memory

neurokid

I have 512 MB of memory on my 800 MHz PB g4 running 10.2.1. As long as I only have 1 or 2 apps running at a time, everything is pretty good and snappy. But as soon as I open 3-4 apps (i.e. browser, Word, iTunes, etc), things start to slow down.



Question: If I upgrade my PBook to 1GB of RAM, will this help at all? Or is this just a waste of money?

spart

With that much RAM things shouldn't slow down at all.



Keep in mind that iTunes can eat a hefty ammount of CPU.

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by Spart:

<strong>Keep in mind that iTunes can eat a hefty ammount of CPU.</strong><hr></blockquote>Word is also infamous for eating wildly large % of CPU cycles even in the background. Usually turning off the automatic spell and grammar checks reduces its CPU usage a great deal.

mrmister

[quote] Word is also infamous for eating wildly large % of CPU cycles even in the background. <hr></blockquote>



After the latest update of a few days ago this seems to no longer be the case, thank God.

stupider...likeafox

intall VMometer and use the CPU Monitor program that comes bundled with OS X to see if you are memory or cpu bound (or both) when you feel the slowdown.



Then use Process Viewer/top to see what's using up your cpu and Memory Monitor to see what's eating your RAM.



You can then experiment to see what helps. Try hiding apps you're not using, watch out for anything that updates or animates constantly (for example set your browser to animate gifs 'once' or 'never', don't use the graphic equalizer display in iTunes, etc.)



It might also be worth never switching your machine off too. Just put it to sleep as OS X and Jaguar seem to get faster with use due to caching.



Personally, I would buy the extra RAM anyway especially because you are on a laptopas RAM uses less power than disk accesses. But if your feeling poor then do some testing first.