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Why is OS X memory management so terrible?
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OS X ram management is very good and dramatically better than Windows.
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You don't understand the relationship between memory and other hardware resources such as cpu or the fact that Adobe apps have always been poorly coded memory pigs. Your comment about Ubuntu is equally silly.
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You don't understand the relationship between memory and other hardware resources such as cpu or the fact that Adobe apps have always been poorly coded memory pigs. Your comment about Ubuntu is equally silly.
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Again, it's still rather easy to do with a bit of quick searching. I'd rather believe you though. I didn't say that I thought you WERE lying, just that it was possible and I hoped you weren't.
Going back to the OP's scenario, I reckon he/she should exit out of all the other apps whilst playing WoW and see if it makes a difference. As already mentioned by others, this is not a RAM management issue.
but its not that hard to spend 50 sec to restart your computer and your ram usage to be normal again.
As others have pointed out, this is not a CPU usage issue. It's at less than 100% usage out of 800% (usually peaks at ~150%). It isn't a hard drive issue either. This HDD can do sustained writes of 20+MB/s from what I've seen. When running WoW, I'll occasionally see a 4 or 5 MB spike, but it usually stays around a few hundred KB/s.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. In theory maybe this is how the OS is supposed to work. But it actuality, it doesn't.
If I launch this game with 1.4GB of free memory available, it runs smooth as butter. Guaranteed. With less than 1.2GB free, it's a completely different story. It doesn't matter if I have 5GB of memory is stored as "inactive". If I don't have enough RAM marked as free, the game is slow as hell. The reason for the small number of page-in/outs in the picture I posted is that I still had about 1.2GB of free RAM until I launched the game, which had only been running for about a minute. In fact, if I launch the game with my RAM in this state, I'm entirely positive my HDD will page-in/page-out itself into oblivion, making very little use of the 8 GB of ram installed.
And this isn't a problem with this specific program either. If I have under 50MB of "free" RAM (ie when I'm running WoW), regardless of how much I have marked as "inactive", my other programs also run agonizingly slowly (Chrome or Firefox for example).
I have found one workaround though. If I launch a million other memory intensive programs, it seems to help a bit. For example, launching Photoshop, iMovie, Premiere, Garageband, etc, all at once does force the system to release a few hundred MB of memory (though it should be releasing memory in the order of several gigabytes, not megabytes). The OS still doesn't allocate enough of the inactive (supposedly "free") memory for the programs to run properly, but it does release some. I can then quit those programs and have maybe 100-200MB of free RAM, which is generally enough for what I need to do. (Funny, even with 8000MB installed, the difference between 20 and 120MB of free RAM is incredible)
With all other bottlenecks ruled out (network usage minimal, disk activity minimal, CPU at 1/6th usage) I can say with absolute certainty that this is a memory issue. I can't believe people have to audacity to tell me I don't understand how the OS works. Honestly, even if I didn't have a clue about the workings of Mac OS X, I can see there is an obvious problem just by how slowly my programs run.
And to the people telling me to restart my system of stop multitasking, is that some sort of joke? For an OS that prides itself on it's UNIX based core (I can only assume this is an appeal to those who are aware that massive UNIX-based servers are incredibly and have uptimes in the range of weeks to months usually) and brags about it's multasking capabilities, I find it's inability to manage 8GB of RAM incredibly sad (Windows runs fine on 128 MEGABYTES).
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. In theory maybe this is how the OS is supposed to work. But it actuality, it doesn't.
If I launch this game with 1.4GB of free memory available, it runs smooth as butter. Guaranteed. With less than 1.2GB free, it's a completely different story. It doesn't matter if I have 5GB of memory is stored as "inactive". If I don't have enough RAM marked as free, the game is slow as hell. The reason for the small number of page-in/outs in the picture I posted is that I still had about 1.2GB of free RAM until I launched the game, which had only been running for about a minute. In fact, if I launch the game with my RAM in this state, I'm entirely positive my HDD will page-in/page-out itself into oblivion, making very little use of the 8 GB of ram installed.
And this isn't a problem with this specific program either. If I have under 50MB of "free" RAM (ie when I'm running WoW), regardless of how much I have marked as "inactive", my other programs also run agonizingly slowly (Chrome or Firefox for example).
