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Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

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Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#91

Post by dijit »

zozbot234 wrote: post #88
krisknez wrote: post #34

I hope there will be an update where when my RAM gets full my PC doesn't freeze and becomes unusable... I remember that Linux and Windows do this in different ways and Windows doesn't have the problem.

Are these directly comparable, though? Doesn't Windows default to using free space on the system drive to grow the swap file in case of memory pressure? Linux has you set up swap files/partitions explicitly.

Also the way memory allocation in Windows works is that if it doesn't actually have the physical RAM (extended by pagefile) then the program will crash.

If you disable pagefile (like I did for some of my servers) and your program mallocs more than what you have in available space (even without ever dirtying a page) you will observe this.

I'm sure that this helps Windows a lot, even if it's not counted as actually used until the page is dirty.

Linux programs very often have virtual addresses many times the amount of physical ram, because there's never been any restriction. It's then very easy to just malloc huge chunks and use what you need and don't care about it too much.

Especially with many "tiny" allocations, python for example has huge sized objects which consume gobs of RAM dynamically, so any long running python process not only fragments memory but ends up having a bunch of objects consuming virtual memory...

idk why I felt the need to rant about this, but it's a difference that I've noted.

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#92

Post by mtgh2s »

krisknez wrote: post #34

I hope there will be an update where when my RAM gets full my PC doesn't freeze and becomes unusable... I remember that Linux and Windows do this in different ways and Windows doesn't have the problem.

From my experience, Windows does freeze and become completely unusable too, just not usually from RAM usage hitting 100%.

I don't use Windows much, nor do I care much about that environment, but from what I've seen it seems to keep RAM usage below 100% most of the time. What I do see pretty often is the drive getting stuck at 100% usage instead, which makes the whole system ridiculously unusable anyway.

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#93

Post by [deleted] »

chongli wrote: post #30
timpera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The Insider blog tends to be pretty up-to-date: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/ They seem to be focused on performance improvements because of the MacBook Neo pressure and RAM crisis, but right now, I'm mostly excited for the right-click menu and taskbar improvements. You can already do this with third-party software, but it's not the best experience unfortunately.

Are they finally going to fix the issue of having introduced a second right click menu that forces me to click “show more options” literally every single time I want to do anything?

[deleted]

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#94

Post by criddell »

chongli wrote: post #52
noir_lord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run (as Administrator) in a terminal reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve Should restore the old right click menu (it did last time I used it at any rate). So much of windows 11 configuration is removing things you never asked for and putting things back . Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2287432/...

Sadly I’m in a locked down corporate environment, so I can’t edit the registry. IT even closed my ticket when I asked for them to make the edit on my behalf. I don’t use Windows on any personal machines, so there’s no way for this to benefit me. I hope it helps others who are frustrated by this though!

You can use shift-right click to show the second context menu.

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#95

Post by wongarsu »

dijit wrote: post #91
zozbot234 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these directly comparable, though? Doesn't Windows default to using free space on the system drive to grow the swap file in case of memory pressure? Linux has you set up swap files/partitions explicitly.

Also the way memory allocation in Windows works is that if it doesn't actually have the physical RAM (extended by pagefile) then the program will crash. If you disable pagefile (like I did for some of my servers) and your program mallocs more than what you have in available space (even without ever dirtying a page) you will observe this. I'm sure that this helps Windows a lot, even if it's not counted as actually use…

Yes, Windows doesn't overcommit memory. In the default config Windows is allowed to grow the page file as much as it wants, and empty pages are cheap to reserve in the page file (no need to actually write those zeros, you just need to reserve space for them). So the end effect is comparable, with the difference that software shouldn't just go ahead and ask for gigabytes of memory it doesn't actually need

I prefer the Windows approach, it's more predictable and has better behavior under memory pressure. But it can cause issues with software written under the assumption that the OS uses memory overcommit

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#96

Post by W3zzy »

mtgh2s wrote: post #92
krisknez wrote: post #34

I hope there will be an update where when my RAM gets full my PC doesn't freeze and becomes unusable... I remember that Linux and Windows do this in different ways and Windows doesn't have the problem.

From my experience, Windows does freeze and become completely unusable too, just not usually from RAM usage hitting 100%. I don't use Windows much, nor do I care much about that environment, but from what I've seen it seems to keep RAM usage below 100% most of the time. What I do see pretty often is the drive getting stuck at 100% usage instead, which makes the whole system ridiculously unusable anyway.

Haven't had Windows freeze on me for ages. I had a frozen linux server that ran out of RAM yesterday.

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#97

Post by flaunf221 »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #11

Gosh, 7.2 literally just dropped with a bunch of awesome of performance/gaming related improvements (large folios, cache-aware scheduling, improved MGLRU reclaiming, Fair GPU Scheduler etc)... and I already can't wait for 7.3 to come out. Meanwhile in the Windows world, users hate updates... Like I genuinely can't think of a single instance that made users exclaim, "oh boy I just can't wait for the next Patch Tuesday…

> Like I genuinely can't think of a single instance that made users exclaim, "oh boy I just can't wait for the next Patch Tuesday!"

Majority of Windows users are not programming enthusiasts and just don't care.

OS works. Programs continue to work. Good. Keep it that way.

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#98

Post by alex7o »

dolmen wrote: post #86
krisknez wrote: post #34

I hope there will be an update where when my RAM gets full my PC doesn't freeze and becomes unusable... I remember that Linux and Windows do this in different ways and Windows doesn't have the problem.

When my RAM gets full the kernel kills Firefox (3 profiles) so the PC becomes unusable, with lost data.

use a browser that saves tabs on disk like zen browser I sometimes stop it when playing games since it will preserve tab state

Re: Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

#99

Post by sunaookami »

NekkoDroid wrote: post #87
krisknez wrote: post #34

I hope there will be an update where when my RAM gets full my PC doesn't freeze and becomes unusable... I remember that Linux and Windows do this in different ways and Windows doesn't have the problem.

For me Windows becomes unusable as soon as any of my drives is being hammered, including when it is swapping, but not limited to it.

Explorer freezes too when an external hard drive spins up, very annoying.
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