Ram consumption

[vjicecool]

Hello Folks

I have MBA 2012 4GB 128GB with latest OS

when i use chrome i see my ram consumption is full almost 90%. i only use chrome with few tabs and one additional application ( mail client) .

I also noticed When i use youtube ...fan make noise

any tips to make ram consumption less

 

[BrettApple]

Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Unless you're using all of it plus the swap space and dipping into the yellow/red in Activity Monitor I wouldn't worry about it. And Youtube will sometimes make the fan spin up because of Flash Player and it's total lack of efficiency. One way to tell is to use Safari and play a video with the HTML5 player. It'll probably run way cooler.

Plus Chrome is a known memory hog. I use it because I love having both my personal profile with my sites and passwords plus my work profile with it's own set. Something Safari can't do. Plus we use lots of Google services. So it's a must. If I didn't depend on any of that Safari is the better choice for CPU usage, RAM usage, smoothness etc. The fan is just doing it's job.

 

[redheeler]

I also noticed When i use youtube ...fan make noise

Using Safari instead of Chrome should decrease the amount of fan noise and heat, and increase battery life. I definitely recommend you stop using Chrome.

 

[kohlson]

Using Safari instead of Chrome should decrease the amount of fan noise and heat, and increase battery life. I definitely recommend you stop using Chrome.

+1
I used Chrome for years, and still use it on my work computer. For my home system, usually not connected to a power cord, I noticed that the battery runtime was not long. I looked in Activity Monitor and saw that Chrome was using a lot of resources. I switched to Safari, and the runtime difference is quite noticeable.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Same, if I'm connected to a power source (wall) - I'm running Chrome. If I'm mobile reading - I'm on Safari. Big difference in battery life.

I wouldn't worry about the RAM usage. Like posters said - ram not being used is wasted ram.

https://goo.gl/photos/FaxN1w9tkZZa4NXU8

That's my Macbook Air 11 (2015) with Chrome running (9 tabs and Hangouts)

 

[Beachguy]

Check to see what extensions you need and which you can drop. Extensions are killers on both performance and RAM. I have a bunch that are great to have but just kill the machine for memory. Also, if the websites have a lot of video activity, it will suck RAM as well.

I disagree that unused memory is wasted memory. The system, and programs themselves, need room to do their work. The more stuff it can keep in memory, the better. Memory filled just for the sake of filling it is wasted since it takes working space out.

 

[Significant1]

I disagree that unused memory is wasted memory. The system, and programs themselves, need room to do their work. The more stuff it can keep in memory, the better. Memory filled just for the sake of filling it is wasted since it takes working space out.

When an app/document is closed, it is smarter to mark the memory as cache than free. I does not mean, it is not available for allocation just as free memory. But if the app/document is needed again before some app has allocated the memory, it saves the system a lot work, just to reactivate the memory, than to load everything up again. Unused memory, really is wasted memory.

 

[motrek]

...
I disagree that unused memory is wasted memory. The system, and programs themselves, need room to do their work. The more stuff it can keep in memory, the better. Memory filled just for the sake of filling it is wasted since it takes working space out.

You're kind of contradicting yourself here. You're saying that it's better to keep more stuff in memory but then also saying that having unused memory is good too.

The way the OS manages memory is a balancing act. It needs to divide up the physical memory between the programs you're running, various caches, and free space such that whatever you do with your computer, performance will be good and the time spent swapping data to/from the disk is minimized.

This is tricky. The OS has to essentially guess how much memory each program might want to use in the near future, and decide how much of each program's memory should be moved to the disk (if any) since it's not likely to be used in the near future (or ever). It also has to "guess" how much memory is a good amount to keep free in case you want to run a new program. It also has to decide how much memory to devote to the file/disk cache vs. the cache for memory compression.

So when you look at the all the numbers in the Memory tab of Activity Monitor, you're really just seeing a bunch of the OS's best guesses about how to allocate memory so that everything runs smoothly.

Looking at these numbers is probably pointless to anybody who doesn't work at Apple. The only useful bit is the memory pressure graph, which seems to essentially give the OS's "opinion" about whether or not you would benefit from having more memory. (Yellow or red = yes.)

 

[Beachguy]

I thought I may have been unclear. My apologies. What I mean is that arbitrarily loading up memory can keep things from having room to work. It leads to excess swapping.