Mavericks and memory (Ram)

hm, so it's much better to compress than swap?

I'm sorry, may I ask again how to compress the file?

Thank you so much for your help

Not sure to whom this is directed. See my explanation above. Its VASTLY faster, because disks are so slow and processors still much faster than RAM at the moment.

Compression is via typical lossless algorithms (e.g.: redudancy suppression, DCTs etc - who knows what they used)

Grant

I have a mid-2009 MBP. Its much faster than swapping on my machine.

Grant

MiguelDaCorrola wrote:

hm, so it's much better to compress than swap?
I'm sorry, may I ask again how to compress the file?
Thank you so much for your help.

The RAM gets compressed automatically in 10.9, you don't need to do anything.

The swapfile on disk should also be left to do it's own thing, the OS basically allocates the fastest part of the disk for this data and it will allocate more if the OS needs to use it.

MadMacs0 explained how to disable compression if you suspect that is the issue.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5470580?answerId=24883121022#24883121022&ac_cid=tw123456#24883121

MadMacs0 wrote:

Michael Warhurst wrote:

I've seen reports that 10.9.2 solves this problem (maybe not enough of the processor is being used for compression?

I'd be interested in reading that if you can point me in the right direction. I have not heard anything along those lines.

I've also seen other reports saying that switching memorty compression off in terminal speeded up their machines.

My experience was exactly the opposite, but my setup probably isn't anything like there's. Again, I'd be interested in reading about that, as I don't recall seeing anything along those lines in this way too long discussion.

I was one who in this thread claimed that my machine was faster with memory compression off. I too have a mid-2009 13" MBP. I suspect that there is a hardware bug, perhaps on certain batches of whatever processor is in this thing. It is quite possible that Apple is doing the compression with some built-in chunk of the Intel processor, and if that is a portion that is rarely used, there could be some issue with it that no one has stumbled on before. When my machine is beach-balling, the processor is not running like crazy, rather it is sitting at 2-3%, as if nothing much of anything were going on.

If there is some bug affecting certain versions or batches of processors and it is causing the compression function itself to be slow, then it could very easily cause memory compression to be slower than writing to disk. Assuming that there is a problem with memory compression, turning it off might help in two ways: it gives you more uncompressed RAM to work with, and the swapping itself may also be quicker.

I believe in the Mavericks concept of memory management, and having used Linux distributions before, I believe in the idea of keeping the RAM full of stuff you might use. So I'm all for what Apple has done here. But the memory compression depends on a very fast compression scheme, and if that isn't true for whatever reason, it won't help.

I have since upgraded to 8GB of memory and turned compression back on, however, I have yet to see the 8GB filled, so compression isn't bothering me. For what it's worth, 8GB of RAM cost me about $100. Compared to the price of a new computer, that is peanuts, and it makes my computer feel like new.

I posted this thead in the forums this morning regarding Mavericks and spinning beach balls. I don't believe Apple should still be selling new Macs with 4GB RAM as a standard. I will be upgrading to 8GB RAM in the near future.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5945834

The compression explaination would be all fine and is probably true but there is also something else going on.

I have gone through multiple macs over the years since Leopard and have always disabled the swap file and had the most possible memory my system allowed.

With such a setup I always had about 4-10GB free for my regular use with 16GB installed. Now with Maverick I hover close to 0GB or at least often about 1GB.

WIth the swap file disabled in both cases, it appears to me that Maverick dynamically compresses the memory while previous OSX versions compressed maybe all of it. At least Maverick is less efficient at compressing the memory. I don't know but I don't think Grant's story is the full story here.

Rafale wrote:

WIth the swap file disabled in both cases, it appears to me that Maverick dynamically compresses the memory while previous OSX versions compressed maybe all of it.

Previous OS X versions compressed nothing. That's what's new with Mavericks. Please read some of the technical articles that have been published on this, referenced elsewhere in this conversation.

Might be true but based on facts, it appears that something else changed too because Maverick uses way more memory than previous OSs and the explanation on compression to avoid using the swap file on the storage drive does not hold water.

Rafale wrote:

Might be true but based on facts, it appears that something else changed too because Maverick uses way more memory than previous OSs

Absolutely, and thereby speeds things up because the most used code is already in RAM. That's a "feature."

the explanation on compression to avoid using the swap file on the storage drive does not hold water.

Mavericks was designed with a goal of saving power and memory use was one of the ways this is being accomplished. The fact that it speeds things up for most users is an added benefit. If you don't believe me then read what some of the experts have to say OS X 10.9 Mavericks: The Ars Technica Review and Apple's Core Technologies Overview.

And from Maverics Advanced Technology:

Compressed Memory.

