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iOS Tips for improving Xcode performance?

Twimfy

Twimfy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 11, 2011
888
246
UK
Hi all,

I have an urgent deadline to meet with an App and due to some bad luck and personal circumstances I'm having to do it on an iMac with only 2GB of RAM, of which I cannot afford to upgrade at the moment.

Does anyone have any tips as to what I can do to improve Xcode performance? I've been told there are things such as disabling the indexing etc which will help but my google searches aren't bringing up anything useful.

I'm really not worried about preserving any data or anything, it's a simple App and I have plenty of backups so if there is anyway to basically strip Xcode down to the core so I can just get the work done.

All I need to be doing is implementing two view controllers and some store kit code but it is painfully slow.

Mavericks Memory compression seems to be helping somewhat but god help me if I try to do anything other than use Xcode, listening to music while I work is now a definite no.

What about creating a RAMDISK? Is that an option?
 
A ramdisk is excellent, but you only have 2G to deal with. I don't know if that'll actually end up helping or hurting.

It works within the OS, so if you unload things from the OS, that'll help.

I'm no expert on OSX, but I'm pretty sure it loads up a bunch of things. I've been told that once you run something, it stays in ram until the ram is needed again (assuming there is enough ram in the 1st place).

In other words, after you boot, some stock things load, see if you can control what loads and what doesn't. Second, don't run any other programs, they probably don't fully unload until the ram is needed. This is done for performance reasons. ... Again, I'm no OSX expert, but these are common things for most OS's.


The other option: SSD. Current prices on SSD (Solid State Drive) are < $1/MB. I got a 120G for $79.

SSD is basically a ramdrive.

You don't need a large one and I'd expect the < 100G ones will be going cheap. Look around for deals (Slickdeals.net) has many deals.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9&intagid[]=300


Here's one for $44 after rebate, some local stores do price matching. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...ffiliateID=lw9MynSeamY-wtXq7.2YgzYLi.NCny7P_w
 
Twimfy said:
Hi all,

I have an urgent deadline to meet with an App and due to some bad luck and personal circumstances I'm having to do it on an iMac with only 2GB of RAM, of which I cannot afford to upgrade at the moment.

Does anyone have any tips as to what I can do to improve Xcode performance? I've been told there are things such as disabling the indexing etc which will help but my google searches aren't bringing up anything useful.

I'm really not worried about preserving any data or anything, it's a simple App and I have plenty of backups so if there is anyway to basically strip Xcode down to the core so I can just get the work done.

All I need to be doing is implementing two view controllers and some store kit code but it is painfully slow.

Mavericks Memory compression seems to be helping somewhat but god help me if I try to do anything other than use Xcode, listening to music while I work is now a definite no.

What about creating a RAMDISK? Is that an option?
Click to expand...


No, creating a RAMDISK would likely make things MUCH worse.

2GB is not enough for Xcode, not by far.

A RAMDISK uses RAM memory to simulate a hard disk volume, to make disk-based operations like linking faster.

If you don't have enough RAM memory to begin with, a ram disk would use up vital RAM memory for this simulated disk volume. You would then run out of ram, and the RAM memory for Xcode, and for the RAM disk, would get swapped back and forth to the hard disk. The system would start paging like mad, and performance would drop to a crawl.

You should be able to get 8 GB of memory for less than $100 (US). You can't scrape together $100? It would be money well spent, to be sure. Not spending the $100 for the tools to do a paid assignment is like a taxi driver driving fares on a "donut" (compact emergency) spare tire because he can't afford the money for a new tire.
 
What year is your iMac? The Al models from 2007 - 2012 had an access door right under the Apple logo (opposite the foot - between the speakers) that made swapping out the RAM dead simple. I upgraded the RAM in my 2007 iMac twice since buying it (I bought it with 2 GB - 2x1GB). First I replaced one of the 1GB sticks with a 2GB, and then a few years later I replaced the other. So now it's at 4GB (which I believe is what my iMac maxes out at.) It's a bit sluggish, but I think I'll just suck it up for the next few months until I pay off some debts and am able to buy a new computer.

Opening that door to access the RAM is really easy - all you need is to remove a single philips screw. And the better RAM sticks are super cheap, too. Just follow Apple's guide on buying RAM to make sure you buy compatible RAM (and then buy it from... I think I got my sticks off of Amazon?)
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
What year is your iMac? The Al models from 2007 - 2012 had an access door right under the Apple logo (opposite the foot - between the speakers) that made swapping out the RAM dead simple. I upgraded the RAM in my 2007 iMac twice since buying it (I bought it with 2 GB - 2x1GB). First I replaced one of the 1GB sticks with a 2GB, and then a few years later I replaced the other. So now it's at 4GB (which I believe is what my iMac maxes out at.) It's a bit sluggish, but I think I'll just suck it up for the next few months until I pay off some debts and am able to buy a new computer.

Opening that door to access the RAM is really easy - all you need is to remove a single philips screw. And the better RAM sticks are super cheap, too. Just follow Apple's guide on buying RAM to make sure you buy compatible RAM (and then buy it from... I think I got my sticks off of Amazon?)
Click to expand...

Lol. I am very well aware of how to upgrade ram thanks. I've been building machines for 20 years.

As I mentioned in my post. I cannot afford to buy RAM at the minute and was just looking for a temp solution until I can. DD2 is quite expensive at the moment.
 
Build from as many resources in resource folder as possible.
Look at what source can be stored as data.

Sorry turn off indexing I don't remember either, but search my posts.
 
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