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Anyone try 10.8 with 2GB RAM?
- Thread starter artguy10
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You have a new processor and an SSD - the SSD will make a massive difference to system responsiveness.
You mean "as much"... an SSD is still much slower than RAM, and so the system will slow down once you begin to use VM, just not as much.
It still matters a lot if you're doing professional work that requires lots of RAM.
I have a 2GB MacBook Air - runs fine with Mountain Lion. If anything, it's a bit faster than Lion.
2GB is okay as long as you aren't trying to do too much at the same time. It's when you have, say, Safari, Chrome, XCode, Eclipse, Illustrator, Photoshop, Spotify, Twitter, and Mail all up at the same time that you'll start to run into issues
2GB is okay as long as you aren't trying to do too much at the same time. It's when you have, say, Safari, Chrome, XCode, Eclipse, Illustrator, Photoshop, Spotify, Twitter, and Mail all up at the same time that you'll start to run into issues
Screenshot after ML
So, Artguy, here's what the activity monitor looks like this morning. As you can see in my dock, I've also got iPhoto running. All my apps opened lickity-spit except for iTunes, which took maybe 4-5 seconds.
This computer hasn't run this fast since it came out of the box. Personally, I would recommend the update if you want the features. I haven't configured notifications yet, so everything's in there, and Contacts..I finally have my 3 column screen back. Yay! I hated Lion's Address Book. I've got over 600 contacts, and they're all in groups so I can keep track of them, so it was a hassle going back and forth. Now if only I could manipulate them in IOS, that's what I'm waiting for!
I just tried a restart with the "open all windows" checked to see how long it would take. About 1:20. Much better than before.
Best of luck, and if anything changes, I'll let you know.
So, Artguy, here's what the activity monitor looks like this morning. As you can see in my dock, I've also got iPhoto running. All my apps opened lickity-spit except for iTunes, which took maybe 4-5 seconds.
This computer hasn't run this fast since it came out of the box. Personally, I would recommend the update if you want the features. I haven't configured notifications yet, so everything's in there, and Contacts..I finally have my 3 column screen back. Yay! I hated Lion's Address Book. I've got over 600 contacts, and they're all in groups so I can keep track of them, so it was a hassle going back and forth. Now if only I could manipulate them in IOS, that's what I'm waiting for!
I just tried a restart with the "open all windows" checked to see how long it would take. About 1:20. Much better than before.
Best of luck, and if anything changes, I'll let you know.
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really only with heavier software and heavier tasks (i.e. creating an HD movie in iMovie etc.)
I haven't tried ML with 2GB.. But I have a feeling that if you decide to install ML with only 2GB it's be incredibly slow. I remember when I installed Lion on my 2010 unibody MB with 2GB of Ram and it was horrible, very slow and I always got the beachball. So my advice for you would be to stay on Snow Leopard if you can unless you actually want to upgrade your ram.
Having a lot of memory paged out to disk isn't necessarily a bad thing; if the contents are used infrequently then it might not make much of a difference to usability, it just means that things you haven't used in a well (but kept open) may be sluggish to re-open. That said, Mountain Lion seems to generate less page-outs, which suggests it's better at keeping the right things in memory, and for as long as possible, though of course it can't work miracles; if there's not enough space then it simply has to dump something to disk.
I think that what's most important though is what the machine is to be used for; for just basic surfing and e-mail 2gb ought to be plenty, so long as you don't open a ton of tabs, or if you do, so long as you're not flicking between them all the time (i.e - letting them page out won't be a big deal).
Interestingly auto-termination is something that may be a huge benefit to 4gb and less users, as applications start adopting it more and more. For the rest of use it's more of an annoyance, but there you are.
You're getting your terminology confused. Page ins are when the OS writes the contents of memory to the disk, page outs are when the OS writes them from the disk to memory. The former doesn't matter, the latter slows down your computer. I've got 8 GB RAM, been running for 6 days, and I have nearly 4.5 million page ins. I don't have a single page out. That's ideal, though I haven't run any heavy software since I upgraded to ML.
Page ins are no problem. Page outs can be problematic. It all depends on your ratio of page ins to page outs.
I have it running on an MBA from 2010 with 2 GB of RAM. It's the absolute lowest configuration that Mountain Lion supports! Only 1.4 GHz CPU!
