I have a question about Snow Leopard and memory

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I'm a little hazy on this, hence my question:

Will Snow Leopard's applications use less memory than they do now in Leopard? For example, right now as I type this in Safari, it is using 255MB of memory, 21 threads, 13% of my CPU, and 1.24GB of Virtual Memory. The MacBook Pro I am using has 4GB of RAM. I'm just curious if the improvements Apple is making in Snow Leopard means that applications will be more memory efficient.



Thanks to anyone who knows the answer!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DHagan4755 View Post


    I'm a little hazy on this, hence my question:

    Will Snow Leopard's applications use less memory than they do now in Leopard? For example, right now as I type this in Safari, it is using 255MB of memory, 21 threads, 13% of my CPU, and 1.24GB of Virtual Memory. The MacBook Pro I am using has 4GB of RAM. I'm just curious if the improvements Apple is making in Snow Leopard means that applications will be more memory efficient.



    Thanks to anyone who knows the answer!



    How many tabs do you have open?
  • Reply 2 of 19
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macintoshtoffy View Post


    How many tabs do you have open?



    I don't remember...I think it was just one.
  • Reply 3 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DHagan4755 View Post


    I don't remember...I think it was just one.



    Then there i something seriously wrong because I am running 10A394 on my iMac and it is around 45MB on one tab with a single website loaded (Appleinsider). With the memory usage, was that snapshot taken after using it for a while, closing off the tabs, and having one tab left open or did you open it up, load a website and it expanded out to 255MB?
  • Reply 4 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    It depends on the pages loaded and the Ram you have in your machine. I have 4GB too and Safari is now at 600-700MB real memory with 5 tabs. That's what Ram is for, to cache as much data in fast memory so that it doesn't have to look for it in slow memory like your HDD. Ignore the Virtual memory numbers because that's not what it's using on disk.



    That is not to say that Safari is lean on memory because it's not and could probably be streamlined but it's best that it works well and then afterwards works in a streamlined way. Snow Leopard should help but you never know.



    Until Apple see it causing problems, they won't fix it. Just like they don't try shrinking down the XCode SDK, which is now at 2GB and they make you download the whole thing for every point update.
  • Reply 5 of 19
    wplj42wplj42 Posts: 439member
    In contrast, I have just one gig of memory. All I have open is Safari and Activity Monitor. Safari is using 13 threads, 43.91 MB of real memory and 858.27 MB of virtual memory. I am curious. At $29, SL is a steal. I am lazy and cheap and can't help but wonder if 1 GB will drag my computer down running SL? I have an iMac with a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo. I seldom have multiple apps or windows running at the same time.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    My guess is that Snow Leopard will probably want to use more memory (this is an easy engineering tradeoff to make for speed). At this point you are silly if you are not maxing out your memory (with the exception of the MacPros). I just bought a new iMac and maxing the memory (third party) was $50.
  • Reply 7 of 19
    wplj42wplj42 Posts: 439member
    If I bought Snow Leopard, it would be most out of curiosity. I have put off getting to know VoiceOver and it sounds like SL will make things even easier. My iMac can only max out to 4GB. Is there any reason why I can't take it to 3 GB and leave the original RAM in place?
  • Reply 8 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WPLJ42 View Post


    IMy iMac can only max out to 4GB. Is there any reason why I can't take it to 3 GB and leave the original RAM in place?



    You can do that but if you have integrated graphics, you won't benefit from the performance boost you get from using matched DIMMs. As mentioned above, Ram is dirt cheap these days. Unless you absolutely know you won't use near the full amount, max it out. It helps resale value quite a bit.



    Even if you think you won't use it, it still helps prevent the beachball. Even with 1GB, you can experience it quite frequently especially if you use apps like VMWare or image editing software and don't reboot your machine often.



    I wouldn't say there's any noticeable difference between 2GB and 4GB for everyday tasks though. There is between 1GB and 2GB so everyone should aim to have 2GB minimum to run any version of OS X smoothly.
  • Reply 9 of 19
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DHagan4755 View Post


    I'm a little hazy on this, hence my question:

    Will Snow Leopard's applications use less memory than they do now in Leopard? For example, right now as I type this in Safari, it is using 255MB of memory, 21 threads, 13% of my CPU, and 1.24GB of Virtual Memory. The MacBook Pro I am using has 4GB of RAM. I'm just curious if the improvements Apple is making in Snow Leopard means that applications will be more memory efficient.



    Thanks to anyone who knows the answer!



    Snow Leopard will make everything more efficient and that means less memory used.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tauron View Post


    Snow Leopard will make everything more efficient and that means less memory used.



    I am really unsure if this is a joke or not (if so, then it is a really ineffective one). It is a completely unrealistic expectation that 10.6 will use less memory. I am not saying that it will use a lot more, but at this point using more memory (for cacheing) is a decent engineering trade-off for using less processor. And since things are moving in the direction of 64bits, that inherently uses more memory (since all memory addresses are twice as big), this is even more of a daydream.



