After snow leopard my mac hogs memory (atleast i think)

[helix21]

After installing snow leopard (i think thats the reason) my mac is behaving oddly, not entirely in terms of performance but the way it handles the memory available. I am happy with the upgrade, granted it has a few quirks but it improved my overall performance quite a bit.

As you can see, the amounts of page outs and swaps are massive and sometimes with just firefox and itunes open it can start to cripple. I am infact forced to quit dropbox when i need to launch word or mail from this situation, which is a pain. To the best of my knowledge this did not happen in leopard, primaryly the reason i stuck with 2GB RAM. I dont currently have the funds to upgrade to 4GB RAM (i am not that cheap, just saving up to get the iPhone 3GS). In leopard, i could open a lot of programs with no issues.

So, any maintainence required (although i am led to believe you dont need to in OSX) on my part? Anything i can do?

As a last resort, should i reinstall snow leopard incase somethings wrong somewhere?

Also , can anyone explain to me what exactly this inactive and wired memory is?

 

[macintoshtoffy]

Why didn't you do a clean install?

Clean install, Clean install, Clean install!

 

[maflynn]

Did you take note of your memory utilization before upgrading to SL because to me for having 2gb your screen shot does not look bad.

I'd say that you're only noticing now because you upgraded to SL, and its been that way.

Leopard is a hog, and apple has made great strides to slim it down and increase performance in SL, so the odds are pretty good (at least in my opinion) that your activity monitor looks better in SL then leopard

 

[helix21]

Why didn't you do a clean install?

Clean install, Clean install, Clean install!

Did you take note of your memory utilization before upgrading to SL because to me for having 2gb your screen shot does not look bad.

I'd say that you're only noticing now because you upgraded to SL, and its been that way.

Leopard is a hog, and apple has made great strides to slim it down and increase performance in SL, so the odds are pretty good (at least in my opinion) that your activity monitor looks better in SL then leopard

I ll take that, dont want to do a clean install unless absolutely necessary. Maybe its just psychological? I will upgrade to 4GB once i get the funds

Do you know what wired memory is?

 

[maflynn]

Do you know what wired memory is?

Memory (really data) that cannot be written to disk, e.g., written to the swap file. Some applications required some memory structures to remain in ram for specific reasons and this "wired" memory is just that.