For an even quicker, more responsive Mac.

Doing More.

The more memory your Mac has at its disposal, the faster it works. But when you have multiple apps running, your Mac uses more memory. With OS X Mavericks, Compressed Memory allows your Mac to free up memory space when you need it most. As your Mac approaches maximum memory capacity, OS X automatically compresses data from inactive apps, making more memory available.

Extra Fast.

Once the memory is compressed, your Mac doesn’t have to waste time continually transferring data back and forth between memory and storage. So it’s able to get more done in less time. And since compressing and decompressing happens almost instantly, the only thing you’ll notice is how responsive everything feels. Especially when you’re doing everything at once.

I am not arguing that it isn't faster. In reality I don't feel that it is any slower and it is not where my complain is. I do not think however that my system is any faster because I was already doing what you describe above.

Where I am going with this is, on previous OSs with the same applications running the theory exposed here was that the data was written in storage, making access slow and saving memory space. Well, it does not appear to be true from what I can see because I already operated that way by disabling the swap file on my system. I was already running everything in the RAM. Yes, I was using more memory than others and that's why I installed the maximum possible RAM on my system. I had no compression... Yet I used less memory than on Maverick. Compared to what I was doing, Maverick is not any faster, it adds the advantage of compressing the memory as needed so I do not run out of memory as easily but in practice, what I have observed is that it uses way more memory.

OK, then I think we understand each other and I do agree that many have observed greater memory use. What none of us seem to know is what is that additional RAM being used for. I guess I am probably too optimistic in that I felt it was for additional oft used code, but you're not convinced that's a good thing because free RAM isn't as immediately available as it was. That's a fair question.

Having trouble with Microsoft Outlook 2011 on OS X 10.9.1. Its spinning memory wildly out of control. I captured a "SPINDUMP" I want to upload somewhere so they can address this reocurring issue. Who wants SPINDUMPs Apple or Microsoft? Where's the upload URL?

Gary Heinonen wrote:

Having trouble with Microsoft Outlook 2011 on OS X 10.9.1. Its spinning memory wildly out of control. I captured a "SPINDUMP" I want to upload somewhere so they can address this reocurring issue. Who wants SPINDUMPs Apple or Microsoft? Where's the upload URL?

Developers usually want that level of detail, but users on here are not developers (or if they are, it's probably not their job to debug MS/Apple code). I suspect you'll have a tough time getting anyone to diagnose on here via a spindump. You'll need to go to the support site for MS I suspect.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/support

• Can you be specific about what spinning out of control means?
• Are you seeing 'Swap used' increase?
• What does the Memory pressure graph look like (green, orange or red)?

Outlook uses a monolithic database (if I recall correctly) so it can use a lot of RAM to index, search, repair…

I'd start by suggesting you update to 10.9.2 since 10.9.1 has a terrible security flaw (see https://gotofail.com, or the update notes linked from the update in the App store). 10.9.2 also has other fixes.

Personaly I would setup the email in a new test user account to see if the issue is related to something in your account (potentially prefs, plugins or other background tasks). Do the same with a clean install of 10.9.2 & Outlook 2011 to eliminate the possiblity that something migrated is causing the issue (this can be on an external disk). I'm assuming you upgraded from an eariler OS version.

I also think you would have more chance of diagnosing by looking for logs & then searching Google for the error message string.

Whatever you decide to do you should create a new thread - you stand little chance of others finding your issue in here when searching & your issue is probably not related to the original topic.

I just wanted to report back on my mid-2009 13" Macbook Pro, now with 8GB of RAM. After using my system for a while with memory compression on, the RAM did eventually fill up (it did take several days of consistent use), as we expect Mavericks to do. It had an enormous file cache of 4-5GB. What is odd is that Mavericks started compressing memory at that point, rather than releasing some of the file cache. If memory compression is fast, that probably makes a lot of sense, but on my system, for some reason, it is not fast, so at this point I started seeing spinning beach balls again, all over the place, and it became frustrating to use.

Again, I have turned off memory compression, and now, with the RAM filled up, I do see a little bit of swap, but I also see that the system prefers to release file cache rather than swap. The swap file is a few tens of MB unless I really just open up everything, but my performance is great (with small swap) with Xcode, Mail, iTunes, Twitter, Messages, Safari (with flash content), and two other users logged in. Switching applications is properly quick, and there are no spinning beach balls.

I am quite happy with my system with compression turned off. I would love to have the added benefit of memory compression, but I maintain that for some reason, for my particular system, memory compression is nothing like fast, and my system is tremendously faster without it.

use http://superuser.com/questions/668114/disable-compressed-memory-in-mac-os-10-9-m avericks link to turn OFF RAM comressed function