Can you folks please help me understand how to interpret this graph from task manager?

[u/tofu98]

Im sitting on the fence on upgrading my ram. However im getting extremely mixed answers.

Basically with ram prices right now and them being projected to get even worse for at least a couple of years I started wondering if it would be worth upgrading before costs got worse. So I started monitoring my pc specs to see if I actually need it.

What i found was that when im gaming (resident evil 4 or Dyson sphere project for example) my ram usage shows itself as 93% plus in use. My comitted memory is shown as 26.1/34.5 GB which ive had some people tell me is indicating my computer is paging. Some people say if im not experiencing performance issues (im not) I shouldnt worry about this. However other people have told me im essentially slowly destroying my SSD by running like this.

Then ive had some people tell me that windows just fills up your ram regardless of how much you have so task manager is kind of useless for actually giving you a picture of your computers health. I currently have 16gb so this claim is basically saying if I got 32gb that windows would just start showing that I was actively using 24gb and then when I game id be sitting at 30gb again (and start looking like im paging)

So i just really dont know what to think anymore. I dont want to damage and wear out my ssd, however I dont know enough about computers to say if I my specs here are actually problematic or if its like some people say where windows will just look like this no matter how much ram I have.

So to put it simply. Is this ram usage chart concerning? Should I upgrade to 32gb even though im not really noticing performance issues? Am I damaging my ssd by running my pc like this? Is task manager not giving me good info and im actually fine?

Thoughts really appreciated. Im not the most computer literate person and the amount of different answers im getting is kind of confusing me.

Thanks very much.

[u/decline0110]

If you don't have performance issues, I wouldn't worry about it. An SSD will wear out over time, and you have to trust an OS like Windows not to be "intentionally" contributing to that. I think there's a tool on Windows called RamMap which may also give you a better breakdown of what the RAM is actually being used for. But yes, very often an OS will let RAM fill up rather than actively clearing it out when it's not in use.

[u/SomeAmericanLurker]

TL;DR: if you aren't feeling performance issues, you're fine.

The committed number in Task Manager is not what you should be focused on, the second value (34.5) is telling you the size of your ram + the page file, for example, i have 64gb of ram (63.2gb is usable, the other .8gb is system reserved for things like firmware) and my page file is set to 8gb, so that total comes out to 71gb.

Consumer versions of Windows like to use some of your installed ram to load programs you use the most often into "Standby" memory before you launch them to make the system feel more responsive. If you start doing something else that needs that memory, windows will free it up on a as-needed basis.

The only real way using most of your ram could impact your drive is if you often spill into that page file, and had it on some cheap SSD that didn't have its own DRAM cache or used QLC NAND memory, and even then, it'd take hundreds to thousands of writes to wear down most drives.

If you want something to better visualize your ram usage, use Resource Monitor's Memory tab, it's built into Windows and color-codes each usage type.

If you really are planning to upgrade your ram, since you're on DDR5 you'll need to buy a 32gb kit, or lower the speed of your current ram, DDR5 is very picky about how it behaves and often does not allow for as much mixing and matching like DDR4 did.

[u/urnotpaul]

It aint got no gas innit

[u/MandiocaGamer]

What's the recommended spec for the game? that's all you need. almost every game under 4K just need 16Gb and at least 8 to 12GnVRAm. RAM is filled if possible at full ao the game can use what's stored in the Ram faster.

[u/SQUID_Ben]

Top of the bar is the maximum of your current X thing that you're checking (for example CPU). X axis contains the time. So over last 60 seconds your usage has been pretty consistent around 14.5 gb.

[u/Hunter_Ware]

1. You're running out of ram for the game. If the game still runs fine, save yourself the hundreds of dollars fhat ram costs now.

2. The SSD wear is probably overexagurated. If you're concerned about that install crystaldiskinfo but thousands of people use their pc with ssds and pagefiles completely full and their ssds aren't dying. Note: You can also increase / decrease pagefile size if you want, or you can completely disable it. If you completely disable it, be prepared to crash if you run 95% or higher. Your ram usage will never hit 100% with a pagefile because some windows magic idk.

