Excessive use of ram

Is anyone else having a problem with over 3.8 gigs of ram being used while doing very basic tasks like using the internet and having a few applications open on a RMBP?


Here is a screenshot of activity monitor while I have Safari and mail open:


User uploaded file


Is this a normal amout of ram usage for what I have open? Some people that I have talked to have said that they have photoshop open as well as safari and a word processing program but only using about 3.88 total gigs of their ram. I am confused as to why with very basic things open my ram usage goes to over 3.5 gigs of ram usage.


Thanks!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 15, 2012 10:23 PM

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4 replies

Aug 15, 2012 10:29 PM in response to MaddoxKelly

Your applications and associated processes are only using about 1.64 GBs of RAM. OS X is using 1.43 GBs of RAM. That's 3.1 GBs of RAM. The balance is mostly free and inactive RAM. This is all perfectly normal, so I have no idea why you think there's a problem. Perhaps you should read a little information:


About OS X Memory Management and Usage


Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

Memory Management in Mac OS X

Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X

A detailed look at memory usage in OS X


Understanding top output in the Terminal


The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.


Adding RAM only makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.

Aug 15, 2012 11:05 PM in response to MaddoxKelly

Just did a little experiment for you.


as you can see from my activity monitor:


I have Excel - Word - Powerpoint - Photoshop - Firefox (2 tabs) - Safari (3 tabs) - iTunes and AppStore running in the background and I'm only using 3.5GB of my RAM.


That means the apps you have running in the background is using more memory or have a memory leak issue.


Good luck - hope you get your issues sorted out - but as I have said before, you're fine.





User uploaded file

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Excessive use of ram

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