Do pc's have cache memory like browsers?

Factual Questions
1

I know that after I’ve been using browsers for a long period of time, they get slower and slower and slower, specially if I watch hd videos and such, then I go to ,minimize memory usage" (on Firefox), it clears the memory cache thing and then it runs fine again, same thing on Google earth, after some time it gets really slow, I go to options, clear memory (or cache) and then it runs fine again.

The problem that I have is that after using some RAM intensive applications, for example the browser or games like GTA V, modded FSX, Arma 3,etc. when I am inside them, everything is fine most of the time, games run with good FPS on medium and even high settings, so everything is as it should be, buuut once I exit them, the computer just gets super slow and it needs 10, 20 seconds just to go to ,my computer" or something as basic as that and if I go to the task manager, it says that both RAM and CPU are minimally used, unlike the period when I am inside the games, when it says that RAM and CPU are being highly used, as they should be.

So what is the problem here? I tried exiting those programs in both regular ways and by ,killing" them in task manager, so there are no active processes left, sometimes killing the processes fixes the issue, but not always, RAM and CPU are both at max 10, 20% usage, as they are supposed to be when no apps are running and yet something is still slowing down the computer.

I am 100% sure that it is not anything related to stuff other than cache, for example I used multiple anti-malware programs, I defrag, I run the anti-virus every few days, I don’t run any unnecessary processes and as I said, I can play GTA V on high settings and get good fps, so the problem occurs only after I exit those programs.

2

My suspicion is that when you quit out of your game, there’s a lot of memory management going on to free up that memory that it was using.

Furthermore, if your PC is running at 10-20% CPU and memory used as an idle baseline, you probably have a pc that’s not quite up to snuff relative to the games you’re playing. Based on that, i’m guessing that you’re probably seeing the effects of using a lot of virtual memory.

How much RAM do you have? With 16 gigs, I don’t see anything like what you see, although I used to when I had far less memory and CPU than I do now.

3

This is purely a somewhat educated guess, but maybe the program is taking time to clear a swap file on the HD.

But I not sure that “cache memory” means what you think it means. “Cache memory” in respect to a program is an area of RAM set aside to store frequently used, recently used, or “guessed” to soon be used data from the HD or optical drive. This allows the data to be accessed more quickly if the program needs it, because a drive is slow compared to RAM. “Cache memory” in respect to a CPU is similar in purpose, but stores that data on the CPU itself instead in the RAM because RAM is slow compared to the CPU. (Modern CPUs typically have 3 levels of cache.)

A swap file (if my guess is right) is the opposite of a cache–it is using the HD as something like extra (but slow) RAM when you don’t have enough physical RAM.

4

Didn’t notice that. My system runs at maybe 1 or 2 percent CPU utilization at idle baseline. Still less than 10 percent while watching an HD movie. And that’s an antique 2.6 GHz, 4 core CPU.

5

It’s RAM usage that’s the key here. The behaviour you’re seeing is typical of memory management as bump suggests.

Open up Task Manager and click on the Performance tab and then Memory. This will tell you how much RAM you have and how much you’re using before the cleanup starts. In my case it says 13.9 / 32.0 GB showing I’m using 13.9 GB out of 32 GB real RAM. You do not want the first number to exceed the second. Move this window to a secondary monitor while you play your game and as you browse and see how much RAM you’re actually using.

A good rule of thumb is that you want at least 8 GB RAM, and 16 GB is a cheap upgrade.

6

@Bump Sorry, I meant to write that only the RAM is around 10, 20% when idle, but CPU is much, much lower, I currently have Firefox opened, with 11 tabs, of which 1/3 are HD videos and demanding maps and even with all that now running, my CPU is going from 0% to 5% while I’m not looking at those demanding things, but overall I currently have no issues and everything is running smooth, RAM usage is just at 2.5GB.

As for virtual memory…I don’t know, I have it enabled, but I don’t think that I’m using it at all, I have 4 gigs of RAM, which is not that much tbh, but since I switched of all unnecessary apps, updates,etc, windows uses only 800mb of RAM when idle and I can play GTA V with less than 3 gigs of RAM used (that means both windows and GTA use 3GB), so I still have 1GB remaining and before I stopped updates and optimized a bunch of stuff, I was regularly using up all of the RAM and I suppose virtual ram too, but not anymore.

So whatever it is, does anyone have an idea on how to fix it? Buying more RAM would probably fix it, but as I said, even with 4GB RAM I can play highly demanding games, on high settings, with them not using up all of the RAM and with FPS being at at least 40 as a minimum, so the issue isn’t how the games work, they work great, textures and cars load as they should be, there’s no lagging, stuttering,etc, the problem is that the games and browsers do something after I exit and slow everything up.

When playing GTA V for example, I can minimize it, go to the desktop, open up VLC player and listen to a online stream, go to the task manager to see how much RAM is used and then return to the game and do all that in a few seconds and the game runs perfect the entire time, even with VLC working in the background, however, once I exit the game, I need at least 10, 15 seconds just to enter the task manager, at which time there are no other applications running and both CPU and RAM are not doing anything special, which has no logic.

7

This will likely be the issue. When Windows runs out of RAM, such as when running a game, it pushes the unused stuff to the pagefile on your HDD. You likely don’t notice this because you’re loading the game from the HDD anyway - all you see is a slow load time. When you’ve finished with the game, it pulls it all back in. Your HDD is orders of magnitude slower than your RAM so you get the stuttering / freezing effect. To resolve this, bump your RAM to 8 GB or 16 GB.

Note that if you are using 32 bit Windows, you will have to install 64 bit Windows - you can use the same license key - to make use of the extra RAM.

8

I think the basic answer is that, the web browsers do have large caches of previously viewed webpages, and that cache can cause slow downs, as the cache may be corrupted and have to be repaired before it starts to work again.

Games do not do that.

Sometimes the slow down is that the hard drive was asleep… this may be because the OS had cached access to the hard drive and let the drive to be idle long enough it went to sleep.