I have found one workaround though. If I launch a million other memory intensive programs, it seems to help a bit. For example, launching Photoshop, iMovie, Premiere, Garageband, etc, all at once does force the system to release a few hundred MB of memory (though it should be releasing memory in the order of several gigabytes, not megabytes). The OS still doesn't allocate enough of the inactive (supposedly "free") memory for the programs to run properly, but it does release some. I can then quit those programs and have maybe 100-200MB of free RAM, which is generally enough for what I need to do. (Funny, even with 8000MB installed, the difference between 20 and 120MB of free RAM is incredible)
With all other bottlenecks ruled out (network usage minimal, disk activity minimal, CPU at 1/6th usage) I can say with absolute certainty that this is a memory issue. I can't believe people have to audacity to tell me I don't understand how the OS works. Honestly, even if I didn't have a clue about the workings of Mac OS X, I can see there is an obvious problem just by how slowly my programs run.
And to the people telling me to restart my system of stop multitasking, is that some sort of joke? For an OS that prides itself on it's UNIX based core (I can only assume this is an appeal to those who are aware that massive UNIX-based servers are incredibly and have uptimes in the range of weeks to months usually) and brags about it's multasking capabilities, I find it's inability to manage 8GB of RAM incredibly sad (Windows runs fine on 128 MEGABYTES).
This IS RAM management issue. My hard drive is hardly being used, and network utilization is a non-issue. The CPU is under 30% actual usage (240% as displayed by the activity monitor) at all times, and in fact, I am beyond certain this isn't a cpu issue. I wrote a simple program in Java that runs a simple loop with a variable delay given in milliseconds, giving me a way to use whatever percentage of my CPU I desire. The is practically no difference between when this program consumes 0% of my CPU cycles and when it consumes 50% (400%) of my CPU cycles. This is not a CPU issue.
However, closing Firefox, which you can see is using a negligible amount of my CPU in the first place, frees up 400+MB of RAM. WoW's RAM usage goes up to around 1.4GB and runs smoothly, leaving around 200MB actually free. Launching Firefox again is disastrous and it hardly runs.
I'm having trouble replicating your results. We have similiar machines. I opened a bunch of programs after about two days of uptime. Lots of programs. Ended up opening a VM to use up as much RAM as possible. I was left with about 200MB free after this:
But when I close these applications, most of my memory returned to Free Memory. Several GB at least, although I did not take shots of Activity Monitor.
How are our situations different?
It doesn't seem like simply opening many applications causes problems. Opening things like firefox, itunes, or chrome, and letting them run for a day or two is what seems to cause problems. Every time I open a new tab, load up a flashed based website, open a page containing a javascript, load images, etc, the RAM usage goes up. It's impossible for me to know without seeing your activity monitor, but my guess is that most of the RAM for you fell under the "wired" category, and was released when you closed the program.
For me, firefox claims to use 400MB of RAM, which contributes to the "wired" category. But I'm fairly certain that every time I load a new webpage or open a new tab, more of my "free" memory is set to "active" or "inactive" (or set to "wired" and then quickly moved to one of those two). That memory isn't released when you close the program like wired memory would be.
Using the terminal purge command works great though. Before doing so, the system had 3.5GB Active RAM, 2.5GB Inactive RAM, 2GB Wired RAM, and about 20MB Free RAM. The computer was basically unusable, especially firefox. Used the purge command which moved 3.5GB of formerly Active or Inactive RAM to the Free category. Everything ran flawlessly.
Free RAM isn't wasted RAM. It's RAM that unlike Active or Inactive RAM, is there to use when I need it.
For me, firefox claims to use 400MB of RAM, which contributes to the "wired" category. But I'm fairly certain that every time I load a new webpage or open a new tab, more of my "free" memory is set to "active" or "inactive" (or set to "wired" and then quickly moved to one of those two). That memory isn't released when you close the program like wired memory would be.
Using the terminal purge command works great though. Before doing so, the system had 3.5GB Active RAM, 2.5GB Inactive RAM, 2GB Wired RAM, and about 20MB Free RAM. The computer was basically unusable, especially firefox. Used the purge command which moved 3.5GB of formerly Active or Inactive RAM to the Free category. Everything ran flawlessly.
Free RAM isn't wasted RAM. It's RAM that unlike Active or Inactive RAM, is there to use when I need it.
