap RAM out before paging/swapping it to disk. Instead, Windows wants anything you put in RAM to already be paged/swapped.
This way, when Windows needs the RAM for something else, it can just use it. This strategy works because it places the (slow) disk writes at the points when your computer is less stressed, at the expense of slightly slower application loads and maybe paging some things it doesn't need to, rather than at the point when your computer is already more stressed and running low on RAM.
Of course, by removing the paging file completely you might tend to think that you get the best of both worlds. However, there's loads of code in Windows that is optimized assuming the performance model I just described. You're really better off making sure you have at least as much swap space as you do RAM.