Can't afford upgrade to 4GB RAM - How can I tune instead

[LERsince1991]

Hi,

From viewing the activity monitor a lot I can see that my RAM is always nearly full and I can't afford to upgrade it at the moment to 4Gb as it costs £85 from crucial, I was thinking it would cost more like £50...

Are they're any steps I can use to make the most of my macbook as it is?
I use CS4 (PS, ID, Br), google sketchup, itunes, safari, adobe camera raw and mail alot, most at the same time.

Viewing my activity monitor they're is always about 20MB RAM free...
I've also only got about 30GB HD free space which I will try and solve in a minute. Also in the memory section again it says the Virtual memory size is 130GB... WHAT?! This isnt an old laptop, and its still powerful, Are they're any tips to maximise the potential of it for my work?

I was hoping to use this laptop for about 5 years at university - thats how I justified the cost. It is also one of the most powerful laptops anyone on my course has and I am grateful that I can produce a higher quality of work because of it, but it seems to be going a bit slow for my pace at the moment.

Thanks for any comments and help,
Luke.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Its always been my understanding that you can't tell, just because most memory is used, that adding more will help, in that OSX always tries to use as much as there is (why wouldn't it?), so if you add another 4MB, you are still going to find only a little bit free.
Having said that, more memory probably will help, especially for CS4, but its difficult to say how much, as it depends what you are doing. I wouldn't keep a memory hog like cs4 open unless i was using it, I might also focus on making sure I don't have unnecessary images open in it, just the ones I'm working on.
Save up for a while, hopefully the falling memory prices and your saving will intercept quicker than you think.

 

[LERsince1991]

Its always been my understanding that you can't tell, just because most memory is used, that adding more will help, in that OSX always tries to use as much as there is (why wouldn't it?), so if you add another 4MB, you are still going to find only a little bit free.
Having said that, more memory probably will help, especially for CS4, but its difficult to say how much, as it depends what you are doing. I wouldn't keep a memory hog like cs4 open unless i was using it, I might also focus on making sure I don't have unnecessary images open in it, just the ones I'm working on.
Save up for a while, hopefully the falling memory prices and your saving will intercept quicker than you think.

Thanks, I think 4Gb will help quite a bit, my laptops really fast until I run lots and the memory gets full. it is necessary for me to have what I have open, itunes for listening to music, mail for ... mail, google sketchup for 3d models (getting more and more detailed), InDesign to work on my presentation layout, photoshop to edit the images in indesign, safari for research and browsing, acrobat for reviewing my progress easier...

I'd also like to add its not that I can't afford the £85 for 4GB, it's more the fact I can't justify it considering I spent a massive amount on my Macbook only 9 months ago

Thanks,
Luke

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Thanks, I think 4Gb will help quite a bit, my laptops really fast until I run lots and the memory gets full. it is necessary for me to have what I have open, itunes for listening to music, mail for ... mail, google sketchup for 3d models (getting more and more detailed), InDesign to work on my presentation layout, photoshop to edit the images in indesign, safari for research and browsing, acrobat for reviewing my progress easier...

I'd also like to add its not that I can't afford the £85 for 4GB, it's more the fact I can't justify it considering I spent a massive amount on my Macbook only 9 months ago

Thanks,
Luke

Fair enough, so for the moment, dont run things you are unlikely to multitask on together, especially things that eat memory, which I imagine in particular would be CS4 (big memory hog) and google sketchup (never heard of it but I'm guessing anything to do with 3D consumes memory like nobodies business?

 

[eawmp1]

I use CS4 (PS, ID, Br), google sketchup, itunes, safari, adobe camera raw and mail alot, most at the same time.

Less concurrent multitasking until you can save up for the RAM...sorry

 

[LERsince1991]

I've archived some of my old work onto my external 1TB HD drive, removed some system preferences items (they appeared to help!) and gave it a bit of a spring clean and now its notably faster, I'll also try and reduce the resolution of images I'm working with in iD as I tend to do renders in twice full HD then scale them down to thumbnail images on my presentation

HDD went from 28GB free to 57GB free, RAm changed slightly but appears faster and everythings quicker for me to find Give it a month and I might upgrade to 4GB if I've got some spare cash

 

[BlizzardBomb]

Flash prices change all the time (4GBs used to be £75 not long ago, even factoring out VAT increase) and have been rising as of late, due to higher than normal demand/ low supply. I'd expect this to balance out soon and probably start easing down a couple of months after, so if you can't afford it now, wait and see.