Will Lion be more resource hungry than Snow Leopard?

[mattchiro]

I've got a 13" MacBook Pro 5,5 Core 2 duo 2.26ghz with 2GB RAM installed.

I use it for web design (wordpress), and often have loads of chrome tabs open. Occasional photoshop use.

I've noticed in Snow Leopard my system runs quite well. I have thought about upgrading the RAM but it's never been enough of a worry to warrant spending the extra money.

Will I have any issues with the above in Lion? Or would 4GB/more RAM be preferential?

Apologies if this has already been asked.

Many thanks!
Matt

 

[appleguy123]

I don't know. It's relevant to my interests.
The iPhone isn't very resource hungry, and this multitasking is apparently similar, so if I had to guess, I'd say that Lion is less resource hungry.

 

[PurrBall]

I have 2.65 GB marked "Active" right now with 3 Chrome tabs, Mail, iTunes, Twitterrific, Skype, Word 2011, and Activity Monitor open. I would expect it to improve by the time this is released, though.

787 MB of that is the kernel task. I have no idea why it is using so much.

 

[mmendoza27]

Half of my RAM is being used (I have 4 GB) and that's just with Safari open with 3 tabs. Mac OS X has always used all the RAM you give it. If I had 6 GB, more would be allocated to the OS than if I had just 2 GB. It just depends. This has been happening for a while within Mac OS X.

Lion uses RAM pretty vigorously, but it still runs a little slow with Launchpad and Mission Control, but it'll be optimized by Summer 2011. Don't go off what reports are right now since it's kinda buggy. However, with what you do, it would be best to upgrade to 4 GB either way.

 

[ufkdo]

I don't think so, since Apple still continuing to sell MBAs with 2 GB RAM, they must work on using less resources.

 

[skafia]

I just installed Lion on a 2010 Mini with an SSD upgrade and 5 Gb of ram and Lion is a bit laggy. I don't think it's the ram issue, I think the display drivers need more work. Launchpad is laggy, same with folders. Maybe it's just me.

 

[axu539]

I just installed Lion on a 2010 Mini with an SSD upgrade and 5 Gb of ram and Lion is a bit laggy. I don't think it's the ram issue, I think the display drivers need more work. Launchpad is laggy, same with folders. Maybe it's just me.

Give it a couple minutes. Spotlight has to finish indexing.

 

[mmendoza27]

Give it a couple minutes. Spotlight has to finish indexing.

It can still be laggy at times. I agree it's better after the indexing, but mine finished a while ago.

 

[jeznav]

I have 2.65 GB marked "Active" right now with 3 Chrome tabs, Mail, iTunes, Twitterrific, Skype, Word 2011, and Activity Monitor open. I would expect it to improve by the time this is released, though.

787 MB of that is the kernel task. I have no idea why it is using so much.

Half of my RAM is being used (I have 4 GB) and that's just with Safari open with 3 tabs. Mac OS X has always used all the RAM you give it. If I had 6 GB, more would be allocated to the OS than if I had just 2 GB. It just depends. This has been happening for a while within Mac OS X.

Lion uses RAM pretty vigorously, but it still runs a little slow with Launchpad and Mission Control, but it'll be optimized by Summer 2011. Don't go off what reports are right now since it's kinda buggy. However, with what you do, it would be best to upgrade to 4 GB either way.

------------------

That's because applications (including the kernel) that are running in 64-bit mode will always utilize more ram. It has nothing to do being a resource hog or memory leaks.

From an article:

Servers in particular get a performance benefit from 64-bit kernel due
to less mode switching when 64-bit application processes are doing a lot
of I/O. The benefit for non-server computers is less noticeable, and
unless you have plenty of real memory (definitely more than 4 GB)
running the 64-bit kernel is probably a disadvantage due to its higher
memory usage.

Source: http://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/mac/28369/When-Will-Apple-Support-64-Bit-Kernel-on-Mac-Mini

 

[haugh.allenj]

Lion on 2GB RAM

I've got a 13" MacBook Pro 5,5 Core 2 duo 2.26ghz with 2GB RAM installed.

I use it for web design (wordpress), and often have loads of chrome tabs open. Occasional photoshop use.

I've noticed in Snow Leopard my system runs quite well. I have thought about upgrading the RAM but it's never been enough of a worry to warrant spending the extra money.

Will I have any issues with the above in Lion? Or would 4GB/more RAM be preferential?

Apologies if this has already been asked.

Many thanks!
Matt

Matt,
Lion is running fine for me on a 6,1 macbook, same specs. Might not want to use PhotoShop on it though, Pixelmator is MUCH faster.