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Tiger abusing RAM.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Silicon Valley
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Hi all,
I have a Powerbook 1.67Ghz with 1GB of RAM. Everytime I look in Activity Monitor I'm left with between 10-30 megs of free RAM. Is this normal? I wouldn't think so. The only programs I usually leave open are iCal, Mail, iChat, and sometimes Safari/iTunes. Is there some program to instantly free up RAM? Any input is appreciated.
Thanks.
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MacBook Pro 2.4GHz C2D
320GB HDD
4GB RAM
256MB VRAM
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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Your concern is a common one, but there are a multiplicity of threads on OS X memory management. Search and you shall find.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: If I tellz ya, then I gotsta killz ya !
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I've only got 1gb in my B&W G4 and run many more ( & more demanding) apps than you listed, and I almost always have 2-300mb free. But what you really need to be concerned about is Pageouts.
Open Terminal.app, type in top -u, and look for line with page-ins & out on it. See what your numbers are. If Page-outs are anything but Ø, then you need more real ram.....
Safari is known to have serious memory leaks, which could be the culprit.
Try another browser and see what happens......
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Personally I find it hilarious that you have the hots for my gramma. Especially seeins how she is 3x your age, and makes your Brittney-Spears-wannabe 30-something wife look like a rag doll who went thru WWIII with a burning stick of dynamite up her a** :)
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Under Your Stairs
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This is normal for Unix. The OS will release ram as needed by other apps. Its called memory management, unlike some OSs, *caugh* Windowz *caugh*......
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Sieb
Blackbook
(2Ghz, 2GB, 100Gig, week 21)
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Columbus, OH
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Originally Posted by sieb
This is normal for Unix. The OS will release ram as needed by other apps. Its called memory management, unlike some OSs, *caugh* Windowz *caugh*......
..and the Classic Mac OS. What a nightmare of manual jury-rigging that was!
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
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Originally Posted by sieb
This is normal for Unix. The OS will release ram as needed by other apps. Its called memory management, unlike some OSs, *caugh* Windowz *caugh*......
What? Since when does Windows not have memory management?
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Chuck
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"Instead of either 'multi-talented' or 'multitalented' use 'bisexual'."
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Norway (I eat whales)
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Free ram space is wasted ram space. Available ram space is ram space that is free to be used. Available ram space doesn't have to be empty.. That's memory management under OS X.
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Sniffer gone old-school sig
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Silicon Valley
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Here is the output from top - u in terminal:
PhysMem: 95.5M wired, 439M active, 391M inactive, 926M used, 97.4M free
VM: 5.67G + 131M 43476(0) pageins, 675(0) pageouts
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MacBook Pro 2.4GHz C2D
320GB HDD
4GB RAM
256MB VRAM
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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Nothing at all to worry about there, mrumril. Now if, in a short period of time, you were to see a lot of pageouts (or if pageouts outnumbered pageins), then free RAM would be a concern.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Baninated
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: In yer threads
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Originally Posted by bowwowman
Safari is known to have serious memory leaks, which could be the culprit.
Try another browser and see what happens......
Older version did. Version 2 seamed to have gotten that taken care of.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2003
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Originally Posted by KevinK
Older version did. Version 2 seamed to have gotten that taken care of.
Not really
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Chester, UK
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Here's my results from top -u
PhysMem: 97.2M wired, 238M active, 323M inactive, 659M used, 108M free
VM: 4.98G + 165M 307146(0) pageins, 59542(0) pageouts
Is this ok? Note that my comp has been up for 11 days.
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(The dark lord has risen again......Beware)
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Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2000
Status:
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Originally Posted by bowwowman
I've only got 1gb in my B&W G4 and run many more ( & more demanding) apps than you listed, and I almost always have 2-300mb free. But what you really need to be concerned about is Pageouts.
Open Terminal.app, type in top -u, and look for line with page-ins & out on it. See what your numbers are. If Page-outs are anything but Ø, then you need more real ram.....
No! If pageouts/pageins are increasing rapidly and regularly then you need more RAM.
I've got 2.5GB of RAM and shortly after a reboot (a few hours) I've got 42959/2921 pagein/pageouts. After a few weeks of uptime, these numbers are in the millions. This is not a problem. This is by design.
Additionally, OS X will try and fill all your RAM, it's normal for it to operate with about 20MB free all the time. This is not a problem. This is by design.
In general, unless you actually have a problem, don't worry about memory statistics on Mac OS X, the operating system can handle its memory very well. The virtual memory system in a modern operating system is extremely complex, but in general you can just trust it's doing its job correctly.
- proton
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Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2000
Status:
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Here's my results from top -u
PhysMem: 97.2M wired, 238M active, 323M inactive, 659M used, 108M free
VM: 4.98G + 165M 307146(0) pageins, 59542(0) pageouts
Is this ok? Note that my comp has been up for 11 days.
That is fine. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
- proton
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Newport News, VA USA
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Ouch!
Code:
PhysMem: 98.4M wired, 272M active, 134M inactive, 505M used, 6.81M free
VM: 7.99G + 142M 1317550(0) pageins, 2241463(0) pageouts
More pageouts than pageins can't be good, right?
uptime is reporting (incorrectly) up 29 days...
G5 Dual 1.8 GHz -- 512 MB RAM -- Not my machine, so I can't just go out and buy RAM for it.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Chester, UK
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Originally Posted by proton
That is fine. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
- proton
Thanks for the quick response.
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(The dark lord has risen again......Beware)
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: The Sar Chasm
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Originally Posted by cybergoober
Ouch!
Code:
PhysMem: 98.4M wired, 272M active, 134M inactive, 505M used, 6.81M free
VM: 7.99G + 142M 1317550(0) pageins, 2241463(0) pageouts
More pageouts than pageins can't be good, right?
not necessarily. That just means inactive stuff has been sent to VM, but hasn't been called back up, as of yet.
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When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Nov 1999
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Originally Posted by cybergoober
Ouch!
Code:
PhysMem: 98.4M wired, 272M active, 134M inactive, 505M used, 6.81M free
VM: 7.99G + 142M 1317550(0) pageins, 2241463(0) pageouts
More pageouts than pageins can't be good, right?
uptime is reporting (incorrectly) up 29 days...
G5 Dual 1.8 GHz -- 512 MB RAM -- Not my machine, so I can't just go out and buy RAM for it.
If I recall correctly, top only reports the total number of pageins and pageouts in a given time period, not since boot, so having more pageouts than pageins may actually be a Good Thing. It depends on how you're using the system, but one way to get this situation would be by quitting RAM-intensive applications, in which case the system is merely cleaning out its virtual memory.
Ahem. To answer mrurmil's question: OSX manages memory in a very different way from OS9 and Windows, in that applications do not take up fixed amounts of RAM. This is why you can't just set the amount of RAM used by an app; the concept doesn't really apply. Applications will ordinarily take up as much RAM as they can -which may be more than they need- but RAM which isn't actually being used will be freed up by the OS for other apps as needed. It's a different way of doing things, but on the whole it tends to be more efficient. As such, there is no app to "instantly free up RAM" like the old Mac OS Purge, but there isn't a need for such an app either.
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You are in Soviet Russia. It is dark. Grue is likely to be eaten by YOU!
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