Memory Usage of 10.6 vs 10.5

[pilmat]

I know I am a noob here, but I used the search function and didn't find anything. Sorry if it has been covered elsewhere.

My friend and I have identical Macbook Pro 13" (the base model with 2 GB RAM) but mine has 10.6 and his 10.5. While running Garageband, I often get a lack of memory message if I have other applications open, while he has only on rare occasions seen the message (with similar apps open).

We checked the memory usage in Activity Monitor and he uses much less memory. In fact the "wired" red slice of pie is exactly half of mine (me at 450 MB and him at 225 MB). I have even gone to the bother of turning off things like screensaver, dashboard, etc. but he still uses less memory. Even after nearly a week's usage, his inactive memory is around 200 MB while mine is up around 500 MB.

Is this a function of 10.6 vs 10.5? Or is there something I missed?

Thanks, Phil.

 

[pilmat]

No bites or did I miss the topic elsewhere?

 

[Kat King123]

well they did change something where instead of displaying 2gb if you had 2gb it would display as 1.75gb because of the shared ram with your GPU so that might be the culprit, but usually on a fresh reboot i have about 1.20gb of free ram but i run garageband, guitar rig and sometimes even photoshop at one time and it runs fine never once got that message so idk, check to see what uses the most memory in Activity Monitor

 

[fishmoose]

Someone posted that 64-bit applications uses more RAM, that might also be a factor. I have 2GB of RAM to, and it feels like you almost need 4GB these days.