"your computer is low on memory, please close X program"

Where does the resource monitor state that 80% is a magical number or show the number 80 as any percentage? I have never seen it and must assume you spent time roughly calculating some other numbers to arrive at this percentage conclusion.

Keep task manager and/or resource manager open, that's all it takes. There are also quite a few threads in various forums to the effect of "Windows is claiming I'm out of memory but I still have 1.6GB unused". The same numbers keep cropping up. 

The percentage of used memory is NOT in RESOURCE MONITOR but in TASK MANAGER.

Olli is factually incorrect in that he claims that 80% is a magical number that MS has set in the OS.  I routinely get the *'Out of memory'*warnings when I still have 1.8-1.6.6GB available, but that is 70% and my Task Manager always says I have only used 70% to 71% still available. This is what most of us in this thread are experiencing.Furthermore, even though I am using 70% of my memory, Resource Monitor says I only ussing 40%

Who, ruining Windows wants to only be able to utilize:

5.6GB out pf 8GB of memory

or 11GB  out of 16Gb's

Ooh, someone got up grumpy. 

The facts of this issue have not changed between Windows Vista->7->8, specifically the x64 editions. 

Windows does not "want" to use more than 80% of available memory. There's one person who wants to argue this point for the sake of arguing. He doesn't even argue whether or not it's a major issue but if this happens at all. It's inane as anyone can see from their resource monitor how windows allocates memory and can observe the magic 80% number in action. 

If you have NO page file, then

Windows will issue low memory warning immediately upon reaching the 80% threshold. 

It's stupid but there's nothing you can do about it as Microsoft does not want to cap the buffer/reserver amount in absolute megabytes for some reason. At 8GB machines that's 1.6GB memory doing nothing much, perhaps it'll finally be patched when 16GB becomes commonplace as 3.2GB is fairly obvious overhead. 

This may be why Windows XP ran so much more smoothly. It did not have the magical 80% cap on your RAM usage. I had my last XP machine with 2GB or memory and never got 'Out of memory ' warnings and a few time my memory was down to only a couple MB's available and a few time the system crashed. But all-in-all, I was able to use most of my RAM and was able to open far more program application with those 2GB of RAM than I can with 6GB on Windows 7. The disappointing thing is that I always thought when moving to Windows 7 with twice the memory of my XP system (4GB of RAM as apposed to 2GB) that it would have a comparable 'User Experience'. I was wrong in that assumption. In fact 6GB (3 times as much as my XP system) falls noticeably short in the 'User Experience' area. I assume I would need 8GB of RAM to have a similar 'User Experience' and when Windows 7's sp2 or sp3 rolls out I am sure that will double as it did with XP when its sp's rolled out and forced me to go from 1GB to 2GB to maintain the same 'User Experience'

I still can't wrap my head around the need for a system doing typical computing with however many programs open, needs 6-8GB of data in memory in order to function properly. That is an awful large data to be sitting at the ready.

Things I have found out about this issue:

1. Adding RAM does not fix it and has NOeffect.
2. Increasing the Page File and/or Virtual memory does not fix it and has NOeffect
3. Closing Chrome Browser tabs or other programs does not fix it and has NOeffect
4. Disabling the Page File does not fix it and has NOeffect

What may be part of the issue:

1. Memory Leaking programs (typically browsers of almost any distribution)
2. Superfetch - While NOT the cause of the problem, may be exacerbating the issue due to the way its code is implemented. (I will explain later, Explanation #1)

Metal480AZ said something that got me thinking that what I posted and assumed before in overclocker.net forum about 'Out of memory' warnings to be more true which was, "It showed nearly 2GB of "available" memory but commit was maxed out. " (I will explain later, Explanation #2 )

The problem may possibly be Desktop Heap depletion. 

I will just cut and paste what I posted on Overclocker

Possible FIX other than disabling the warnings:

There seams to be some discussion that I have found that effect systems from Vista onward ..... namely more so XP, Widow 7, and Window 8 as the NT familly tends to suffer more in some way. It is called the 'Desktop Heap' setting

To be clear, we are not talking about the desktop you see on your display monitor with all of the icons and task bar. Every service, handle, app, window ect. is assigned an individual desktop out of the Desktop Heap. Even services that run behind the scenes that do not have UI windows.

Direct quote from MS KB947226

Every desktop object on the system has a desktop heap associated with it. The desktop object uses the heap to store menus, hooks, strings, and windows. The system allocates desktop heap from a system-wide 48-MB buffer. In addition to desktop heaps, printer, and font drivers also use this buffer.

