Would a computer program or app use less resources the longer it is kept active? I understand that this might be true, because of caching and the likes, but it feels really odd to me that when running a few programs (Edge browser, Anaconda, Spyder IDE, Discord) for more than an hour, they seem to use almost half the resources they demanded in the first half-hour.
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2This depends on too many factors and circumstances. This question will vary for different use cases, different computers, different users, different software, and we cannot answer it authoritatively for this reason.– music2myearJun 12, 2022 at 21:01
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2 Answers
The resources, such as memory, may well still be allocated but there are numerous reasons why programs may appear to be using less of various resources.
On startup a program may well "prepare" all of their libraries for use, or allocate memory for various caches and buffers ready to do work that is never really needed.
Over time Windows may simply "page out" or release the physical memory from unused libraries (they can simply be loaded again from disk) and so the "working set" (memory actually in use) of a process could start high and then drop as it is released. The "commit charge" (all memory allocated to a process) would be the same, but actual in-use memory could drop.
answered Jun 12, 2022 at 21:12
Generally speaking, no. A program will use as many resources as it needs.
Programs at launch might do various tasks, like checking for updates, loading files, etc. Once all that is done, then the usage might settle down. Applications like browsers might have memory for unused tabs swapped to disk. There are so many things, its impossible to say.
