[hudson1]

I've read a number of threads to try to get a handle on this question but I haven't come across a definitive answer.

What i'm wondering is if number of swapfiles created along with page ins/page outs can be used as a guide to determine if you have enough memory? If yes, what would those numbers be for swapfiles and page ins/page outs?

My hunch has been that these are more relative data points than "free memory" and "inactive memory" (read that ugly thread) but, as I said, that's just a hunch.

Lastly, are swapfiles truly persistent from boot to boot? I know there have been some comments that the system will clear them out at some interval but I can't say I've seen this occur.

Any thoughts?

(assume answers will be for 10.3.2)

[Millennium]

If you think you need to somehow tell if you have enough memory, then you probably don't have enough. Seriously. Rule Number One in Mac OS X is that you can never have too much RAM.

If you want some kind of a test, this is as good as any, but it will take some time. Launch one of the apps that you use on a regular basis, and use it as you normally would. After about five minutes, launch another of your usual apps without quitting the first, and start using it. Switch between the apps occasionally, using each one as you switch to it. Every five minutes, launch another app, until you have all the apps you normally use open and running, and you're actually doing something in all of them.

If, after launching any of your apps during this test, your machine's performance becomes drastically worse, then you probably don't have enough RAM. And by "drastically worse" I mean that you won't need any numbers or monitoring apps; if your VM is thrashing then the performance drop will be unmistakable.

How much RAM do you have now, by the way?

[hudson1]

Originally posted by Millennium:
How much RAM do you have now, by the way?

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm aware of the "too much is not enough" philosophy on memory. But, to answer your question...

I have 384MB in an eMac. I'd say that the most memory-hungry app that I routinely use is iPhoto which seems to call for over 80MB on launch. Safari can be a big memory hog, too, as it's usage can get up into that range after some extended use.

I'm trying to decide if it's worth paying yet another $100 (recently bought Panther) to replace the stock 128MB stick with a 512MB stick (to total 768), another 256MB to replace the 128 (to total 512), or just do nothing.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm aware of the "too much is not enough" philosophy on memory. But, to answer your question...

I have 384MB in an eMac. I'd say that the most memory-hungry app that I routinely use is iPhoto which seems to call for over 80MB on launch. Safari can be a big memory hog, too, as it's usage can get up into that range after some extended use.

I'm trying to decide if it's worth paying yet another $100 (recently bought Panther) to replace the stock 128MB stick with a 512MB stick (to total 768), another 256MB to replace the 128 (to total 512), or just do nothing.

iPhoto is a definite memory hog. It starts at 80, and if you move through lots of photos, it will DEFINITELY start chewing a lot more RAM. Hell, I regularly run out of RAM in iPhoto, and I have 1 GB. It's what I'd call a "memory leak" though it may be aggressive cachine. Whatever it is, it eventually brings performance to a crawl.

I'd definitely recommend more RAM if you use iPhoto a lot... photos take up a lot of space in RAM.

A good way to see what's going on is to run 'top' from a terminal window. View the pageins and pageouts:

VM: 3.61G + 86.3M 86506(0) pageins, 30263(0) pageouts

If you EVER see the numbers in parentheses get large (say, 50), then you have exhausted physical RAM, because you're actively paging. That's the computer telling you "more RAM would make me very happy."