RAM Usage Unusual?

[i4k20c]

Hey Guys,
I have a 12in g4 pb 1.5ghz running 10.4.6 and i had a question? I know ram comes up alot, but this is weird. When i first got my back (Sept 2005), and up until about a month ago, with Word, Safari, Adium, Mail running, i had like 120 mb of ram free... now i have usually 5-20mb.. whats going on? Sometime my swap thing gets high reading from istatpro when i don't restart for a week, but i usually restart every couple days, and have to every friday.. so

btw, i have 512 mb.. i just dont understand y up until a month or two ago, i had so much more free ram and now its almost none. Only time i really notice alot of slow downs is if my computer is on for a long time (3-4 days) and the swap thing is high (gets to 1gig), i can get some beach balls.. but im just a bit confused??

 

[rye9]

I have the same situation. After the update, I have generally about 30-40 MB less RAM... its pissing me off.

 

[captainbeefheat]

The only one you need to be conerned about is the active one I think. From the diagram you still got quite a bit left. You don't tend to need to worry about the other ones.

As for the slow down have you installed anything new in that time? Sounds like some memory leaking maybe from a program not managing its memory very well? Or have you whacked in a lot of new widgets recently? Those things take up quite a bit for what they are.