Mavericks and memory (Ram)

I run Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo T61. Its fast and efficent. Its a 2007 computer with 4gb RAM. I have a second hard drive loaded with Linux. I've never used more then 2gb RAM, EVER. I browse with Mavericks as I'm doing now and I'm over 3gb RAM. Oh... well. It has to be me because the Apple message is. If it ain't working its because you aren't using it right.

3 weeks ago we were both in the exact same situation saying the exact things…

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5470580?answerId=23796884022#23796884022&ac_cid=tw123456#23796884

I'm done pleading with you. If you are not posting info about your system, your symptoms or tests you have tried to a troubleshooting forum, you are doing it wrong.

I bought a mac mini, added 4 GB of RAM to use with one of my existing 2 GB modules for a total of 6 GB of RAM. Before the Mavericks upgrade, it was using aroun 2 to 3 GB of RAM with Mountain Lion and 4 or 5 apps open including Safari. Now, it uses around 5.3 GB with only Safari and Activity Monitor running. With only activity monitor running, it uses around 4.5 GB. With streaming video from Hulu, it uses around 5.4 GB of RAM.

I don't like the new activity monitor because there is no pie chart, and I don't know what to make of the Memory Pressure graph. ***? I have a feeling that if I add another 4GB for a total of 8, it might do what yours is doing. How many apps do you have open when this happens?

And what is memory pressure supposed to tell me? I got much more out of the pie chart. My memory pressure shows its blank, then slowly fills up accross the bottom with a green bar. And I still don't know what that is supposed to mean. I don't like the new Activity Monitor.

Chiminey wrote:

And what is memory pressure supposed to tell me?

Green is good and Red means you need to look into adding more RAM. With Mavericks, free RAM is simply wasted RAM, which is why you should ignore it and forget all you used to know about that pie chart. See Compressed Memory and How OS X “Mavericks” works its power-saving magic.

Chiminey wrote:

And what is memory pressure supposed to tell me? I got much more out of the pie chart. My memory pressure shows its blank, then slowly fills up accross the bottom with a green bar. And I still don't know what that is supposed to mean. I don't like the new Activity Monitor.

That's showing you that your memory usage is fine.

Take a read of…

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/17/#compressed-memory

The screenshots there illustrate how memory changes in the graph. If you want to see this in action read the post I made earlier this thread… it's a safe way to see what the graph does under a high RAM usage load.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5470580?answerId=23765634022#23765634022

You need to forget about 'free RAM', this OS changes how it is handled. Unused RAM does nothing for you, but having the most used files stored in RAM will speed up the OS for you. This file cache will be purged on request, so it's not something to worry about.

The 'purge' command will do this too - no need for addons that monitor & 'clean' RAM.

You can also do a simple test to see the file cache in action.

Reboot (to flush the RAM)

Open Safari whilst timing until it becomes active.

Quit Safari

Open Safari & time it

Quit Safari

…repeat

You will see faster launches and the 'file cache' will have increased in Activity Monitor.

Now in Terminal type the following & hit return

purge

Watch the file cache decrease

Repeat the Safari timing test

The pie chart makes no sense once you realise the OS will compress RAM. The amount of compression will change over time depending on the data type etc, so a pie chart would need to resize etc. I suspect it is why the memory pressure graph has no units.

If your memory pressure is green, look elsewhere - you RAM is fine in this state, orange or red may indicate you are running out of RAM (red is swap to disk - that is bad for performance).

This is why I opted for a new mac mini instead of upgrading my 24" 09 iMac. I left it at 10.6.8 just for that reason, so I could go back if I needed. Now, I wish I had left Mountain Lion on my mini instead of upgrading to Mavericks, iMovie, Photo ect. I had no idea it would be a memory hog, using almost all of my 6 GB total. The think is, I don't even use most of the new stuff, or even know the potential because I have no use for them.

One might think that the huge surplus of cash the company has lying around would make them more secure, but no. Its like the once starving animal who is now a glutton because it is afraid of starving again. However, when more people get wind of this, that starving animal might need its surplus to stay afloat.

Thanks for the information.

I ended up buying a copy of Mountain Lion, I feel more confortable with it. I have been switching ram modules and now it works great with either 4gb or 8gb of ram. I am sure Apple did a great job with the new memory features, but I usually go by what I need and see. To best honest Moutain Lion works better for me, whereas Mavericks and 4gb of ram works worse that 6 year old windows pc.

I am sure Apple will increase the ram next year, and maybe they will add a 7200rpm HD.

Thanks to help clear this up in my mountain lion mind.

Chiminey wrote:

Thanks to help clear this up in my mountain lion mind.

Your welcome and not alone. It will take most users some amount of time to get used to this new way of thinking about memory use. Not particularly intuitive and it's far to easy to fall back on ones previous experiences.

I find it surprising that this conversation has gone from people discovering that their machines are underperforming or not working at all to tangential discussions of how the Mavericks update manipulates memory. If your machine isn't working, who cares how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The fact of the matter is that a great number of people upgraded to Mavericks only to discover that it made their machines worse.

So far Apple has not fixed a problem that they themselves created.

Bad show, bad Apple.

You mean a tiny number. Put this in perspective with the many many millions who appear to have no problems.

Cheers

Pete

Iron Jay wrote:

The fact of the matter is that a great number of people upgraded to Mavericks only to discover that it made their machines worse.

I'll just comment that upgrading to a new OS when you know you are having issues is almost never a good idea. I'm certainly not surprised when I read this.

So far Apple has not fixed a problem that they themselves created.

I'm not certain what problem needs to be fixed. Mavericks already has the highest market share of all OS X users after it's first month and those who are posting here with issues represent only a tiny fraction of Mavericks users.

There are reportedly a couple of updates in developer testing right now, so I do expect some issues will be shortly resolved, but others will probably be found to exist due to something other than problems with the OS.

This thread has several types of issue, some people really do have serious RAM issues, whilst others have problems that lay elsewhere and some are simply wondering where all the free RAM went.

I don't think thread this is the best place to get help now, just make your own thread. Link to it from here if you feel it's related. People will look into what could be causing your issues, it's clear that 10.9 has problems with certain software. Unless you are having issues with a clean install it's tough to say it's 'Apples fault'.

A few users are just not familiar with the new system. Apologies if you feel it's inappropriate and derails the topic. Since this is an old 'solved issue' it becomes an echo chamber of the original respondant's who want to claify new information.