Windows 10 is a substantial advancement over previous versions in numerous ways—but it can also feel slow and sluggish when it isn’t configured properly. Of the many ways to improve Windows 10 performance, there’s one lesser-known feature that you should know about: Superfetch is now referred to as SysMain after the Windows 10 1809 update.
This article explains everything you need to know about what Superfetch (SysMain) is, how it works, why it might be problematic, and how to disable it if it’s causing issues.
Windows SuperFetch was initially proposed with Windows Vista as a successor to PreFetch. It’s a process that analyzes your system—specifically your RAM usage—to develop a profile of the programs and applications you run most frequently.
As you use your system, SuperFetch deliberately discerns what you run most often and will pre-emptively load elements of those applications onto your RAM so that when you need them, they load up far quicker than they might otherwise.
The main purpose of the feature is to speed up application load times for those running hard drives—especially older ones. Those running a solid state drive (SSD) will not see much improvement from the feature, since by default SuperFetch does not load applications into memory if an SSD is detected on your system.
The feature is automatically active. It improves the performance of applications and software running from the driver without interference. In short, hard drives should see a noticeable improvement in performance thanks to SuperFetch, but SSD-driven applications won’t.
In a nutshell, Yes. There are no detriments to turning the process off. Although, it is advisable to leave it on if your system is running properly. But then, if you are running a high usage on HDD, RAM or degraded performance during RAM-heavy activities, you should consider turning it off to see if it lessens your burden.
There are some “problems” that can arise with Superfetch (SysMain):
Since Superfetch is constantly operating in the background, the Superfetch service itself is always using some CPU and RAM.
Superfetch doesn’t exclude the need to load apps into RAM. Rather, it relocates the loading to an earlier time. Whenever that loading happens, your system still experiences the same slowdown as if you were launching the app without Superfetch.
System startup can be stagnant because Superfetch is preloading a bunch of data from your HDD to RAM. If your HDD runs at 100% for a few minutes every time you start or restart your computer, Superfetch could be the culprit.
The performance increase of Superfetch may be unnoticeable when Windows 10 is installed on an SSD. Since SSDs are so quick, you don’t really require preloading. If this interests you, check out our guide to moving Windows from HDD to SSD.
Superfetch has also been deemed as the culprit for issues relating to gaming. This is especially on systems with 4GB of RAM or less. It is unknown why this happens but it is suspected that it is due to the desire of the games to have heavy RAM and space. Superfetch tends to load and unload data constantly.
When your system runs smoothly with no hindrance, it’s unlikely you’ll need to switch SuperFetch off. You can disable and re-enable SuperFetch. Here’s how: