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Aperture 3.0.1 a RAM hog

Enrico

Enrico

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 6, 2007
295
89
Milano / Roma
I was playing a bit with the new Aperture, when I noticed some strange and unexpectedly high RAM usage...my system whopped to an impressive 10GB used RAM when working on full screen RAWs.:eek:

What are your experiences guys, RAM-wise?

aperture3.png
 
Enrico said:
I was playing a bit with the new Aperture, when I noticed some strange and unexpectedly high RAM usage...my system whopped to an impressive 10GB used RAM when working on full screen RAWs.:eek:

What are your experiences guys, RAM-wise?

aperture3.png
Click to expand...

i believe the suggestion is to run aperture in 32-bit mode (get info on aperture, select open in 32-bit mode)..i believe there are still kinks to be worked out in 64-bit mode.

i only have 4gigs, and i saw high memory usage at first, but now aperture hovers between 750mb and about 1.91GB of usage.. (real memory)
 
I don't know why, but didn't you pay to have all that ram in the first place? I understand that Aperture is a bit buggy, but I mean, is it making you other apps run noticeable slower? I have an 8GB MBP, and sometimes Aperture hovers around 2-3GB, but hey at least it isn't as slow as the previous version, and besides thats why I paid for the 8GB in the first place so that it can be used.
 
It's called 64bit dude, welcome to technology. 32bit apps can't access anymore than 3-4GB of memory before it starts paging out and doing a larger swap on your HDD, whereas a 64bit can access something like 16 TERABYTES of RAM before needing to do that.

SO, if you've got 12GB in your machine, Aperture will happily just keep using it up. In all honesty, it's not using up anymore memory than it did before, it's just not having to page in/page out to the HDD to go over 4GB.

I've noticed that my available memory is lower than normal, but my swap hasn't been over 64MB since I got Aperture 3.

Be happy it's a memory 'hog', it's keeping your computer running faster!

PS Why on earth would you reboot it into 32bit mode unless your plugins require it? That's just retarded.
 
8GB MBP
Click to expand...
Wow, how did you get that? I thought notebook RAM only comes at 2gb and 4gb is not yet available :confused: oh and what is your MBP generation?

And since we are at the topic of RAM, I got a question, lets say the notebook technical spec mention it only accepts up to 4GB of RAM, but your OS (in this case, Snow Leopard) is able to use more then 4GB, so is it ok to add more RAM now? or it wont work since the hardware doesn't support the extra memory?
 
wheelhot said:
Wow, how did you get that? I thought notebook RAM only comes at 2gb and 4gb is not yet available :confused: oh and what is your MBP generation?
Click to expand...
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

wheelhot said:
And since we are at the topic of RAM, I got a question, lets say the notebook technical spec mention it only accepts up to 4GB of RAM, but your OS (in this case, Snow Leopard) is able to use more then 4GB, so is it ok to add more RAM now? or it wont work since the hardware doesn't support the extra memory?
Click to expand...
Depends on the laptop. This one supports 8GB, but even now the two 4GB sodimms are running in the $350-$400 range for the pair from third party resellers. And it's $500 direct from Crucial or $600 if you buy a configure-to-order 8GB MPB from Apple (don't do that).

Most 2009 model Mac laptops will recognize 8GB with the right firmware (even the 2009 mini units can be made to recognize 8GB as long as they have EFI Update 1.2) but you'll want to check your specific model before you shell out that much cash as I think the white Early 2009 Macbook still might be an exception.
 
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I had the same problem when I initially upgraded to 3.0.1. Solution: restart your computer (at least it was for me). Now it runs like a champ (or at least aperture's version of a champ).
 
It's just funny to look at the minimum specs here at the Apple website
They should state the optimal RAM in the Recommended configuration, I think it would be even more interesting!
Click to expand...
Yup! I wonder what the specs of those Apertures shown in A3 tutorial vid, it seem to process the images real quickly :rolleyes:

And darn, I guess the maximum RAM my MBP support is 4gb :( mine is the 15" First generation with MultiTouch trackpad (before Unibody)
 
wheelhot said:
Yup! I wonder what the specs of those Apertures shown in A3 tutorial vid, it seem to process the images real quickly :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I believe it is a maxed out 32GB Octad Mac Pro....with some Final Cut editing for the final video lol :D:D

And darn, I guess the maximum RAM my MBP support is 4gb :( mine is the 15" First generation with MultiTouch trackpad (before Unibody)
Click to expand...

My unibody MBP first gen late 2008 supported 6GB max, and I'm selling it because I switched to a MP (didn't need portability anymore for the next 1-2 years). Aperture3 was running so slow on the uMBP I could not retouch in full screen...
Besides everything, I still love Aperture but I understand that it needs a beast of a machine!
 
I like the increased RAM and processor usage, in theory. In practice, A3 causes the whole system to become sluggish (music skips in iTunes when I adjust photos :/)
32-bit is not a solution, I tried it the other day and it was going great, until it crashed. I could boot into the 32-bit kernel and try 32-bit mode, but why should I have to? Apple needs to sort this software out; and I shouldn't have migrated my library so hastily.
 
After the 3.0.1 and RAW updates mine sits at around 1.6GB RAM usage which is acceptable (although arguably quite a lot considering what it's doing). It doesn't deviate much from that even after hours of use. The runaway swap file memory leak issue was already fixed.
 
Aperture 3 still has some memory leaks I suspect. They fixed the really bad ones in 3.0.1 but it seems that there are still some left. "Normal" memory usage seems to be around 800mb for Aperture, so you could - theoretically - use it on a 2gb machine just fine if Apple fixed the bugs.
 
peskaa said:
Isn't RAM there to be used? I'd rather see my RAM being utilised than sitting idle all the time.
Click to expand...