    The engineers at Apple are really good at their jobs, but they are not magicians. They have to work within the confines of reality. And being able to reach into other people's programs and "make everything more efficient" is not within reality.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Karl Kuehn View Post


    I am really unsure if this is a joke or not (if so, then it is a really ineffective one). It is a completely unrealistic expectation that 10.6 will use less memory. I am not saying that it will use a lot more, but at this point using more memory (for cacheing) is a decent engineering trade-off for using less processor. And since things are moving in the direction of 64bits, that inherently uses more memory (since all memory addresses are twice as big), this is even more of a daydream.



    The engineers at Apple are really good at their jobs, but they are not magicians. They have to work within the confines of reality. And being able to reach into other people's programs and "make everything more efficient" is not within reality.



    Actually, it isn't unrealistic. Not that I know whether more or less RAM will be consumed, but it isn't that either way is an impossibility.



    SL has changed a lot under the hood. Many of the APIs that programs rely on have changed drastically. When this is done, it is perfectly possible for programs to become more efficient in a variety of ways include: binary size, RAM footprint, total processor cycles consumed, multi-processing capabilities, reentrant code, etc.



    While it maybe unlikely or less probable, a smaller RAM footprint isn't unprecedented. It certainly isn't impossible or unrealistic.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    I am not optimistic about the efficiencies of third party applications like Microsoft Office for Mac. A lot of those type of programs need to be overhauled too.
  • Reply 13 of 19
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Karl Kuehn View Post


    I am really unsure if this is a joke or not (if so, then it is a really ineffective one). It is a completely unrealistic expectation that 10.6 will use less memory. I am not saying that it will use a lot more, but at this point using more memory (for cacheing) is a decent engineering trade-off for using less processor. And since things are moving in the direction of 64bits, that inherently uses more memory (since all memory addresses are twice as big), this is even more of a daydream.



    The engineers at Apple are really good at their jobs, but they are not magicians. They have to work within the confines of reality. And being able to reach into other people's programs and "make everything more efficient" is not within reality.



    Oh yeah? Check for yourself:



    http://www.apple.com/macosx/refineme...finements.html
  • Reply 14 of 19
    wplj42wplj42 Posts: 439member
    Tauron ... How can Snow Leopard use less memory, if Apple suggests 1 GB RAM and Leopard is okay with 512 MB RAM? If I don't upgrade my iMac memory, as Karl and Marvin suggest, it will have no choice but to run slower. Windows 7 RC runs in BootCamp, but it is slow. It is really slow at 512 MB when I run it in Virtual Box.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by WPLJ42 View Post


    Tauron ... How can Snow Leopard use less memory, if Apple suggests 1 GB RAM and Leopard is okay with 512 MB RAM? If I don't upgrade my iMac memory, as Karl and Marvin suggest, it will have no choice but to run slower. Windows 7 RC runs in BootCamp, but it is slow. It is really slow at 512 MB when I run it in Virtual Box.



    That doesn't mean it uses more memory.
  • Reply 16 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tauron View Post


    Oh yeah? Check for yourself:



    http://www.apple.com/macosx/refineme...finements.html





    If you have a look, the only statement made is relating storage:



    Quote:

    Snow Leopard takes up less than half the disk space of the previous version, freeing about 6GB for you ? enough for about 1,500 more songs or a few thousand more photos.



    There is nothing mentioned about memory being used. Things can be made more efficient such as having services load on demand using triggering as the case of Windows but the over all memory requirements won't suddenly drop out of no where.



    All I have seen by Apple is efficiency improvements - you should very well know that efficiency can mean a whole host of things, not just this fixation you have on 'memory usage'.
  • Reply 17 of 19
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    And to totally confuse things:



    "Unused" memory is wasted memory. An optimal system will have very little unused RAM. As caching algorithms improve, we see less and less "free" memory.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dfiler View Post


    And to totally confuse things:



    "Unused" memory is wasted memory. An optimal system will have very little unused RAM. As caching algorithms improve, we see less and less "free" memory.



    Correct! And that brings me to my point: we are talking about overall efficiency here, which really is the only metric that matters. Everything else is just a regurgitation of meaningless specs and features, which is what Microsh1t and PC manufacturers do. Macs are based on the overall efficiency and experience. Snow Leopard will take it to the next level. Windows 7 will take it to the previous level (undo Vista so you get back XP).
  • Reply 19 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tauron View Post


    Correct! And that brings me to my point: we are talking about overall efficiency here, which really is the only metric that matters. Everything else is just a regurgitation of meaningless specs and features, which is what Microsh1t and PC manufacturers do. Macs are based on the overall efficiency and experience. Snow Leopard will take it to the next level. Windows 7 will take it to the previous level (undo Vista so you get back XP).



    100% agree - When you look at what they've done to reduce bloat - its nothing that actually improves the system; so what that a couple of services don't load and are only loaded on demand, doesn't change the fact that those services are still bloated and inefficient.



    What Microsoft need to do is go back to the drawing board, keep the good parts - the kernel, DirectX, their new display technology, and then throw out win32 and all the other crap. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater but the baby needs removing from the bath water as it is looking rather merky and dirty.
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