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RAM Usage too high?

N

newmakkie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 27, 2008
10
0
Saudi Arabia
:( My Macbook Pro is also using about 1.15GB RAM with virtually everything shut down (mail, safari, ical, itunes, etc). Yet, my husbands uses only about 400-500MB with the nearly identical applications left running.

I have 4GB RAM, he has 2GB RAM.

We compared the running applications one-by-one, and mine uses nearly double his for each exact same application.

Does a laptop use more memory if it has more memory to use?

This really bothers me. There does not seem to be any reason for mine to be consuming more RAM when running the same small applications as his does yet I can't figure out why?

Ahhhhh!

Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.5.2) 2.4 Penryn
 
Activity Monitor

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Not sure if that .jpg will appear or not, but it shows the high RAM usage (I only run Skitch to snap a shot occasionally, it is not normally running).

Granted, I have the RAM to use, but still, that seems ridiculous that my mac uses that much, yet my husbands uses a fraction of it for the near identical processes! :(
 
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anybody:
Computers store the information they need to access quickly in the RAM and in a file on the hard drive, called a page file. If you have more actual RAM, then it will load more data into the RAM instead of your hard drive because it can read data off RAM faster.
 
Why exactly are you worrying about it? You have all that RAM. What's the point of having it if you don't want it to be used? Just let the OS do its job.
 
Worrying because...

Guess I'm worrying because I'm a 3 week old Mac newbie.

So is my hubby.

That combined with my strong "why?" impulse, I'm trying to understand how two nearly identical new Macs can use massively different amounts of RAM running nearly the identical processes.

My virtual memory is also nearly double that as my husbands. I thought the VM would be lower if the system were indeed using actual memory rather then VM. Guess I don't understand VM as well as I thought.

I mean, if his machine has 2GB and it only using about 450-500MB, and mine has 4GB and is using about 1.3-1.5GB, then both machines are using about a quarter of their RAM capacity.

What then is the benefit of the extra RAM. Maybe I just wasted my money on the upgrade.

Guess there are no answers on this one, huh?
 
Welcome to MR, newmakkie. One hint would be to Search the forums or to have a look in the Guides section of the site, where many commonly asked questions are answered. We have covered this topic many times. Under Guides: Hardware are articles about RAM.

More RAM doesn't do much if anything for you if you are using just one program. If your program and data memory usage remains below 2 GB, then the performance delta 2 GB to 4 GB will be minimal.

Where more RAM comes into play is when you are multitasking, or using programs and data sets that use a lot of RAM.

Photoshop for example can use up to 3 GB of RAM for itself. Digital audio, digital video, and virtualization (Parallels, VMWare) are other examples of types of programs that benefit from lots of RAM.

When you are running multiple programs at once, having more RAM means that you can switch between programs faster, because the OS doesn't have to immediately flush the previous program out of memory when you go to another one. It holds it in memory for as long as that memory isn't needed for something else. That's one reason why the "Free" memory in the graph is often low -- the Inactive memory is available for use, but is not currently needed, so it is caching the previous info for a quick switch back.
 
RAM cont...

First, believe it or not, I HAVE searched far and wide for an answer to my question. I have Googled it, searched several forums, and gone to apple.com. I must have been searching wrong.

Good advise though. I follow it religiously! I'm a self-confessed research junkie! I RARELY even post to any forums because most of the answers are already out there.

OK....on to RAM.

So, is my system assigning double the RAM to each processes simply because it CAN? If I took out my 4GB, and put back in my 2GB, the system would adapt and use less like my husbands?

Of course, I would never DREAM of doing such a thing, it's just a hypothetical question.

Also, would you mind sending me the links for the articles you mentioned? I would like to read them.


Thank you for the informative reply. I appreciate it.
 
You must understand that RAM usage on OS X works very differently than on Windows or Linux. On Windows a program starts up and loads in to RAM and then when it needs more RAM it will use it. On OS X, it will take as much RAM as it can (hence more RAM usage), but when another program needs the RAM, the former will give up RAM for the latter program to use. When you should look at is not free or used RAM, but rather wired, active and inactive. If you never shutdown your computer (as you only sleep it) over a few day it will show like 5MB of free RAM, but when you're idle may show xGB INACTIVE.

I hope this clears things. Also if it's shows a low page in and out and swap used, you should be in good shape.
 
Good Explanation.

Thanks.

That is kind of what I thought since, well, I couldn't think of any other solution.

It's there, so OSX uses it.

ALL figures on mine are nearly double that of my husbands 2GB mac, even the wired, active, (and inactive of course).

I am currently showing:

337.43MB page ins. (I don't know if this is high or not.)
0 bytes for page outs and Swap Used.
477.10MB Wired
770.40MB Active
141.57MB Inactive
VM 36.80GB
Used 1.36GB
Free 2.63GB

I normally just shut the lid on my Macbook Pro, should I shut it down at night instead?

Thanks again.
 
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