Alle the GM users - please report your RAM stats here!

[stevemiller]

its funny to hear people talking about snow leopard's leaner ram usage compared to lion. i nearly lost my mind when i went "upgraded" to snow leopard and my computer became nearly unusable on tasks it previously handled without issue on leopard...

things have improved greatly since then (partially mitigated by bumping my ram to 8gb, no-doubt), but hearing that lion may suffer from similar excessive ram usage makes me extra wary to install it on my production machine for the first few months it's out!

 

[mabaker]

These stats are not so promising indeed!

Apple doesn't seem to care about RAM optimization but then again what will the MacBook Air users do? With only 2 GB of RAM?

 

[BlackMangoTree]

My Mac Mini 2009 and 2010 models with 4 gb of ram defiantly run slower when using multiple applications. Safari lots of times juices up 2gb of ram.

 

[mabaker]

To be honest I already find Snow Leopard terribly inefficient with RAM management... this does not bode well for Lion, especially not for Safari.

 

[Soulstorm]

To be honest I already find Snow Leopard terribly inefficient with RAM management... this does not bode well for Lion, especially not for Safari.

I really can't understand the point of all this. OS X's memory management model has been in the scope of analysts and users for years. It's no secret that OS X will use as much memory as it finds in the system, even if a program does not need it. It will free up memory when other programs need it and distribute i.e. accordingly.

I have only 2 Gigs of RAM in the machine in my signature, which is the maximum this machine can handle. Lion GM runs much faster than Leopard, even if it uses more memory. I think you should stop worrying about numbers and start caring about end-user performance. They way OS handles memory shouldn't bother you unless you are experiencing performance issues.

And for those worrying about Macbook Airs with 2 Gigs RAM and any other machine: A computer's RAM performance is measured using 2 numbers:

1) RAM quantity (how much do you have)
2) RAM speed (the MHz your RAM modules have)

So, any machine with 2 GHz RAM and machines purchased in the last 4 years will be able to run Lion flawlessly. Heck, I can do it with only 2 Gigs with RAM chips preinstalled in my machine 5 years ago!

 

[benthewraith]

Sure but Lion is fully 64-bit and will use more ram.

Have it in any way affected your usage of the operating system or is it simply because Activity Monitor reports that it is now using more ram compared to Snow Leopard that you think about it?

SL with 64-bit kernel enabled never used that much RAM.

 

[weckart]

On a Macbook with 2GB ram with just Safari, Mail and Activity Monitor open

Safari is a serious ram hog at present.

 

[hyperpiper45]

Again safari is using way too much ram.

 

[colin warburton]

What the? How did That RAM get eaten that fast? i only have Finder, safari iChat and activity monitor open. How is that like even Possible? in that many seconds

 

[mabaker]

Thank you guys for so much helpful information! Apple has to optimize the RAM management in Lion in a big way. I will not be upgrading until they do.

 

[AlphaDogg]

2.5GB free of 8GB.

That's about where I'm sitting.

What I find truly impressive is that I have no page outs — no swap being used at all.

About two weeks ago in Snow Leopard, I upgraded my RAM from 6 to 8, reducing my usual swap of 512MB down to 256MB.

Now I have about the same amount of processes running as I usually did in SL, yet the current swap limit is 64MB, with none used.

I upgraded to 8GB of ram while I was on Snow Leopard, and had no swap file. Now on Lion, I have a 65mb swap file.

 

[L14M333]

I know I have a lot running but it appears around the same from when I was on SL however in this GM i've noticed that animations on things such as launchpad and mission control are sometimes VERY sluggish and laggy... Am I the only on who has noticed this?

 

[mabaker]

Yesterday I ordered 8 GB for my Mac. By the time Apple releases 10.8 even 8 GB will seem small.

 

[admanimal]

Thank you guys for so much helpful information! Apple has to optimize the RAM management in Lion in a big way. I will not be upgrading until they do.

I don't think you or anyone here understands what optimal RAM usage would mean. Free RAM is a wasted resource. A perfectly optimized system would be smart enough to use all of the RAM all of the time and figure out what should be placed into RAM before the user demands it, so that it never appears to slow the system down.

The fact that Lion might use more RAM than Snow Leopard doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be slower or is any less "optimized."

 

[Cynicalone]

Lion loves RAM to bad I don't have any to give....



I have Safari, Mail, Twitter, Reeder, Terminal, and Preview open.

 

[mabaker]

I don't think you or anyone here understands what optimal RAM usage would mean. Free RAM is a wasted resource. A perfectly optimized system would be smart enough to use all of the RAM all of the time and figure out what should be placed into RAM before the user demands it, so that it never appears to slow the system down.

The fact that Lion might use more RAM than Snow Leopard doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be slower or is any less "optimized."

So how would you explain the fact that some users experiencing paging file activity for the very first time after installing Lion?

 

[aussie_geek]

Mail, Safari, itunes, iPhoto, Transmission and activity monitor open.

iMac has been on for about 5 hours , opening and closing heaps of stuff.

6.47GB / 12GB used

 

[saudor]

I really can't understand the point of all this. OS X's memory management model has been in the scope of analysts and users for years. It's no secret that OS X will use as much memory as it finds in the system, even if a program does not need it. It will free up memory when other programs need it and distribute i.e. accordingly.

I have only 2 Gigs of RAM in the machine in my signature, which is the maximum this machine can handle. Lion GM runs much faster than Leopard, even if it uses more memory. I think you should stop worrying about numbers and start caring about end-user performance. They way OS handles memory shouldn't bother you unless you are experiencing performance issues.

And for those worrying about Macbook Airs with 2 Gigs RAM and any other machine: A computer's RAM performance is measured using 2 numbers:

1) RAM quantity (how much do you have)
2) RAM speed (the MHz your RAM modules have)

So, any machine with 2 GHz RAM and machines purchased in the last 4 years will be able to run Lion flawlessly. Heck, I can do it with only 2 Gigs with RAM chips preinstalled in my machine 5 years ago!

I have to say windows seems better in terms of memory management. On OS X, I could have 2-3 GB ram inactive and it still starts paging like mad (and applications start slower.. probably since it has to flush out the ram on demand). I have to run "Purge" every now and then.

On lion it seems better. Currently 2.15 GB free. (up from 200 mb when i closed some apps) In SL, it would mostly turn inactive.

 

[Lord Appleseed]

2,15GB free of a total of 4GB Ram with active Skype call, Safari and Mail.

 

[mabaker]

So those who already installed and are trying out lion actively: how is the RAM usage?

 

[mabaker]

I’m hearing lots of reports about RAM, keep them coming!