Ok, I'm down to 20MB free, left everything open. 69MB free 3.10GB wired 3.26GB Active 1.61GB Inactive 7.95GB Used. It's paging in and out now. Gonna let it ride over the weekend and see how it goes.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
My ancient 20" 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo iMac has literally never had this issue before. I too play WoW and I almost never turn the machine completely off either. iTunes, Safari, all the usual apps are mostly running for days and still WoW always runs fine, even on these specs. I think it is quite remarkable that you are the only one who's experiencing this issue. Maybe you should take it to an Apple Store and replicate it there?
My ancient 20" 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo iMac has literally never had this issue before. I too play WoW and I almost never turn the machine completely off either. iTunes, Safari, all the usual apps are mostly running for days and still WoW always runs fine, even on these specs. I think it is quite remarkable that you are the only one who's experiencing this issue. Maybe you should take it to an Apple Store and replicate it there?
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Given that you have both uTorrent and WoW running at the same time, it is possible that WoW is slow because you have saturated your network's bandwidth.
It appears other network bandwidth eating processes, such as Flash, are running as well.
This performance issue may have nothing to do with the computer itself.
It appears other network bandwidth eating processes, such as Flash, are running as well.
This performance issue may have nothing to do with the computer itself.
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Let me know how that goes. I have a feeling you won't get the same results unless you're actually using the programs open though. And I also have a feeling that web browsers are one of the major culprits, so you'd have to do some serious browsing, loading javascript, flash, etc.
I have the same iMac downstairs (24 inch model) and never had this problem either with that computer. What OS are you running? This could be restricted to 10.7.
Also, I'd guess that you run WoW on much lower settings as well. If I turn down settings such as view distance, the RAM bottleneck is much less noticeable. "Play you game on lower settings" isn't really an acceptable solution to me though.
You obviously didn't read my posts... Network utilization is nil. I've ruled out all other factors (CPU, network, HDD). µTorrent is limited to 10KB/s up/down.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/10#arc
Answers for all and some history too.
Answers for all and some history too.
I read the entire thread. You mention your network usage is low but don't provide much detail.
I notice performance issues with games if any torrent program is running even with very limited down/up speeds.
Depending how Flash is being utilized by the browser (video streaming), this could cause performance issues as well.
Also, you mentioned that other computers are on the network so those other computers are contributing to the network's bandwidth becoming saturated as well.
Are those other computers running uTorrent as well?
Other questions:
Why do you need multiple browsers open at the same time while playing WoW?
I noticed you said performance is better with Firefox closed. Why don't you play WoW without Firefox open?
The purpose of more RAM is to facilitate computing tasks that are memory intensive, such as video editing, and to increase productivity across multiple apps that are moderately memory intensive, such as the demands that occur when doing heavy photography related work.
Not having enough RAM is indicated by the ratio between the amount of page ins and page outs. Your system appears to be fine in this regard.
Are you gaming on a wireless network. Macs on wireless networks often have spikes in activity that are noticeable as lag in games due to Bonjour querying the network for zero configuration setup of services available on the network.
This is not noticeable on wired networks due to the greater amount of bandwidth in comparison to wireless networks.
This effect seen on wireless networks is only antagonized by running many apps that chronically use network bandwidth, such as uTorrent, or periodically generate network traffic via having services available to Bonjour, such as iTunes.
Combine that with having many computers using the network, then you will have a high incidence rate of performance issues related to network bandwidth that will go largely unnoticed without looking at the traffic on the network as a whole.
Network utilization without WoW open is ~40KB/s (20KB/s sent) with spikes around 130KB/s (50KB/s sent). I'm not dim though. I know the difference between lag or performance issues do to network bandwidth/congestion and performance issues due to insufficient RAM. Even if I didn't, network issues aren't going to cause finder to run slowly.
That said, I do experience lag spikes due to my wireless network (that I experienced much less often on Windows), but those are distinctly different than what I experience when I have insufficient RAM.
I have two other computers on the network: A 2 year old windows machine that is turned off 90% of the time, and an iMac that is asleep 90% of the time. Neither of which have µTorrent installed.
Typical network usage:
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First off, you're derailing the thread. The point here isn't to pick at why I'm running these applications. I have plenty of reasons for what I do. I'm trying to figure out why I'm having these issues. Running Windows, I could have just as many applications open, with half as much memory installed, and suffer no performance issues whatsoever. I'd like to believe Mac OS X is the superior OS, but it's inability to run properly (believe me, a computer that is memory starved acts very distinctly), even with what should be ample memory, is baffling and aggravating.
That said, I do experience lag spikes due to my wireless network (that I experienced much less often on Windows), but those are distinctly different than what I experience when I have insufficient RAM.
I have two other computers on the network: A 2 year old windows machine that is turned off 90% of the time, and an iMac that is asleep 90% of the time. Neither of which have µTorrent installed.
Typical network usage:
First off, you're derailing the thread. The point here isn't to pick at why I'm running these applications. I have plenty of reasons for what I do. I'm trying to figure out why I'm having these issues. Running Windows, I could have just as many applications open, with half as much memory installed, and suffer no performance issues whatsoever. I'd like to believe Mac OS X is the superior OS, but it's inability to run properly (believe me, a computer that is memory starved acts very distinctly), even with what should be ample memory, is baffling and aggravating.
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Given that your page ins and outs show that this isn't a memory issue, I suggest you start looking for another reason.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342?viewlocale=en_US
I've had uptimes of over a year (389 days to be exact), during which dozens of different applications, including WoW, were run. I never once had any problems with memory usage, OSX not releasing memory, or slowdown in games. As a matter of fact i'm sure I could have gone another year easily in uptime had there not been a blackout 2 months ago that forced a shutdown.
Firefox does tend to be a bit of a memory hog, and probably has a few memory leaks when not closed occasionally. But it certainly shouldn't bring your system down to a halt.
Firefox does tend to be a bit of a memory hog, and probably has a few memory leaks when not closed occasionally. But it certainly shouldn't bring your system down to a halt.
Again, you didn't the thread. Quit making false claims. I stated quite clearly that I took that picture about 30 seconds after launching WoW. Most of those page in's/page out's were from about 30 seconds of playing. I'm just repeating myself now but to reiterate, if I had left the game running in this memory starved state, my machine would page itself to death.
I'm really not sure how you can look at a picture showing 11MB free RAM out of 8000MB, in which my game is running on 2-300MB less RAM than it does when I have ample free RAM, in which my game is also being drastically impacted performance wise, in which I also have an overabundance of available resources in terms of processing power, disk I/O bandwidth and near-zero network utilization, and tell me my RAM isn't my problem. ESPECIALLY considering that using the command purge, which basically resets memory usage, completely solves the issue.
If my game runs like **** when I have no free memory, and freeing up memory fixes the issue, doesn't that make memory the issue? I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand... I'm just trying to figure out why the OS is having these issues. I shouldn't have to manually flush the memory every few days.
To be fair, we have to see how win7 does right?
Why don't you post the memory status of win7 after opening the same number of instances with same pages , programs, and flash plugins?
Flash plugins run horribly compared to win version flash. Games run better in windows as well.
I kinda get what you are saying though. When I run Starcraft 2 with safari, firefox, and mail open, it lags whenever there is a battle. First I thought it was due to faulty graphics(cause my win laptop with 310m runs better) . But after checking the performance in windows 7 with no other program running, I suspected memory issue. I have stock 4 gig memory, and when I run starcraft2 with minimal number of program running, it runs fine. You may have a valid claim if same instances of programs in windows 7 take up less memory than in Mac os x.
Why don't you post the memory status of win7 after opening the same number of instances with same pages , programs, and flash plugins?
Flash plugins run horribly compared to win version flash. Games run better in windows as well.
I kinda get what you are saying though. When I run Starcraft 2 with safari, firefox, and mail open, it lags whenever there is a battle. First I thought it was due to faulty graphics(cause my win laptop with 310m runs better) . But after checking the performance in windows 7 with no other program running, I suspected memory issue. I have stock 4 gig memory, and when I run starcraft2 with minimal number of program running, it runs fine. You may have a valid claim if same instances of programs in windows 7 take up less memory than in Mac os x.
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Nope, you don't mention 30 seconds until this post. Safari's find feature is great.
But, the following suggests that this is not the case:
Look at the page outs from your before and after photos.
Seems like you are starting to contradict yourself.
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