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Vanishing RAM
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Nai no Kami
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Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Buenos Aires
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Apr 26, 2001, 11:43 AM
 
Does everyone recalls the 'vanishing RAM effect'?. On Classic after a while using the system, launching and quitting apps, the sum of the amounts of memory used by each app plus the free memory amount was not the installed RAM. This difference also widened if the machine had 'intense use'. I have heard that this may be due to 'not too good' RAM chipsets and/or the inefficiency of the memory management prior to X.

The question, Misters...
Is there a way to see the amount of RAM used and the free RAM so that the vanishing RAM effect can be assessed? Does this effect occur with X?
Thank you all.

Y no entienden nada... ¡y cómo se divierten!...
     
RichardET
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Apr 26, 2001, 03:35 PM
 
OSx handles memory better than OS 9.x does. What you are describing is a software problem, not a hardware problem.
     
starfleetX
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Join Date: Sep 2000
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Apr 26, 2001, 11:35 PM
 
Originally posted by Nai no Kami:
Does everyone recalls the 'vanishing RAM effect'?. On Classic after a while using the system, launching and quitting apps, the sum of the amounts of memory used by each app plus the free memory amount was not the installed RAM. This difference also widened if the machine had 'intense use'. I have heard that this may be due to 'not too good' RAM chipsets and/or the inefficiency of the memory management prior to X.
That was the ancient manner of Mac OS 9. Mac OS X manages memory much better so you'll never have to worry about setting memory requirements or virtual memory.
The question, Misters...
Is there a way to see the amount of RAM used and the free RAM so that the vanishing RAM effect can be assessed? Does this effect occur with X?
Thank you all.
The "vanishing RAM effect" you describe no longer exists. However, to see the RAM usage, go to the Applications folder, in Utilities, open ProcessViewer. This program shows the % of the CPU used by a process, % of RAM used, the owner of the process, the status, and the PID (process identification number). You can Quit or Force Quit processes here as well.

Alternatively, you can open the terminal and type "top" (without the quotes). To stop top, press control-c. For instructions on how to read/use top, use the command "man top" in the terminal (man brings up a manual from Unix programs). Press the space bar to advance a page down when reading it.

Another similar program is "ps" but it doesn't update constantly like top does. Try a "man ps" as well for its options. "ps aux" will display the running processes much like ProcessViewer does.

[This message has been edited by starfleetX (edited 04-26-2001).]
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