Memory hogging and airplay mirror lagging

[aismaiil]

Dear all, can anyone kindly explain to me why does the activity monitor tell me I'm using 5.78GB of memory when if I add them up they amount to less than 2GB?! I have a rMBP 13'' and I've had this problem even with Mountain Lion and never seemed to understand why.

Also, when I use Safari, I get a dozen "Safari Web Content" processes that hog the memory (when I use Chrome I get "Web Rendering" processes). I don't understand exactly why.

And lastly, I was very happy to upgrade to the rMBP last year specifically to use it for airplay mirroring, but it seems to me that the processor (2.9Ghz Core i7) isn't fast enough or the 8GB memory isn't enough to handle the airplay mirroring, so it keeps lagging when mirroring even when I don't have any application open other than a movie using VLC and it gets really annoying especially when the movie just keeps lagging and cutting off... Could it be the processor or the memory? It's a shame I can't upgrade the RAM since the rMBP's RAM are bolted into the motherboard.

Thank you

 

[w0lf]

It's because the system has 2.9GB of cached memory stored which is basically stuff that no apps are actually using but were using and might use again, so the system keeps as much of that available as it can otherwise having free ram is just a waste there is not much benefit to having excess unused ram.

For Chrome each tab is it's own process so for each tab you should have at minimum 1 web rendering process going.

Honestly you shouldn't worry about 'memory hogging' unless you are seeing swap used the more memory used by the system the better your experience should be.

As for the airplay, I dunno my machine doesn't support that but AirParrot kinda kicks ass.

 

[aismaiil]

Thanks w0lf! So stupid of me not to remember that, I noticed the file cache on the side but didn't connect the dots...thanks for pointing it out!

I'm not too worried about memory hogging, but yeah sometimes the system does swap between the RAM and storage drive so it gets really slow, but maybe that's cuz I always have 30+ tabs open in Safari

I tried the free demo of Airparrot on my mid-2010 MBP but it was laggy and constantly slow, there was around a 2 second delay...so I upgraded to the rMBP to use airplay, it's much better and there's no delay but every once in a while it lags or becomes unresponsive and either the picture/movie jumps ahead to where it should be or it stops responding and I have to disconnect/reconnect airplay...

Does the full version of Airparrot work better?

Thanks again w0lf

It's because the system has 2.9GB of cached memory stored which is basically stuff that no apps are actually using but were using and might use again, so the system keeps as much of that available as it can otherwise having free ram is just a waste there is not much benefit to having excess unused ram.

For Chrome each tab is it's own process so for each tab you should have at minimum 1 web rendering process going.

Honestly you shouldn't worry about 'memory hogging' unless you are seeing swap used the more memory used by the system the better your experience should be.

As for the airplay, I dunno my machine doesn't support that but AirParrot kinda kicks ass.

 

[aismaiil]

I forgot to mention that the airplay lagging only happens when I'm mirroring, not when I'm playing something from iTunes on the TV...

 

[w0lf]

I'm not too worried about memory hogging, but yeah sometimes the system does swap between the RAM and storage drive so it gets really slow, but maybe that's cuz I always have 30+ tabs open in Safari

Yeah 30+ Safari pages should probably take up a good chunk of ram depending on what's actually going on on those pages. If you are seeing the system frequently using swap while not doing anything intensive it could be a problem but if it's only happening once in a while I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I tried the free demo of Airparrot on my mid-2010 MBP but it was laggy and constantly slow, there was around a 2 second delay...so I upgraded to the rMBP to use airplay, it's much better and there's no delay but every once in a while it lags or becomes unresponsive and either the picture/movie jumps ahead to where it should be or it stops responding and I have to disconnect/reconnect airplay...

Does the full version of Airparrot work better?

Hmm it's hard to say really I've never experinced laggy or slow streaming but I'm only doing 720p.

The thing is it's hard to tell exactly what's causing the problem, it could be one of several things:
1: Router
2: Apple TV
3: Computer

If you can't figure out what's causing the hang ups you could try something completely different if you're just streaming movies, television shows, and videos you could try using Plex + Plex Connect.

 

[aismaiil]

Yeah exactly it only happens occasionally, especially when I have so many tabs open, but it's usually soundcloud pages or articles I left aside to read later (though I started saving the articles in my reading list). Then I started using ClicktoPlugin so that flash doesn't load automatically in all the tabs and it worked it saved me a bit of memory over time...I'll try the programme u mentioned for the movies. But the streaming improved a lot when I updated the OS to Mavericks. Thanks again for ur help. Have a good day