Is there a tool which can consume a certain amount of memory in Windows 7 (64 bit)?
I want to test the behaviour of software when the available RAM gets low.
Answer
There is a tool called TestLimit from Sysinternals by the well-known Mark Russinovich. You can get it from: https://live.sysinternals.com/WindowsInternals/ as 32 and 64 bit versions.
To allocate 1024 MB you can do the following:
testlimit64.exe -d 1024 -c 1
And end it via Ctrl + C.
The following command line options are available:
C:\Users\\...>testlimit64.exe Testlimit v5.04 - test Windows limits By Mark Russinovich - www.sysinternals.com usage: testlimit [[-h [-u]] | [-p [-n]] | [-t [-n [KB]]] | [-u [-i]] | [-g [object size]] | [-a|-d|-l|-m|-r|-s [MB]] | [-w]] [-c [count]] -a Leak Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -c Count of number of objects to allocate (default is as many as possible). This must be the last option specified. -d Leak and touch memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -g Create GDI handles of specified size (default 1 byte). Specify a size of 0 to cause GDI object exhaustion. -h Create handles. Specify -u to also allocate file objects. -i Exhaust USER desktop heap. -l VirtualLock memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -m Leak memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -p Create processes - add -n to set min working set. Add -n to set min working set of processes to smallest. -r Reserve memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -s Leak shared memory in specified MBs (default is 1). -t Create threads - add -n to specify minimum stack reserve (in KB). -u Create USER handles to menus. -w Reset working set minimum to highest possible value.