RAM usage seems high for doing near nothing

[oftheheavens]

so activity monitor says I'm using 4.7GB and all i am running is music in iTunes and obviously safari. I have a new late 2013 maxed out (except RAM) iMac. Is this normal for 50% of my RAM to be taken just sitting here?

I am going to up it to at least 16 soon, but curious as to why it is using half my RAM on near nothing.

 

[rritterson]

Unused ram is wasted ram. OS X is very aggressive about using free RAM as cache and other things. It will remove caches as needed if RAM fills up.

 

[bbfc]

so activity monitor says I'm using 4.7GB and all i am running is music in iTunes and obviously safari. I have a new late 2013 maxed out (except RAM) iMac. Is this normal for 50% of my RAM to be taken just sitting here?

I am going to up it to at least 16 soon, but curious as to why it is using half my RAM on near nothing.

This was introduced in Mavericks. The OS will use all available RAM (to cache). As long as you don't notice any slowdown or see any Swap usage, then you're fine.

Free memory is wasted memory.

 

[twintin]

Is this normal for 50% of my RAM to be taken just sitting here?

Yes it is. Mine also usually hoovers around 50% +/- 1 GB. But it does not change much when starting new apps during the course of time. In fact, even my two Windows machine takes around 50% of RAM after boot.

 

[oftheheavens]

awesome thanks guys!

still gonna upgrade ram to at least 16GB

 

[Weaselboy]

awesome thanks guys!

still gonna upgrade ram to at least 16GB

Unless you are doing some really heavy duty photo or video editing, you are very unlikely to notice any improvement going from 8GB to 16GB.

Use your iMac for a day like you normally would then start Activity Monitor and look at the memory pressure at the bottom of the memory tab. If that is green, you do not need more memory.

Also... take a look at this article.

 

[oftheheavens]

Unless you are doing some really heavy duty photo or video editing, you are very unlikely to notice any improvement going from 8GB to 16GB.

Use your iMac for a day like you normally would then start Activity Monitor and look at the memory pressure at the bottom of the memory tab. If that is green, you do not need more memory.

Also... take a look at this article.

Informative, thanks! I'm Going to take a look at the activity monitor when playing a game and listening to iTunes today. Gonna try to get some gopro video to edit as well and watch it with that during editing. May be just fine with 8 now that I understand a little better how OSX seems to use ram.

Knowledge has occurred!

 

[Weaselboy]

Informative, thanks! I'm Going to take a look at the activity monitor when playing a game and listening to iTunes today. Gonna try to get some gopro video to edit as well and watch it with that during editing. May be just fine with 8 now that I understand a little better how OSX seems to use ram.

Knowledge has occurred!

Please check back in and let us know what you see there.

 

[oftheheavens]

Please check back in and let us know what you see there.

went to 7/8GB used when i launched borderlands 2, no lag though. So should be fine for elder scrolls online as well. I'll test video editing as well but that will have to be another day.

wish i could figure out how to make the windows transparent like I thought they were gonna be.

 

[Weaselboy]

went to 7/8GB used when i launched borderlands 2, no lag though. So should be fine for elder scrolls online as well. I'll test video editing as well but that will have to be another day.

wish i could figure out how to make the windows transparent like I thought they were gonna be.

Did that memory pressure section stay in the green the whole time?

 

[SmOgER]

The RAM management is indeed too aggresive at times. It uses pretty much all of the RAM when barely any apps are running and there is no quarantee that it will free up the RAM in time when you load virtual machine or stuff like that, so it can use swap more than it's necessary. Witnessed that several times when testing. But since with SSD there is no THAT MUCH apparent difference when the swap is being used I haven't paid much attention to this before, so can't say for sure if it was perfect with Mavericks for me or not. One way or another, there is definitely a room for improvement in this regard.

 

[oftheheavens]

Did that memory pressure section stay in the green the whole time?

it did, just ran into a snag though. I back grounded BL2 and was chatting on FB with a few tabs open as well as iPhoto and iTunes. RAM maxed out causing webpages to reload as i switched back and forth. Think this would be a sign to up it a bit yeah?

 

[bbfc]

went to 7/8GB used when i launched borderlands 2, no lag though. So should be fine for elder scrolls online as well. I'll test video editing as well but that will have to be another day.

wish i could figure out how to make the windows transparent like I thought they were gonna be.

Not all the window is transparent, just the menu bar and sidebar apps.

----------

The RAM management is indeed too aggresive at times. It uses pretty much all of the RAM when barely any apps are running and there is no quarantee that it will free up the RAM in time when you load virtual machine or stuff like that, so it can use swap more than it's necessary. Witnessed that several times when testing. But since with SSD there is no THAT MUCH apparent difference when the swap is being used I haven't paid much attention to this before, so can't say for sure if it was perfect with Mavericks for me or not. One way or another, there is definitely a room for improvement in this regard.

