"I like the idea of Safari having separate processes per tab; once the tab gets closed down, the memory assigned to that process will get flushed so that should mean better memory usage over a long period of time and the days of one tab hanging the whole browser will be at an end. They did fix that auto-refresh problem with a warning dialog, which was nice but single process tabs should eliminate that altogether. It's good to see they've been working on these memory issues and time will tell if it's done right. I love the idea of slowing background processes. That means background web pages with ads won't be making everything else stutter."
Sounds like a good idea. Once I open my Saf' tabs on my top end iMac the window re-size is veryyyyy choooooopppeeeee.
And sometimes Saf' performance degrades.
Perhaps this is part of the solution of retuning and improving the responsive and durability of the Saf' viewing experience.
These changes should turbo boost the finder experience.
Nice to see some 'hard core' features being added to Mac Os 'Mavericks.'
Yes, in a couple ways. On a HD, the less you're reading/writing, the less likely it is that a jolt could cause damage. On an SSD, there is a finite number of writes before the cells no longer hold a charge, and this could significantly help with that if you paged a lot previously.
Both statements are true - but I doubt if it's meaningful for most users.
For most people, hard disk failures of the type you mention are quite rare. Either they fail due to factory defects or the shock is so severe that they're going to fail regardless of whether they're reading or writing. Of course, for the one person in a million whose data is saved, it's important.
For SSDs, modern SSDs have lives long enough that few people are going to exceed the lifetime, so again, it's more of a theoretical advantage than a real one.
The energy savings benefits are probably much more important.
Some pages of memory are going to contain almost incompressible image or sound data, but others are going to be a lot of zeroes with a few small values in them. I suspect 50% is probably a pretty reasonable average.
Most resources stored compressed on disk are actually decompressed when read by the application that uses them, and then kept in memory that way. For instance, graphics like JPEGs become Bitmaps. This allows a JPEG to be rendered quickly each time it needs to be drawn without having to be decompressed more than once. There's a big performance advantage, but at the cost of some RAM. This kind of thing happens all the time with graphics resources applications use to not only render working media but their own user interfaces. That application data is exactly what gets marked as inactive memory (things that aren't executable code) which is why you will generally see large compression ratios.
Compressed memory sounds great on paper, but I am skeptical of the feature working well in the real world. Automatic reference counting introduced in Lion actually increased memory consumption (since cycles are often common and they are not deallocated by ARC).
In current beta, compressed memory barely works and Mavericks will run out of memory (paging out) much more quickly than Mountain Lion. (Yes, I realize Mavericks is still in beta and things should only improve as it nears GM.)
Apple will hopefully prove me wrong and Mavericks will supplement Snow Leopard as the fastest and most efficient OS X to date.
Compressed memory sounds great on paper, but I am skeptical of the feature working well in the real world. Automatic reference counting introduced in Lion actually increased memory consumption (since cycles are often common and they are not deallocated by ARC).
In current beta, compressed memory barely works and Mavericks will run out of memory (paging out) much more quickly than Mountain Lion. (Yes, I realize Mavericks is still in beta and things should only improve as it nears GM.)
Apple will hopefully prove me wrong and Mavericks will supplement Snow Leopard as the fastest and most efficient OS X to date.
The new compiler has better warnings on cycles apparently.
There has been at least 10 years of research on the impacts of compressing memory at different levels in the CPU architecture. I remember working (10 years ago) on techniques to compress data in the cache. The results at the time were only slightly better than net-zero, but memory is more comparatively "expensive" now that it was then.
Compressing data in RAM is somewhat easier to do, in that it can be controlled via software. Moreover, there is a survey of compression techniques in the writeup, but if Apple is really smart they are using a different approach that can be computed in the GPU. Yes, there are some ways for that .
I can't pretend to understand the details of this so I have a question for those more informed than me.
If this reduces the number of page in/out to the disk, is it likely to impact the life of the hard disk or SSD?
If this is an idiotic question I apologise in advance for my ignorance.
The short answer to all these SSD wear and tear questions is "don't worry about it". The long answer is "don't worry about it".
If your SSD was bought within the last half decade or so, the durability of the memory cells (in part due to better manufacturing processes, in part due to advancements in controller logic) are rated to outlive you, even if you write to it at full speed, 24/7. Of course, other things influence the longevity of a product, so it most probably won't outlive you, but it won't be because you wore out the memory cells.
Stories that once were true of a technology have a tendency to stick around for frustratingly long after they've stopped being true. The brittleness of SLCs and MLCs of SSDs is one such story. It is no longer true. You cannot wear out the cells on your SSD by writing to it any longer. Period.
That's a pretty neat feature indeed, I'm still hitting a wall on my MBP 17" late 2010 with 8GB Ram (maxed out). But it helps to have SSD, too bad Purge command no longer works with Mavericks.
The purge command still works, it's just not an Admin permitted privilege, only root.
I own a mid 2011 27" iMac i7 3.24ghz, with 8gigs of RAM.
Currently I have only Safari opened (and activity monitor) and I am using 7.99GB with 2.5MB swap used. And my memory pressure is maxed.
Everything is slow and buggy. And launchpad is feeling this RAM use most. Launchpad is unbelievabley buggy. It lags when you enter. it lags when you exit. Swiping between pages in launchpad is met with pauses and more stutter.
