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rdf8585 · Nov 30, 2006, 03:10 AM

A link to my activity monitor is below, but I have some questions. If there's 306 MB of "inactive" RAM, then why isn't used to prevent all these pageouts? There really should be no reason for paging out on 1 GB of RAM while doing nothing more than low level tasks like browsing, chat, and listening to radio stations in iTunes. Suggesting I add more RAM is of no help - G4 Mini can't take more than a GB. Safari using so much RAM is hardly a rarity even though I only use one window or usually up to 2 tabs, at most.

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/52/amyc8.png

TETENAL · Nov 30, 2006, 03:35 AM

The number of pageouts that is displayed there cumulates since the computer has been turned on, so it's really telling nothing unless we'd know how long it has been running.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

rdf8585 · Nov 30, 2006, 03:45 AM

1/2 a day at most

Simon · Nov 30, 2006, 04:06 AM

You have no free memory left. At some point since you last logged in you did something which required a lot of memory. More than what was free at that time. That's when the page outs happened.

If you're interested in finding out what uses up memory when, you should take a look at Memory Monitor. It's free btw.

Chuckit · Nov 30, 2006, 05:04 AM

Browsing may not be a CPU-intensive task, but it's hardly light on memory use.

itguy05 · Nov 30, 2006, 02:32 PM

Apple has all the answers you need:
Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

UNIX handles memory differently (and more efficiently, IMHO) than Windows. In short, it's nothing to worry about.

rdf8585 · Nov 30, 2006, 02:33 PM

I disagree. Doing the same things for the same length of time would leave me with 650-700 MB of free memory (out of 1 GB) as opposed to 0 with tons of pagoeuts on OSX,

Simon · Dec 1, 2006, 03:55 AM

On UNIX systems something you should acknowledge is that free RAM = unused RAM = waste = bad. As long as you don't have many page outs you do not want free RAM. You want all that RAM to be used for something. Obviously if you load new stuff there has to be room, but that's where the smart memory handling comes in. Inactive RAM is then paged out to make room for new stuff. If RAM is free, that means the system is not making use of the bits you paid for.

P · Dec 1, 2006, 08:25 AM

Originally Posted by Simon

On UNIX systems something you should acknowledge is that free RAM = unused RAM = waste = bad.

True - anything "free" is used as disk cache. I'd really prefer if the reporting was done the way Win NT (and 2k, and XP) does it, where memory used as disk cache is reported as free in Task Manager. That would give newbies (and not-so-newbies) a better hint of how much memory is really in use.

rdf8585 · Dec 1, 2006, 07:26 PM

As someone who's used various versions of Windows since 3.1, I just feel more comfortable knowing the free RAM is there. Some see it as a waste; I see it as comforting.

TETENAL · Dec 1, 2006, 08:42 PM

Didn't you read Apple's support document we linked to? Inactive RAM for all intents and purposes is "free" RAM. You have over 300 MB of free RAM, that should be comforting.