I've got a brand new PC with 16GB of RAM, and I'm noticing that my RAM usage seems really high. Even while just playing Valorant, my RAM usage shoots up to 95%, leading to crashes that I'm not sure are related. When I check the task manager, it only shows around 3GB being used by programs, so I'm confused about why I'm hitting 70-95% of my total RAM. Is this normal? What can I do to reduce my RAM usage? I don't have many background processes running—just the anti-cheat, some essentials, and a couple of other small apps.
4 Answers
Just curious, are there any unneeded apps running in the background? If it’s a prebuilt system, there might be some unnecessary programs that could be using up resources. Cleaning those up might help.
Actually, Windows often caches programs that you use frequently to improve loading times, so what you're seeing isn't necessarily a problem. You can use RAMMap to see what's cached if you're curious. Sometimes, it’s just an app holding onto memory without releasing it properly.
Have you checked which anti-cheat you're using? Sometimes those can be pretty resource-heavy. Also, using a tool like RAMMap can give you a better idea of what's actually using your RAM since Task Manager doesn't show everything.
Yeah, that's pretty typical behavior for Windows. It uses available RAM for caching to enhance performance. It’ll give it up if something else needs it, so it’s not really a wasted resource. If things aren’t maxing out consistently, you’re probably fine!
Exactly! If it's just cached memory, then it’s allocated but still ‘free’ in a sense. As long as your RAM isn’t completely maxed out often, it shouldn't be a huge concern.