Nobody thinks they'll have RAM problems... until they happen. Rebellious processes, unexpected errors, Chrome being Chrome (!), and many other things can devour our memory. The traditional Task Manager is the main tool for measuring its usage, but if you're interested in the idea of a “summary” in the system tray that includes the most demanding processes, then you should take a look at the MemInfo app from CarthagoSoft.
Last week I decided to experiment with the desktop version of waifu2x (also known as Caffe), and I learned the hard way that I had gone overboard with its parameters. I activated TTA mode and used a gigantic “split size”, but the program didn't like that one bit. The maneuver exhausted the system memory, so I was forced to use a smaller “split size”. I never thought that with 16 GB of RAM and an optimized environment I would see an error associated with lack of memory... yet there it was.
The most striking thing is that Windows said nothing about it. The Task Manager (from which we recently reviewed several tricks) can report RAM usage, but not warn about leaks and/or excesses. That's when a small app called MemInfo steps in.
Monitor RAM usage with MemInfo
The icon in the tray reports the amount of physical RAM used, but its interface allows us to switch from physical memory to virtual memory, prioritize free memory over occupied memory, or show a percentage instead of the exact value. If we double-click the icon, MemInfo will open the Task Manager, and a right-click opens the main menu. There you'll find the ten processes that consume the most memory (you can reduce or increase that list), and an option to “defragment memory” that doesn't make much sense. Does a process consume too much RAM? Click on it to end it.
One of the most interesting aspects of MemInfo is that it tries to unify the memory report for a process with multiple instances. In general, Windows 10 doesn't have difficulties with that (the “Applications” category in the Task Manager does the heavy lifting), but if you're a rider of an older version, knowing the actual RAM consumption in an app should be useful.
MemInfo is freeware, its last update belongs to January of this year, and you can access its portable mode during the installation phase, although the most convenient thing is to let it start with the operating system. MemInfo doesn't seem like much at first glance, but we always approve that the user has more information about the functioning of their computer, and the program fulfills that.
Official site and download: Click here