Desktops are associated with window stations. A window station can contain zero or more desktops. The size of the desktop heap allocated for a desktop associated with a window station can be changed in the following registry value.

This got me thinking that even though there are many places on the web where you can read others saying that disabling the 'Superfetch' and its original predecessor, Prefetch in Windows does not do anything to improve or contribution to memory management issues or problems but when these things (applications that you MAY use because you used them every day at the same time) are loaded by the OS's Superfetch to take full advantage of RAM and make using RAM more efficient, it contributes to Desktop Heap depletion because all of thes things loaded will use its own portion of the Desktop Heap. There is only so much and is not Dynamic (something like 10MB or 20MB on earlier Widows) 48MB on current 64bit Windows. So when it is used up, the system says there is no more addressing for virtual address space regardless of you having available memory.

Explanation #1

This may be why some report that 'Disableing' Superfetch has improved or fixed this issue as it free up more of this 'Desktop Heap' and leaves more headroom. I personally think that this is like someone (Microsoft) putting baby oil in your cars window washer fluid reservoir (setting this Desktop Heap' at a predetermined number and designing Windows Memory Management to only use 75-80% and then redesign Prefetch to use more memory and Desktop Heap space loading more things in memory calling this improvement 'Superfetch) and then since every time you turn on the windshield washers it just smears (you get 'Out of Memory' warning with typical , average computing), you decide to rip off your wiper blades or disable you windshield wiper/washer switch (Disable Superfetch) to gain a smear and streak free windshield (no more 'Out of Memory' warnings). But then you can't clean your windshield very easily (the joys and benefits of Superfetch don't work anymore) since you didn't eliminate, fix or in any way address the cause of the issue ... like dumping and flushing the baby oil out of your windshield washer fluid reservoir.

Explanation #2

This also got me thinking that the the high commit may be one ways of seeing the effect of Desktop Heapdepletion. I am not sure at the moment if or how it would be all related

What I figured out and decided to do:

After going to many sites to figure out what it was, what it was used for and how best to adjust it I came to the conclusion (just yesterday) that I would try today to adjust the Desktop Heap via the MSDN instructions found at, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947246

What I did waschanged the 3rd value that was set by default in Windows at 768, and changed it to 1024. So far I havn't gotten any 'Out of memory' warnings but then I usually got them when I had 200, or close to 200 Chrome browser tabs open or over 100 along with other applications. I only made this configuration change just 24 hrs before posting this. I will post back the more experience and results I get. I have noticed though that my 'Available' memory in TM is showing 1-1.5GB higher than usual for the amount of open applications I have had open for the last 24 hrs.

Other supporting sites talking about this issue which I used are:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2007/01/04/desktop-heap-overview.aspx

In this blogs.msdn URL there is a link to a video .... which actually takes you to another page where the real link is that I highly recomend that explains what Desktop Heap is in a consice, easy to understand way which I will post the link for your convenience below.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/jeff_dailey/ntdebugging-blog-talk-about-on-desktop-heap

anyone can see from their resource monitor how windows allocates memory and can observe the magic 80% number in action

Where does the resource monitor state that 80% is a magical number or show the number 80 as any percentage? I have never seen it and must assume you spent time roughly calculating some other numbers to arrive at this percentage conclusion.

Keep task manager and/or resource manager open, that's all it takes. There are also quite a few threads in various forums to the effect of "Windows is claiming I'm out of memory but I still have 1.6GB unused". The same numbers keep cropping up. 

With no pagefile finding the threshold is rather easy as you get immediately the low memory complaint. With pagefile it's a bit more fuzzy and slow as windows will allocate some of that last 20% of RAM butyou can also observe over time how the allocated ram will back down as windows moves things out of RAM into pagefile until you're again at or near the 80% mark. If you manage to exhaust the pagefile you will get low memory error immediately when unallocated memory hits <20­% physical RAM size. For best results do not power off windows, use sleep/hibernate instead.

If you think you can't be hitting 10.8GB virtual memory allocated, just prove it, check what resource monitor says when you get low memory error. On my work computer I have 8GB RAM and 3GB pagefile and I'll get low memory warning from time to time unless I restart chrome. 

At least the suspender extension actually works unlike similar firefox plugins. I have at the moment <800MB private memory for chrome, which is nothing. With a few dozen tabs and running for a few days, it goes over 3GB every time "normally".