I don't think it's too aggressive, but in Mavericks the OS will use all available RAM to cache files for quicker access. If RAM is required for another app, it will compress any inactive to free it up. It's a very clever system.

 

[SmOgER]

I don't think it's too aggressive, but in Mavericks the OS will use all available RAM to cache files for quicker access. If RAM is required for another app, it will compress any inactive to free it up. It's a very clever system.

That's what it's supposed to do. But at least with Yosemite DP1, as I said before, it often fails with this task (in time or at all). Having less cached files is obviously better than having swap of foreground memory-hungry app (cause it couldn't free up/compress that much memory in time), and with SSD there is very little point to cache so much files in the first place IMO.

 

[Weaselboy]

it did, just ran into a snag though. I back grounded BL2 and was chatting on FB with a few tabs open as well as iPhoto and iTunes. RAM maxed out causing webpages to reload as i switched back and forth. Think this would be a sign to up it a bit yeah?

Yeah... if you plan to be keeping that game in background like that, I think so. Is that something you will be doing often though?

 

[oftheheavens]

Yeah... if you plan to be keeping that game in background like that, I think so. Is that something you will be doing often though?

I often have to come in and out of whatever I'm doing in the foreground to answer emails, pick up calls (if i can get handoff to work) and other work type stuff. Will i be doing it every day all day, no not at all. I think I will be doing it enough to justify 16GB though, 32GB would be way overkill for me.

 

[SmOgER]

I often have to come in and out of whatever I'm doing in the foreground to answer emails, pick up calls (if i can get handoff to work) and other work type stuff. Will i be doing it every day all day, no not at all. I think I will be doing it enough to justify 16GB though, 32GB would be way overkill for me.

lol, 16GB is already a big overkill.

 

[oftheheavens]

lol, 16GB is already a big overkill.

Well I'm at 8GB stock so common sense says to just double it instead of adding just 4 more

I haven't gotten around to video editing since i just unpacked my gopro from my move but I want it to be as smooth as possible and if I am getting website pages that reload already I think it is safe to say I could use a bit more ram.

I could be wrong I suppose

 

[SmOgER]

Well I'm at 8GB stock so common sense says to just double it instead of adding just 4 more

I haven't gotten around to video editing since i just unpacked my gopro from my move but I want it to be as smooth as possible and if I am getting website pages that reload already I think it is safe to say I could use a bit more ram.

I could be wrong I suppose

based on what criteria you determinated that 8GB is not enough for you?
The only thing really which would suggest you so is if system is using swap. The memory usage alone doesn't mean crap to be completely honest.
use as much memory as you can (but be reasonable of course) while watching whether it starts using swap or will it simply just free up the unused ram to meet the demands. If it's the latter, you are completely fine.

 

[Weaselboy]

I often have to come in and out of whatever I'm doing in the foreground to answer emails, pick up calls (if i can get handoff to work) and other work type stuff. Will i be doing it every day all day, no not at all. I think I will be doing it enough to justify 16GB though, 32GB would be way overkill for me.

If that memory pressure graph ay the bottom of Activity Monitor was coming out of the green while you were multitasking that game, then yes, you would benefit from more RAM.

 

[oftheheavens]

If that memory pressure graph ay the bottom of Activity Monitor was coming out of the green while you were multitasking that game, then yes, you would benefit from more RAM.

Cool thanks again, it will be a month or so before I was even thinking of getting ram so I will just keep an eye on it ;-)

 

[jmazzamj]

I do think Yosemite is a memory hog, or at least it is as of now...

I never saw any swap in my 2012 with 4 GB, but I did see that on Yosemite for the first time...I hope they improve the memory usage before final release.

 

[cynics]

Well I'm at 8GB stock so common sense says to just double it instead of adding just 4 more

I haven't gotten around to video editing since i just unpacked my gopro from my move but I want it to be as smooth as possible and if I am getting website pages that reload already I think it is safe to say I could use a bit more ram.

I could be wrong I suppose

I did the same thing. In actual performance you won't notice much if any difference. Instead of 50% of 8 gb being used while you aren't really doing anything you'll see 50% of 16 gb being used while you aren't really doing anything.

I went from 8 gb to 24 gb and noticed no difference in ESO (I don't play Borderlands). And right now I'm in Safari and have iMessage open and thats it, activity monitor shows 17 gb used.

Like mentioned I'd save the money and upgrade when you start seeing swap and on memory pressure. Unless you just have the money to spend and just feel the need to add more RAM.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

RAM usage seems high for doing near nothing

Amazing RAM maintenance! While doing a offsite backup I got a swap of 2GB, after a while it returned to zero. Usually I get 23,xx GB used out of 24GB. No further issues with RAM.

 

[eastamherstbias]

I have 16 ram and it constantly says I have 2.5 free. under Mavericks I had 6-9 free.