How does MacOS use memory? I'm still trying to figure it out.

[TSE]

I have a 64 GB MacBook Pro now, and I work pretty much exclusively in Figma, but will have other apps alongside it open.

What's confusing to me is RAM usage with this Mac. Figma is a native app that runs entirely on the GPU and takes up a ton of RAM. CPU usage is almost nada. On my 2018 XPS I had before this with 32 GBs, Figma would use anywhere from about 8 - 16 GBs. Since upgrading to this M1 Max MacBook, files can take up anywhere from 12 GBs, but I've seen them regularly go up to 50 GBs.

But I've also noticed this in other applications as well - where applications will use a lot more RAM while using them compared to their Windows counterparts. Right now with just Safari open with 8 tabs, 10 GBs is being used by it. Microsoft Edge on Windows 11 in the same use case would maybe use 4.

Now, granted, since I've had this computer, my workload has improved dramatically. I literally don't experience ANY slowdowns or heat problems, but I don't get how reviewers can claim all you really need is 16 GBs when I typically use 10 GBs just for running Safari.

Any insights or thoughts into this?

 

[Jorbanead]

What you’re seeing is likely memory leaks.

Memory leaks are crippling my M1 MacBook Prou2013and I'm not alone

With the release of Monterey and the new MacBook Pro, reports are swirling about users experiencing issues with memory leaks.

www.macworld.com

 

[zarathu]

You may have the memory bug and not know it.

You, like me and almost everyone who uses Monterey,. has the dreaded memory leak bug. Apple will fix it eventually.

Before then there is a simple temporary solution. Presumably you have several desktops on your mac. I have 11 at the moment. Go to one you don’t use often and open up Activity Monitor(its in your applications and on every mac). Leave it open all the time. Click on the column that tells you the use of memory by system processes and apps. Highlight(click on) any that look completely out of control, and then click on the little icon with the x in the middle of a circle. Choose force quit. If its an app it will quit and you will have to restart it. If its a process(weird names mostly) then it will quit but come back almost instantly in the small size it's supposed to be. For me about 15 minutes ago I noticed that the most common culprit, Control Center(which normally uses about 26 mb of memory) was slowly sucking more and was up to 144mb. Earlier this week I found it at 14 GB.

You can keep these little buggers from stealing memory by just keeping an eye on them. Be advised: if WindowServer is up at 1gb then its probably doing it too, and if you force quit that one, your screen will go black for about 5 seconds while the OS puts it back, and then you will have to type in your machine password again.

Hope this helps.

 

[TSE]

What you’re seeing is likely memory leaks.

Memory leaks are crippling my M1 MacBook Prou2013and I'm not alone

With the release of Monterey and the new MacBook Pro, reports are swirling about users experiencing issues with memory leaks.

www.macworld.com

You may have the memory bug and not know it.

You, like me and almost everyone who uses Monterey,. has the dreaded memory leak bug. Apple will fix it eventually.

Before then there is a simple temporary solution. Presumably you have several desktops on your mac. I have 11 at the moment. Go to one you don’t use often and open up Activity Monitor(its in your applications and on every mac). Leave it open all the time. Click on the column that tells you the use of memory by system processes and apps. Highlight(click on) any that look completely out of control, and then click on the little icon with the x in the middle of a circle. Choose force quit. If its an app it will quit and you will have to restart it. If its a process(weird names mostly) then it will quit but come back almost instantly in the small size it's supposed to be. For me about 15 minutes ago I noticed that the most common culprit, Control Center(which normally uses about 26 mb of memory) was slowly sucking more and was up to 144mb. Earlier this week I found it at 14 GB.

You can keep these little buggers from stealing memory by just keeping an eye on them. Be advised: if WindowServer is up at 1gb then its probably doing it too, and if you force quit that one, your screen will go black for about 5 seconds while the OS puts it back, and then you will have to type in your machine password again.

Hope this helps.

Good to know guys, thanks!

Why is this occurring? What causes it? And has Apple made any official statements on it? Sounds like a serious issue!

 

[zarathu]

Apple refuses to admit there is an issue, typically. As to the cause, I hear that it's part and parcel to the complexity of the system and the wide open 64 bit structure of all the apps and processes. Apparently, its such a wide open space to operate in that if a process or app is not really tightly written, when a certain circumstance arises(which is unknown basically) the app or process starts grabbing RAM. Unfortunately, while Apple and Microsoft, both have had these, being a 2+ trillion dollar company doesn’t make it any easier to find coders who have the skill level to find something like this. They probably have no idea what to do.

 

[MBAir2010]

I always forget how much  uses memory
while
 members i forget how much memory is used!

 

[Internaut]

Great. I should have read this thread before upgrading Monterey. Hopefully, it doesn’t affect any of the apps I use. Like SSDgate, I expect Apple will fix it without ever acknowledging the problem.

 

[wilberforce]

One possible factor for apps that heavily use the GPU: on an Intel machine the VRAM is separate, whereas as on the M1 it is shared. I don't know Figma, but I do know Lightroom, and Lightroom has an option to partially or fully disable its use of the GPU.
If I disable the Lightroom GPU usage, the RAM usage on the M1 Pro is similar to the RAM usage on my Intel iMac.

If I enable the Lightroom GPU usage, the RAM usage on the M1 Pro is roughly twice the RAM usage on my Intel iMac.

I can toggle the GPU usage option on and off, and the RAM usage by Lightroom goes up and down accordingly (not immediately, but shortly)

I surmise that the additional RAM usage on the M1 Pro is being used for the GPU, at least in the case of Lightroom.