Q: Mavericks and memory (Ram)

Free RAM being wasted RAM is just some misleading marketing term someone invented here. The way memory has been managed for the last 40 years (since Unix' inception) is totally and absolutely fine. That we need to recourse to these horrible schemes of recycling program routines into memory is a reflection of the sad state of affairs we have in software bloat.

I do not care for energy savings nor to see speedier loading of menu items and such, I want control of my RAM so that the programs I need in that moment can safely load themselves entirely into RAM which is what I need to have them respond faster (I also switched off virtual memory some two MacOS versions ago)

I explained in the same post that you can tell the difference between properly used RAM (wired) and the RAM used up by the file cache by subtracting 'wired' from 'used'

Say you have 6GB used RAM and the wired memory reports only 2.8 GB (usually the case when none of your applications are running). 6 - 2.8 = 3.2 Gb
3.2 Gigs are being used by the cache, but since we're not running anything beyond the daemons and finder, we have about 2.2 Gb wasted by the cache and you can summarily execute it with purge.

Next time you run a program it will be loaded into memory as normal and you will only have the minimum necesarry caching of program routines into the file cache

Users are always supposed to be aware of their memory resources, how much a large program typically needs and in what conditions to best load it.

dreammjpr wrote:

 

I explained in the same post that you can tell the difference between properly used RAM (wired) and the RAM used up by the file cache by subtracting 'wired' from 'used'

 

Say you have 6GB used RAM and the wired memory reports only 2.8 GB (usually the case when none of your applications are running). 6 - 2.8 = 3.2 Gb
3.2 Gigs are being used by the cache, but since we're not running anything beyond the daemons and finder, we have about 2.2 Gb wasted by the cache and you can summarily execute it with purge.

 

Next time you run a program it will be loaded into memory as normal and you will only have the minimum necesarry caching of program routines into the file cache

 

Users are always supposed to be aware of their memory resources, how much a large program typically needs and in what conditions to best load it.

I personally have no problem with the theory of file caching, as long as the OS releases it immediately when something else wants the memory.  I found that on my particular machine (mid-2009 13" MBP, which I believe is not working with Mavericks as Apple intends), with memory compression operating, the file cache would grow quite large and the system would prefer to compress memory before releasing file cache, which, again, for my machine, was incredibly slow.  Once I turned off memory compression, file cache released normally and everything is fast as expected.  I don't have to worry about purge.  You might try turning off memory compression to see what happens.  http://superuser.com/questions/668114/disable-compressed-memory-in-mac-os-10-9-m avericks

You seem to be so convinced that the higher memory useage is due to the part of the memory management which now reduces the data allocation  to the swap file on the harddrive or does it in a smarter way therefore getting better speed out of the system. At least in my experience as I described in a previous post, it isn't the case at all. There is somekind of a memory leak or allocation problem with Maverick.

I have run OSX on multiple versions of OS and computers without Swap file and with large amount of memory for years so you can take the paging to storage out of the equation. Never have I seen such bloated memory useage. There was no memory compression before. Now there is and running the exact same programs, I see useage being 3-4x greater than before. With 16GB of RAM I should not be compressing memory just running mail, Safari (9 tabs open), skype, calendar and itunes, yet I do only after a short period of useage. One should be able to run these programs within a 6GB envelope (again without swap file) which is what I used to observe on Lion. There is definitely something wrong with Maverick. Maybe it is allocating memory for programs which are actually not using it and then goes and compress useful memory. I don't know. I have not seen any detrimental effects yet but something looks wrong.

I don't actually have a problem with file caching as such (I run purge only twice a week). I have turned off memory compression and I turned off swap memory (or HDD paging as some call it) to force loading only what I want to be in memory.

But I'm also a programmer that is against garbage collection ( I believe it is the responsibility of every programmer to tend to his memory usage manually)...so manual memory management is always going to be preferable for me

dreammjpr wrote:

 

Free RAM being wasted RAM is just some misleading marketing term

Since when did marketing terms discourage the purchase of extra anything?

Marketing adores waste, encourages it regularly.

XD

You're right...it is actually driving people to do it's intended
(money, money, money, money...money)

That is the exact opposite of what I said.

Oh I thought you were hinting at Maverick's memory scheme needing more RAM to work just fine, thus giving more cashflow to memory makers.

Your already collosal 8 GB (for running two Virtual machines, Maya 2013 and whatever else simultaneously without VM) is now automagically not efficient enough to do the same in Mavericks...henceforth you buy double the RAM just to make something inherently broken work fine.

Marketing

Mavericks needs less Ram than previous OS versions, not more. Please read what I say rather than thinking I 'hint' at something else.

True if the advertized feature worked. Not true from my experience. It requires a ton more memory.

My experience also. Mavericks just needs more memory, it does nothing to occupy less RAM.

Rafale wrote:

 

True if the advertized feature worked. Not true from my experience. It requires a ton more memory.

And it is exactly my experience that Mavericks uses less Ram, I have 5 Macs (plus the ones at the office), all of them are upgraded to 10.9 and all use less Ram and run both faster and cooler than they did before. Before varied from 10.6 to 10.8 (mostly 10.8)

You need to fix your installation.

Anybody have an answer for this?

I've posted to this thread and am now getting emailed every post. Since it is still so active, it is like getting SPAMMED to death.

I have answered no to every email preference, but I'm still getting an email of every post.

I just want it to stop. Do I have to contact the forum administrator to get pulled off the list?

Any thoughts on how to stop this thread from emailing me all the time?

I tried everything that I can think of in "Email Preferences" and "Profile" but it just keeps coming.

Davestformore wrote:

 

Anybody have an answer for this?

 

I've posted to this thread and am now getting emailed every post. Since it is still so active, it is like getting SPAMMED to death.

 

I have answered no to every email preference, but I'm still getting an email of every post.

 

I just want it to stop. Do I have to contact the forum administrator to get pulled off the list?

 

Any thoughts on how to stop this thread from emailing me all the time?

 

I tried everything that I can think of in "Email Preferences" and "Profile" but it just keeps coming.

On this thread, at the top right, I have a "Stop Email Notifications" in the Actions box.  I assume that would do it, but it seems like maybe you already tried that.