My MacBook is "Paging-Out" like mad!

[Abstract]

Good grief! 1.25 GB of RAM in my old 1GHz 12" PowerBook used to be enough for me, but now with my MacBook with 1GB of RAM, I have around 90,000 page-outs after an uptime of only 1 day and 2 hours. Every time I start up iPhoto, it's ok, but once I try editing my first photo after opening the application, I get an extra 10,000 pageouts.

I realize it's because I'm short on RAM, but can I be incredibly short on RAM when 1.25GB used to be enough? Is it because this computer has 2 cores and requires a bit more RAM for both cores to use?

Also, has anybody read any reviews of the MacBook with regards to the "performance hit" I might suffer from not using two matching sticks of RAM? I have 2x 512MB sticks of RAM, but can't afford 2 x 1GB sticks. I might just buy a single stick for now, but not if getting more RAM means performance actually gets worse.

 

[mad jew]

Are you using Rosetta much? It could be that. As for getting more RAM, that'll never make it worse, even if they're unmatched. By the sounds of things, it'll help greatly.

 

[BackInTheSaddle]

Your paging problems may be totally independent of the RAM, but having more RAM won't hurt. Going from 1.25GB to 1GB may seem like a small difference, but you're decreasing the memory space by 20%. The problem is even worse because if you realize that your OS chops off a bunch of memory at load time, your apps are contending for an even more restricted space and could create thrashing conditions. On the other hand, 1GB ought to be enough to run iPhoto without a lot of headaches.

My MacBook is running with 2GB and I am able to run Photoshop, InDesign, Safari, Parallels (with Windows XP), and other apps simultaneously without any paging problems. With an uptime of 2 days, 10 hours, I still only have about 1600 page outs. Before you invest in any memory though, you might want to spend a little time investigating some other apps to see if you have the same problem or if it is just iPhoto that causes your problems to occur. Are the photos you are editing very large?

 

[Abstract]

Are you using Rosetta much? It could be that. As for getting more RAM, that'll never make it worse, even if they're unmatched. By the sounds of things, it'll help greatly.

I was always using one app under Rosetta while using iPhoto, and that was a Microsoft Office product. I'm either using Word or Excel at any one time. You think that's it?

Oh, and it's nice to know that 2 GB of RAM will help a lot, but unfortunately I can't afford it right now. Maybe I shouldn't have bought the 2x 512 MB sticks of RAM from Apple and went straight for the 1 GB.

On the other hand, the money I saved will help me buy a new camera lens.

And to answer one more question, my photos are generally from 2-4 MB. It depends on the amount of detail in the image, me thinks.

 

[Killyp]

Office under Rosetta

Microsoft Office under rosetta is REALLY slow...

Takes a up a huge amount of processing, PowerPoint runs very slowly during a presentation...

The next version will be Universal apparently (but knowing Microsoft, highly unlikely)...

 

[Passante]

Don't forget integrated graphs steals some of your available ram. At lease you have two ram slots to fill.

 

[mad jew]

I was always using one app under Rosetta while using iPhoto, and that was a Microsoft Office product. I'm either using Word or Excel at any one time. You think that's it?

I don't have an Intel machine to be able to know for sure, but Rosetta could be your problem. Is there a chance you've accidentally set one of the universal apps to open as PPC? I think this is done through the Get Info window.

Alternatively, you may have a memory leak. Do you have any obscure third party apps or hacks open? I would've thought 1GB would be absolutely fine for most Intel Mac users.