Scary RAM usage

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I think I soon will need to put more RAM in my machine





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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    System UI server hung!? Wow.
  • Reply 2 of 21
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    My G5 says that AIM uses 268 MB virtual memory and 16 MB normal ram. Is this right? it seems to be an AWEFUL lot of VM for such a small program. Now that I look, everything seems to be really, really high. 5GB of virtual memory?!?! and 7GB for Leonis? I hope I am reading this wrong.
  • Reply 3 of 21
    I too have come across this in the new activity viewer...I sure hope to GOD it is just a bug in the activity viewer program. The exact same applications did not take NEAR that in Jag....Just a fleeting hope.





    ~tommy \
  • Reply 4 of 21
    I think this is normal for X. I don't know how the memory system works, but it's not the same as in 9. All I know is that it's not a bug, and 'top' from the commandline will show the same thing.
  • Reply 5 of 21
    quaremquarem Posts: 254member
    Mac OS X caches everything it can in RAM so it inevitably uses most of your RAM. This improves performance when Mac OS X can just use the RAM cache to grab data instead of accessing the hard disk which is a lot slower than RAM.



    I have 1.25 GB of RAM and after a couple hours of use it is not uncommon for my free RAM to be 100 MB or less. If you have enough RAM to keep the applications you are running in physical memory than the only benefit that more RAM is going to provide is the ability to cache more data. It does make a noticeable difference, but it's not necessary.
  • Reply 6 of 21
    dumb question:

    is the activity monitor a panther-only feature? I've been searching for something like this (10.2.8). Maybe I should update...

    By the way, will the bundled software, that came with my powerbook still work on panther?
  • Reply 7 of 21
    Quote:

    Originally posted by future-ex-pc-user

    dumb question:

    is the activity monitor a panther-only feature? I've been searching for something like this (10.2.8). Maybe I should update...

    By the way, will the bundled software, that came with my powerbook still work on panther?




    its the process viewer, isnt it?
  • Reply 8 of 21
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Yea, activity monitor comes with 10.3
  • Reply 9 of 21
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The "Real Memory" number is an inflated number since it counts a fair amount of shared and unused memory as well...
  • Reply 10 of 21
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Scary? That's good!



    If you've got the RAM, OS X will use it!



    You'd rather it not be used? Why? Just so you have some lying around? :-)



    OS X, when not stricken by application memory leaks, makes good use of your RAM, using every bit it needs and moving files into and out of RAM as needed. If you've got a 500MB PS file to open, go ahead. OS X will allocate the RAM you need so long as a "more important" process doesn't need it.



    Oh Joy!
  • Reply 11 of 21
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Problem is, I don't have that kind of ram in the first place. (512MB) Virtual memory takes time to access and I have a whopping 5GB of it. I'm just wondering why there is so much and how bad it is slowing down my system.
  • Reply 12 of 21
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jccbin





    If you've got the RAM, OS X will use it!



    You'd rather it not be used? Why? Just so you have some lying around? :-)





    Of course I would LOVE to see the RAM being used and not just sitting around doing nothing



    But the number really shocked me when I first looked at the activity monitor
  • Reply 13 of 21
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ebby

    Problem is, I don't have that kind of ram in the first place. (512MB) Virtual memory takes time to access and I have a whopping 5GB of it. I'm just wondering why there is so much and how bad it is slowing down my system.



    It doesn't hurt anything for it to allocate a lot of VM - saves having to allocate it later. It doesn't mean it's actually using it.



    To check on the impact VM is having on your system (which means you need more RAM), look at the "pageouts" number. With 2 GB this is almost always zero, so it isn't even using the VM at all in that case. OTOH, if you try to run X in 128MB, you'll see a large # for the pageouts, because 128MB isn't enough and it has to use VM.
  • Reply 14 of 21
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    So if I have this in 10.2.8 in top in Terminal:



    PhysMem: 68.7M wired, 376M active, 188M inactive, 632M used, 7.50M free

    VM: 4.45G + 80.9M 56200(3) pageins, 28396(0) pageouts



    does that mean 0 page outs or 28 thousand?
  • Reply 15 of 21
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    So if I have this in 10.2.8 in top in Terminal:



    PhysMem: 68.7M wired, 376M active, 188M inactive, 632M used, 7.50M free

    VM: 4.45G + 80.9M 56200(3) pageins, 28396(0) pageouts



    does that mean 0 page outs or 28 thousand?




    It means you have 28396 pageouts total and 0 at this very moment.
  • Reply 16 of 21
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    It means you have 28396 pageouts total and 0 at this very moment.



    It means you have had 28396 pageouts total cumulative since you last restarted and 0 at this very moment.
  • Reply 17 of 21
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    What are pageins?
  • Reply 18 of 21
    Quote:

    What are pageins?



    VM_swap into the RAM Its pageouts that you worry about.
  • Reply 19 of 21
    cindercinder Posts: 381member
    wait, what're pageouts?



    Page ins/outs: 55395/2378



    1.25GB RAM
  • Reply 20 of 21
    cindercinder Posts: 381member
    Oh, whoops.

    Missed the above explanation.

    geez.

    I guess 1.25GB ain't enough for heavy Photoshop/Indesign . . .
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