Having said that, it is working noticeably slower than Snow Leopard, that's true and somewhat on par with Lion, still very much passable.
I would wait till 10.8.1 for graphics issues improvements, though.
Having said that, it is working noticeably slower than Snow Leopard, that's true and somewhat on par with Lion, still very much passable.
I would wait till 10.8.1 for graphics issues improvements, though.
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Will be putting in the RAM for ML
Artguy: Now that my daughter and I have used the computer for a while, I've decided ML is too much for the 2 GB HDD set up. Because of the way we use it, it's running much slower after about a week. Shutting down and restarting was enormously difficult last night. Took over 4 minutes. Had to close the apps manually, etc...
If I were you, I'd stay with SL. I really liked that system. Our equipment was built for it, and the multi-tasking of the newer OS's is just too much for the hardware. It really slows down, even when you're doing light tasks, but a bunch of them. Lion did the same things, and I had high hopes that ML would straighten it out; and it did at first. But now it's just painful.
Best of luck with whatever you decide.
Artguy: Now that my daughter and I have used the computer for a while, I've decided ML is too much for the 2 GB HDD set up. Because of the way we use it, it's running much slower after about a week. Shutting down and restarting was enormously difficult last night. Took over 4 minutes. Had to close the apps manually, etc...
If I were you, I'd stay with SL. I really liked that system. Our equipment was built for it, and the multi-tasking of the newer OS's is just too much for the hardware. It really slows down, even when you're doing light tasks, but a bunch of them. Lion did the same things, and I had high hopes that ML would straighten it out; and it did at first. But now it's just painful.
Best of luck with whatever you decide.
I have a 2 GB MBA, 2011 with ML installed and it is working beautifully. I am not a "power user", but just use my laptop for e-mail, surfing, movies etc. I find that it is faster than Lion.
Sorry, I've never had Snow Leopard on this laptop, but ML definitely is fine for my use. That being said, I'm not a gamer, and I don't usually have more than 3 tabs open in Safari.... but I want people to know that ML for the casual user is fine. Just my .02!
Did you guys do a fresh install or upgrade? i have a Unibody Macbook with 2GB or RAM, I do want to get 4GB (The max for this) soon. Thanks
2011 MBA 2Gb RAM, 64Gb SSD
I have a 2011 MBA 2Gb Ram and 64Gb SSD with LION. RIght now I use it for light work and it runs smooth. But I plan to use Xcode and iPad simulator soon. Should I upgrade to ML. since it is MBA dont have option to upgrade RAM. Please suggest.
TIA!
I have a 2011 MBA 2Gb Ram and 64Gb SSD with LION. RIght now I use it for light work and it runs smooth. But I plan to use Xcode and iPad simulator soon. Should I upgrade to ML. since it is MBA dont have option to upgrade RAM. Please suggest.
TIA!
Update~
Hi Artguy10~Update:
The 2009 macbook pro with 2 gb ram continued to run and restart slowly, painfully slow, so I upgraded the RAM tonight. It's like a new machine! We'll see how long this lasts, next stop new SSD. Best computer I've ever bought; portable, upgradeable, built like a brick house, awesome display, etc...
I still think you should stay with SL. I loved that system!
Hi Artguy10~Update:
The 2009 macbook pro with 2 gb ram continued to run and restart slowly, painfully slow, so I upgraded the RAM tonight. It's like a new machine! We'll see how long this lasts, next stop new SSD. Best computer I've ever bought; portable, upgradeable, built like a brick house, awesome display, etc...
I still think you should stay with SL. I loved that system!
Mba 2.1 2gb ssd
I am running ML on MBA 2.1 with 2 GB and SSD. Works ok for light regular tasks. Runs hotter than SL.
ML runs definitely better than Lion ever did (I ran Lion as upgrade and as clean install). I found that the graphic card is sometimes overwhelmed and used all tricks to shut off ML eyecandy.
I am running ML on MBA 2.1 with 2 GB and SSD. Works ok for light regular tasks. Runs hotter than SL.
ML runs definitely better than Lion ever did (I ran Lion as upgrade and as clean install). I found that the graphic card is sometimes overwhelmed and used all tricks to shut off ML eyecandy.