High memory usage normal ?

[teaonmars]

Hi, I tested some free antivirus software before choosing Avast and I noticed that it has the highest memory usage of all, almost twice as high:

Windows 2000 clean install MEM usage: 60MB (from task manager)
with Avast: 106 MB !
with AVG: 80 MB
with NAV demo: 84MB

Is this a normal value ?
Is there a chance this will be optimized in future releases ?

Thanks for your reply and for this great software!

tea

[DukeNukem]

You mem usage figures for all those look wrong.

How are you working the mem usage out from task manager?

What I do is identify which processes belong to avast, look at the memory it is using and add them up.

This will give you a rough idea of the memory being used.

[Mr Snrub]

On my system:
ashDisp.exe - 5,712K
ashMaiSv.exe - 4,608K
ashServ.exe - 18,344K
ashWebSv.exe - 6,012K
aswUpdSv.exe - 780K

Figures from "private bytes" value of each process viewed using Process Explorer:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

I could only imagine memory usage getting that high if the system was in the middle of a scan or processing a massive download?

[niko]

Hi Mr Snrub,

ashDisp.exe - 5,712K
ashMaiSv.exe - 4,608K
ashServ.exe - 18,344K
ashWebSv.exe - 6,012K
aswUpdSv.exe - 780K
This look strange; I'm working with XP pro and for me the memory usage for this is half than your

[Skram0]

I'm using version 4.6.652, and mine looks like:

PROCESS - PRIVATE BYTES -- PEAK PRIVATE BYTES
ashDisp.exe - 1,796K -- 7,868K
ashMaiSv.exe - 2,544K -- 8,076K
ashServ.exe - 17,496K -- 23,744K
ashWebSv.exe - 4,520K -- 6,552K
aswUpdSv.exe - 408K -- 408K
= 26,764K -- 46,648K

You can see from my peak bytes that at some point it was using a lot of memory.
But probably from playing Desert Combat or something.

By using Task Manager, its Memory Usage stat just reads the Working Set value
which is smaller than the Private Bytes.

[MFB]

If you keep clicking and looking at the avast! icon (the blue ball)  you'll get a increase, it's perfectally normal.

[Skram0]

Hmm, just found a graphic display bug, maybe just me, but while I have Process Explorer on top, and I click the blue 'a' ball to bring up the window, of course it loads under the Process Explorer window, but when I minimize PE, some of the window is left on the slider bar of the Sensitivity option.

[teaonmars]

I did not look at every process.
I just cloned a fresh win 2000 install to test a few antivirus programs and installed a program on each virtual pc.
I took the mem usage amount from the "mem usage" gauge in the task manager.

[Lisandro]

I took the mem usage amount from the "mem usage" gauge in the task manager.

To be more precise you must take this from the column 'Virtual Memory'.
Add this column into your Task Manager 

[JimF]

I did not look at every process.
I just cloned a fresh win 2000 install to test a few antivirus programs and installed a program on each virtual pc.
I took the mem usage amount from the "mem usage" gauge in the task manager.

I think you are doing it quite correctly.  You should look at the total memory useage with the program installed verses not installed (or at least not running).  What most people do is make the mistake of adding up the memory useage for all the individual services (ashDisp.exe, etc.).  But that hides a lot of the memory that is being used in various system services (e.g., svchost) on behalf of avast!.  Kevin McAleavey (creator of Boclean)had a very nice explanation of this a year or two ago, but I do not have the thread.

[DavidR]

My Readings Task Manager - Virtual Memory

[MFB]

Heres mind so far:

ashDisp.exe 1,736 K
ashServ.exe 11,472 K (it started off as 8,000 K something like that)
ashWebSv.exe 5,564 K
aswUpdSv.exe 760 K

If you click on the spinning blue icon, it might increase. One time the max. that ashServ gotten was over 29,000 K that was when I was running a-squared along with avast! 

[Skram0]

I took the mem usage amount from the "mem usage" gauge in the task manager.

To be more precise you must take this from the column 'Virtual Memory'.
Add this column into your Task Manager 

Wow. What's the meaning of Virtual Size in Process Explorer?
My Virtual Size readings are:
ashDisp.exe - 44,540K
ashMaiSv.exe - 56,980K
ashServ.exe - 185,156K
ashWebSv.exe - 61,072K
aswUpdSv.exe - 16,544K
=364,292K

Almost 356MB? Now that's a lot of "virtual" memory usage..