+1... I'd rather Aperture consume as much memory as needed. Unused RAM is doing me no good. Consider that just 40 RAW images at 25MB each will consume a GB of RAM... so if your current project has a couple hundred images, Aperture might be prefetching them and thus using using 4-5GB or more of RAM. Much better than trying to scroll through your library or project and waiting for images to load from disk.

I also suspect that OSX is also doing it's job of paging blocks of stale memory to disk (eg. unused background apps). I would really rather have the App I'm working in fully optimized. It's nice to see an app like Aperture using as much memory as possible... even as much as 10-12GB!

sth said:
Aperture 3 still has some memory leaks I suspect. They fixed the really bad ones in 3.0.1 but it seems that there are still some left. "Normal" memory usage seems to be around 800mb for Aperture, so you could - theoretically - use it on a 2gb machine just fine if Apple fixed the bugs.
Click to expand...

A memory leak is defined as increasing memory usage without user activity or where it's unable to release memory and reuse it for something else. Is that's what's happening? If it's just consuming more memory as you navigate your library (loading more images into memory) there's nothing wrong with that.
 
I do have to say its funny when people complain about Aperture 2 being slow to load pictures and stuff, and now that its fast people are complaining about it using too much memory. Hey as long as it works fast and uses what I paid for the 8GB of Ram, then by all means, Aperture take all the memory you can. People in the end its OK if your Apps uses up your ram, especially when it means that the App will work better and faster.
 
VirtualRain said:
A memory leak is defined as increasing memory usage without user activity or where it's unable to release memory and reuse it for something else. Is that's what's happening?
Click to expand...
Doesn't need to have anything to do with user activity. A memory leak means that memory gets allocated and then "forgotten" by the application, which means that it isn't used anymore but it doesn't get freed either.

Anyway, high memory usage while doing lots of work is quite normal and expected from an application that handles big files, like Aperture does. However, if the memory usage just keeps increasing even after you finished your tasks then it can be an indication for a memory leak. 3.0.0 had some really bad ones (which caused Aperture to chew up >10gb of memory just for building thumbnails etc.) but those were fixed in 3.0.1 as far as I can see. Still, I think there are some issues that need to be worked out (click).
 
mcruzader said:
I do have to say its funny when people complain about Aperture 2 being slow to load pictures and stuff, and now that its fast people are complaining about it using too much memory. Hey as long as it works fast and uses what I paid for the 8GB of Ram, then by all means, Aperture take all the memory you can. People in the end its OK if your Apps uses up your ram, especially when it means that the App will work better and faster.
Click to expand...

It seems like we have two different sensations among users. One is happy that Aperture is using all the RAM that we paid for, while the other is somewhat 'scared' by that enormous usage.
I'm in between those two, but only because I upgraded to a Mac Pro given the impossibility to use Aperture3 on the MBP with 4gb of ram and a 7200rpm hard drive. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy now that I have a 64-bit photo program that is able to use all my system resources, including the $500 that I paid for RAM sticks. And as much as I love Aperture since his first version, the impossibility to use on the MBP made me switch to a MP.
Maybe for Aperture4 (or even 3.5 maybe) we will need 16GB for an experience without beachballs....but who knows now.

The only question that comes to my mind now is: given the similar functionality, how does Lightroom compare? Does LR really need 10-12GB to run smoothly without lag, or does it have a more efficient, or at least lower, memory usage, that can help to run it nicely in a powerful MBP machine?
 
Again, the issue here isn't with using RAM, it's with using too much. Aperture 3 is not noticeably faster than Aperture 2, and Aperture 2 used far less RAM.
I like my 8GB being used, but only when it's being used for something
 
Apple just released a ProKit update. The list of fixes includes:
- Resolved memory leaks for improved performance.

;)
 
I'm running it in 32-bit mode as it seems a lot quicker. Didn't Apple bother testing the software before launching it?... Yes of course you expect bugs in a program, but memory leaks is hard to miss.
 
Haven't tried in 32 biut mode but got a new MBP pro this week and figured now was as good of a time as any to compare it to lightroom 3 for myself. I imported 210 images (6 GB~) into both programs. So I am working with identical libraries. Aperture sits idle at about 1.3 GB of ram used and lightroom about about 243 MB both after only opening the programs and not doing anything. This is with all of the updates as well All things being equal I can't see anything aperture is doing to warrant 5x the ram usage.

Aperture has also finished all of its processing for faces and all that jazz.
 
SWC said:
Haven't tried in 32 biut mode but got a new MBP pro this week and figured now was as good of a time as any to compare it to lightroom 3 for myself. I imported 210 images (6 GB~) into both programs. So I am working with identical libraries. Aperture sits idle at about 1.3 GB of ram used and lightroom about about 243 MB both after only opening the programs and not doing anything. This is with all of the updates as well All things being equal I can't see anything aperture is doing to warrant 5x the ram usage.

Aperture has also finished all of its processing for faces and all that jazz.
Click to expand...

I suspect that Aperture caches more of the library in RAM.
 
3.0.1 fixed the memory leaks for me.

I get around 2.5 gigs of ram usage but its normal. If you are working with large raw files and doing non-destructive edits it keeps all of that information in the ram until you close aperture (hence the "Updating library" message when you close aperture after making a lot of changes).

Also 64 bit apps will take much more memory, thats why people generally run them in 64 bit mode is to use available memory to make the program run faster.

I think A3 is really fast. I switched from Lightroom and its a world of difference for me (the specs of my machine are in my sig). I have a 5D M2 and shoot only in raw mode so my files are pretty large.
 
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