I never had these issues in mountain lion. If Mavericks is supposed to utilize RAM better, how could I possibly be experiencing this level of lag? My specs are nothing to sneeze at, and my RAM configuration is more than adequate. So why the lag?
I initially upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion. After experiencing this lag I decided to wipe my HDD and do a clean install. This did not resolve my lag issue.
No one can convince me this is normal, and suggest I upgrade my RAM. If I was experiencing this lag only after I had a number of apps going, I might concede. But not simply with just Safari running.
After searching the web, I have come to understand that many people are experiencing issues similar to my own.
Where and how is this RAM compression making things better?
Comments
I took my RAM out, compressed it with a large hammer, and cant see any increase in performance.
(nearly friday !)
Sounds like a good idea. Once I open my Saf' tabs on my top end iMac the window re-size is veryyyyy choooooopppeeeee.
And sometimes Saf' performance degrades.
Perhaps this is part of the solution of retuning and improving the responsive and durability of the Saf' viewing experience.
These changes should turbo boost the finder experience.
Nice to see some 'hard core' features being added to Mac Os 'Mavericks.'
An impressive release. Can't wait to upgrade.
Amen.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seanie248
this is nonsense.
I took my RAM out, compressed it with a large hammer, and cant see any increase in performance.
(nearly friday !)
Nice one!
Both statements are true - but I doubt if it's meaningful for most users.
For most people, hard disk failures of the type you mention are quite rare. Either they fail due to factory defects or the shock is so severe that they're going to fail regardless of whether they're reading or writing. Of course, for the one person in a million whose data is saved, it's important.
For SSDs, modern SSDs have lives long enough that few people are going to exceed the lifetime, so again, it's more of a theoretical advantage than a real one.
The energy savings benefits are probably much more important.
Most resources stored compressed on disk are actually decompressed when read by the application that uses them, and then kept in memory that way. For instance, graphics like JPEGs become Bitmaps. This allows a JPEG to be rendered quickly each time it needs to be drawn without having to be decompressed more than once. There's a big performance advantage, but at the cost of some RAM. This kind of thing happens all the time with graphics resources applications use to not only render working media but their own user interfaces. That application data is exactly what gets marked as inactive memory (things that aren't executable code) which is why you will generally see large compression ratios.
In current beta, compressed memory barely works and Mavericks will run out of memory (paging out) much more quickly than Mountain Lion. (Yes, I realize Mavericks is still in beta and things should only improve as it nears GM.)
Apple will hopefully prove me wrong and Mavericks will supplement Snow Leopard as the fastest and most efficient OS X to date.
The new compiler has better warnings on cycles apparently.
And this feature doesn't depend on developers.
There has been at least 10 years of research on the impacts of compressing memory at different levels in the CPU architecture. I remember working (10 years ago) on techniques to compress data in the cache. The results at the time were only slightly better than net-zero, but memory is more comparatively "expensive" now that it was then.
Compressing data in RAM is somewhat easier to do, in that it can be controlled via software. Moreover, there is a survey of compression techniques in the writeup, but if Apple is really smart they are using a different approach that can be computed in the GPU. Yes, there are some ways for that
Quote:
Originally Posted by festerfeet
I can't pretend to understand the details of this so I have a question for those more informed than me.
If this reduces the number of page in/out to the disk, is it likely to impact the life of the hard disk or SSD?
If this is an idiotic question I apologise in advance for my ignorance.
The short answer to all these SSD wear and tear questions is "don't worry about it". The long answer is "don't worry about it".
If your SSD was bought within the last half decade or so, the durability of the memory cells (in part due to better manufacturing processes, in part due to advancements in controller logic) are rated to outlive you, even if you write to it at full speed, 24/7. Of course, other things influence the longevity of a product, so it most probably won't outlive you, but it won't be because you wore out the memory cells.
Stories that once were true of a technology have a tendency to stick around for frustratingly long after they've stopped being true. The brittleness of SLCs and MLCs of SSDs is one such story. It is no longer true. You cannot wear out the cells on your SSD by writing to it any longer. Period.
Don't worry — be happy
That's a pretty neat feature indeed, I'm still hitting a wall on my MBP 17" late 2010 with 8GB Ram (maxed out). But it helps to have SSD, too bad Purge command no longer works with Mavericks.
The purge command still works, it's just not an Admin permitted privilege, only root.
Just write:
I own a mid 2011 27" iMac i7 3.24ghz, with 8gigs of RAM.
Currently I have only Safari opened (and activity monitor) and I am using 7.99GB with 2.5MB swap used. And my memory pressure is maxed.
Everything is slow and buggy. And launchpad is feeling this RAM use most. Launchpad is unbelievabley buggy. It lags when you enter. it lags when you exit. Swiping between pages in launchpad is met with pauses and more stutter.
I never had these issues in mountain lion. If Mavericks is supposed to utilize RAM better, how could I possibly be experiencing this level of lag? My specs are nothing to sneeze at, and my RAM configuration is more than adequate. So why the lag?
I initially upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion. After experiencing this lag I decided to wipe my HDD and do a clean install. This did not resolve my lag issue.
No one can convince me this is normal, and suggest I upgrade my RAM. If I was experiencing this lag only after I had a number of apps going, I might concede. But not simply with just Safari running.
After searching the web, I have come to understand that many people are experiencing issues similar to my own.
Where and how is this RAM compression making things better?