Can you allocate more memory per app in OSX?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just added 256K to bring my FP iMac to 512K of RAM.

Not really seeing a whole lot of difference yet (although I haven't really done much but surf), but can you still allocate a greater portion of RAM to a program like you could in MacOS 9?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just added 256K to bring my FP iMac to 512K of RAM.

    Not really seeing a whole lot of difference yet (although I haven't really done much but surf), but can you still allocate a greater portion of RAM to a program like you could in MacOS 9?






    No, OS7-9 was a kludge in memory management (single process OS patched to handle multiple processes--originally Multifinder in OS 6).



    In OS X, applications can take as much memory as they require. You do not need to do anything.



    If you open a few applications and use them, you'd notice a big difference between 256MB and 512MB (not k ). There's a very big difference from 512 to 1GB.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    To clarify further what atomicham said, apps not only take as much as they need, they also release it when they're done. On Mac OS X, memory allocations grow and shrink constantly for all your apps.



    It's a very intelligent system.



    If you would like a technical explanation, it's become standard procedure for me (we get this question a lot ) to refer people to ArsTechnica for John Siracusa's article about Mac OS X.



    Mac OS X 10.1: Memory Usage

    Mac OS X 10.1: Memory Diagnostics



    The explanation there still applies to 10.2 and 10.3.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    Although in Photoshop, you can specify what percentage of your ram PS7 is allowed to hog... I've set it to 75%, leaving 25% (aka 256MB) for OSX and the rest.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R

    Although in Photoshop, you can specify what percentage of your ram PS7 is allowed to hog... I've set it to 75%, leaving 25% (aka 256MB) for OSX and the rest.



    Is this true? Why have a user defined partition if the OS assigns memory dynamically and perfectly?
  • Reply 5 of 12
    pesipesi Posts: 424member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    Is this true? Why have a user defined partition if the OS assigns memory dynamically and perfectly?



    because PS is a RAM hog.



    seriously.



    most other programs might spike a bit here and there to use a lot of memory, but they'll generally release it pretty quickly, letting everything else get back to normal.



    PS will take that memory and hold on to it forever (because, quite frankly, it needs it), grinding everything else to a halt.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    Is this true? Why have a user defined partition if the OS assigns memory dynamically and perfectly?



    I assume because since Photoshop's usage can grow and shrink so hugely depending on the size of the files you open and close that Adobe thinks it better to just leave it set to a user definable amount for the duration Photoshop is running. I'm not certain that's the reason but it's the only I can imagine. Otherwise it might play yo-yo with the memory?



    But if you get more RAM it becomes a non-issue either way.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    Not really. Especially with mamoth History aka undos set, PS can be a real pig. So A gig can (not necessarily will) be snarfed in a few hours of PS. Adobe have kindly allowed users to set an upper limit, after which scratch disks are used. That way you can be sure you'll have a usable system.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just added 256K to bring my FP iMac to 512K of RAM.

    Not really seeing a whole lot of difference yet (although I haven't really done much but surf), but can you still allocate a greater portion of RAM to a program like you could in MacOS 9?




    In general, thank God, no. An application is always able to restrict itself (PS 7), but there are really very few examples of apps so greedy. So unless an app has a special setting to set the amount of used RAM, it's beyond your control.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    I really don't mean to be insulting, but how could one have so many posts and not know about such a major feature of OS X?
  • Reply 10 of 12
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    If really interested you could always just recompile darwin with your own memory management architecture. 8)
  • Reply 11 of 12
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Couldn't some applications dynamically manage the amount of memory allocated in Pres OS X Mac OSs? The System could definitely do it (but it's an atypical example) and I'm fairly certain that GraphicConverter (an actual application) could as well. Probably handled by the application rather than the system, like cooperative multitasking, making it impractical for most applications.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Big Mac

    I really don't mean to be insulting, but how could one have so many posts and not know about such a major feature of OS X?



    Are those two concepts really related? I guess I could see why, but it could be that they just post things like "OK" just to up score, or doesn't use OS X very much. But any way you look at it, everyone should know about OSX.
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