Re: Curious about Lua/Windows memory management...

[Javier Guerra Giraldez <javier@...>]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 9:01 AM,  <mchalkley@mail.com> wrote:
> the memory usage reported in Task Manager
> doesn't change, no matter how long it sits idle after the garbage
> collection.


AFAIK, that's more an allocator thing than an OS one.

most allocators mantain a memory heap, and when needed, ask to OS for
more; but when released most don't bother "returning" it to the OS.

Of course, if a program only has a single memory hoard phase, releases
the memory (to the allocator, not the OS) and never asks for it again,
the virtual memory systems will eventually page out that unused chunks
and use the RAM for something else.  In the long run it doesn't affect
performance, as long as it is really never used again, since it won't
be paged in.

-- 
Javier