Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: RejZoR on August 08, 2004, 12:08:19 PM
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Stranges thing happend few days ago. I reinstalled Windows and installed avast! as usual. After few minutes of usage i checked task manager and avast! was using over 30MB of RAM (if you sum all modules). I restarted machine and it was the same. Also fully reinstalled avast! and it was the same. I was usually used to 18MB MAX not 30 which is really near NAV2004.
I was using avast! Pro 4.1 the latest available build (as usual).
Hope this is going to be fixed or at least lowered in v4.5 because its really annoying that my favorite AV uses so much memory.
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RejZoR
That's strange, I just checked mine and it just under 18MB. ???
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If you're looking at the Mem Usage column of Task Manager than you're getting misleading values.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=37
Also, please realize that all code sections are shared so summing the "consumption" of all the processes just doesn't make any sense (there's a big intersection).
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Thanks Vlk
That does cut it down. Why do some provessed sho a greater VM Size the the Mem usage size?
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My combined total is over 31MB but based on the information in the link and info provided by Vlk, plus the fact that I have 512MB Ram, 31MB doesn't seem large.
However, when you look at the combined Virtual Memory size of 15MB, it is even more acceptable.
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Thanks Vlk
That does cut it down. Why do some provessed sho a greater VM Size the the Mem usage size?
The only ones I can find on my setup that are greater are WinLogon and Explorer.
The winlogon one, I find that strange as having run unless you are constantly switching user it would ahve remaind stable.
Explorer because it retains history would be variable. The same would also apply to other programs that work with files/data that would be retained in virtual memory for a time.
I think this could also be effected by how you have your System Properties > Performance > Settings > Advanced - Memory Usage, setup
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Now that is something different. Thanks very much Vlk for this great explanation. I removed Memory usage column and replaced it with Virtual Memory size. So the overall memory usage is wrong too in WinXP/2000?
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Why do some provessed sho a greater VM Size the the Mem usage size?
In short:
Mem Usage: the total number of pages the process has currently resident in its address space. This is sometimes also called
"Process Working Set". Few examples:
- a process maps a 300MB file (no memory allocation, really, just "mapping" -- this does not in fact consume any RAM) -- the Mem Usage column will increase by 300MB
- a process allocates 300MB of heap (i.e. RAM) but then goes idle for X hours. The system swaps the memory to the page file and the Mem Usage column can drop to e.g. 1MB.
VM Size: Size of memory allocated by the process (heap, stack etc). This is sometimes also called "Private Bytes". If a process allocates 300MB of heap, the VM Size will not drop bellow 300MB. If a process maps a 300MB file, the VM Size will not change.
In general, VM Size is a much better indicator of memory hogs. Of course, there are also some exceptions. Since Windows manages memory internally, it's not always easy to find out what's going on when the value is too high/low - it may require deeper analysis...
Cheers,
Vlk