Exponential RAM Increase

[karohan]

Doubling is not exponential

Geez. Sometimes, posts on this forum make my insides cringe (assuming you were referring to the doubling in the OP's post).

Also, regarding the high RAM usage, I don't think it's just a result of cruddy programming and a lack of optimization due to low RAM prices. I think the OS is being optimized to use more RAM, if available, to create some performance gains that way. As long as Lion is not running considerably more slowly as a result of the increased RAM usage, you should be fine.

However the possibility exists that Lion's RAM management does not appropriately release RAM when you want it, and that can cause some sluggishness.

 

[throttlemeister]

The RAM usage in Lion is unbelievable ... it's a hungry beast all right.

Unused memory is wasted memory.

 

[Cinder6]

Unused memory is wasted memory.

Yes...however, I would rather have free memory than constantly push against the limit. You're more likely to start paging in the latter case.

 

[benthewraith]

8 GB RAM here. Check this stuff out. Memory leak somewhere?

Image

Inactive RAM is free RAM that just got released. If you ran up to 3.2 GB in Safari and quit, Safari would reopen faster the next time around and the ram (or just part of it) would be converted back to active.

This information in memory is not actively being used, but was recently used.

For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from the slower hard disk.

 

[throttlemeister]

Yes...however, I would rather have free memory than constantly push against the limit. You're more likely to start paging in the latter case.

True, but then one has to ask why the memory is full. Is it full because it running out, or is it full because the OS tries to use all unused memory for caching and other useful things?

All I see on this board are people complaining about Lion's memory use, like they want to see all their memory to be labeled as 'Free'. Same thing with so-called Windows 7 'power' users by the way.

Personally, I don't see much difference in memory usage between SL and Lion, but if Lion were to use more aggressive caching mechanisms which use more available memory, I would say that is a good thing cause like I said, unused memory is wasted memory.

 

[Cinder6]

True, but then one has to ask why the memory is full. Is it full because it running out, or is it full because the OS tries to use all unused memory for caching and other useful things?

All I see on this board are people complaining about Lion's memory use, like they want to see all their memory to be labeled as 'Free'. Same thing with so-called Windows 7 'power' users by the way.

Personally, I don't see much difference in memory usage between SL and Lion, but if Lion were to use more aggressive caching mechanisms which use more available memory, I would say that is a good thing cause like I said, unused memory is wasted memory.

I'm noticing more VM swapping than with SL, but it's nothing horrible and I always enjoy upgrading RAM. You are right, though--there's no reason to want to have gigs of free memory. It is wasted at that point. I just want something of a buffer in case I start doing something memory-intensive.

 

[mrgraff]

You do not specifiy a model. For some macs 8GB costs several hundred dollars.

If you buy it directly from Apple, sure. I just put 8GB into my Early 2009 iMac, $80 from http://www.crucial.com/mac/index.aspx

 

[Cinder6]

If you buy it directly from Apple, sure. I just put 8GB into my Early 2009 iMac, $80 from http://www.crucial.com/mac/index.aspx

Server memory (registered, ECC, like the Mac Pro uses) is more expensive.

 

[Genocide]

Thost RAM requirements are increasing in a linear (and predictable) fashion, not exponentially.

Just sayin'.

Plot the numbers, it forms an exponential graph not a linear. Exponential graphs are also predictable.

 

[WeegieMac]

Unused memory is wasted memory.

But having 11mb of free RAM does nothing but throttle performance.

Bottom line, Snow Leopard never performs like that and the majority of it's processes are also 64 bit.

 

[Draeconis]

I'm surprised when you check out Console it doesn't say something like this;

22:27:41 kernel: Om nom nom, RAM!