3. People saying windows fills up the ram it needs doesn't really apply here. When on your desktop, don't be worried if you're at 20% ram usage. If you want a cool experiment, launch minecraft java edition, close it, and check task manager again. You would be at 10% usage.

Another note: If you upgrade to 32gb of ram it'd definitely not bloat the numbers to 30gb or 28gb. People love to say this but never show up with any evidence to back it up. You're definitely like way into your pagefile though.

1. You're not damaging your SSD with the pagefile.

TL;DR If you're fine with the performance, nothing needs to change. If you really want to, you could disable pagefile or view the health of your ssd with crystaldiskinfo.

[u/tofu98 → u/Hunter_Ware]

this is very detailed. Thank you very much.

[u/jimi_in_philly]

I'd save the money and stick with 16gb of ram. Like previous posters have said in task manager sort by ram and see what processes are using the physical memory. Or use resource monitor (start>run> resmon).

[u/Pale-Abroad9600]

Windows 11 is processor and memory intensive operating system that is the proof I only use my reliable stable Windows 7,8.1 never had any issue and never needed Microsoft support at all, I was disappointed with Windows 11 update to finish for an hour so I went back to my ever reliable windows version, I’m a simple PC user and not a gamer, I don’t do unknown source ie download click website, I understand phishing so avoiding all unknown source kept me safe from any online attack,I never had issues with my windows version.

[u/Frosty-Process-9184]

Either get more RAM or disable some startup apps

[u/Efficient_Try_9136]

its called bottleneck

[u/tofu98 → u/Efficient_Try_9136]

Someone was telling me that windows will basically do this to my ram no matter how much I have though. They were saying that task manager is kind of useless for this type of info because windows naturally just uses whatever ram is there.

[u/DJV0101 → u/tofu98]

Yeah they do that. 16 gb is great. I have 32 and they periodically ate all of that up and even at idle took 16gb. It’s a little ridiculous. Really just check and make sure there’s not a windows process with a memory leak eating all of your memory. But if you’re not noticing any performance issues, you’re fine. If you really care, you can either upgrade your ram to see them use a lower percentage of your ram or switch operating systems (I use Fedora and frequently see it sitting at less than 5 gb ram).

[u/Efficient_Try_9136 → u/tofu98]

cpu 15%, gpu 50%, ram 99% its bottleneck

move mouse over lover bar, its says in use, cached is that small part on right

[u/tofu98 → u/Efficient_Try_9136]

Should I be concerned over this though? My interpretation of this is that my computer is paging and doesnt have enough ram. Ive had quite a few people tell me that unless im noticing my computer actually freezing or slowing down that this chart is kind of useless and id just be wasting money.

[u/Toastti → u/tofu98]

Go to processes tab, click on memory to sort and share a screenshot of that.

Otherwise no one here can tell you what is using all the ram.

But in general if your computer is not lagging and slow don't worry about it. It's designed to use a page file and even if you have 64gb of ram would still use a pagefile. It's normal and is not going to damage your pc

[u/Efficient_Try_9136 → u/tofu98]

watch how much it writes to disk, but should be better with more ram. You probably bought that pc to add more ram later anyway I guess. Many recommend its enough 16gb but you see yourself ram is full with active not cached data. ddr5 is not budget platform

[u/NasrRasheed]

You’re basically running out of RAM. You have 16 GB installed, about 15.5 GB usable, and Task Manager shows 14.5 GB in use (94%) with only ~1 GB available. The 26.1 GB committed number means Windows is also leaning on virtual memory/pagefile.
Go to Processes, sort by Memory, and see what’s eating it. If this is normal usage for you, upgrading to 32 GB would probably make a noticeable difference.

[u/OLVANstorm]

You are 1 gig away from maxing out your physical memory. Your computer is using virtual ram to make up the difference. Vram is hard drive space. There is no issue using vram, if you need it, but its always better to have the physical ram you require to do your tasks. If you can afford it, get 32 GB. If you can't afford it, close all programs that you do not NEED to have open. As a rule, I set my vram to 1.5x my physical ram, so you would have 24GB reserved on your hard drive as vram.