Would Extra RAM Help Even with 0 Page Outs??

[JasonGough]

I only got 1 gig of RAM in my PowerMac, and was going to get a 2nd gig after XMas...

I read one of the guides on this forum about optimising OSX performance, and there was a thing about finding out if you 'need' more RAM.

The idea is, run your mac for 30 mins doing the kinda things you use it for, then check activity monitor & see how many 'Page Outs' the system has done (Page Out means its written memory to hard disk instead of RAM).

Have had it running for 2 hours now, working on an a few audio projects in Pro Tools, and not a single page out.

I know everyone says 'more RAM will always help', but does this simply mean i'm not even using all the RAM i have, and buying more would be pure waste, or would extra RAM still make things smoother??

Hope you can help

 

[mkrishnan]

You have one gig of RAM, in Tiger, using Pro Tools, and you have literally zero pageouts? I guess this is technically possible, but I find it really hard to believe that this is right. Not to say that you don't have enough memory already. But just from what I've seen of OS X, I find this really hard to believe....Do you have no other applications running in the background, or something?

 

[d.perel]

You have one gig of RAM, in Tiger, using Pro Tools, and you have literally zero pageouts? I guess this is technically possible, but I find it really hard to believe that this is right. Not to say that you don't have enough memory already. But just from what I've seen of OS X, I find this really hard to believe....Do you have no other applications running in the background, or something?

Believe it or not, I have found that on my G5, simply running too many widgets can slow down performance by a ton, especially when using iPhoto (please release a patch, apple!). Theoretically, when dealing with huge files, such as the iPhoto Library file, more RAM will always come in handy, but if you dont need it now, just wait half a year- With the way prices are coming down on memory, you might be able to get 25% more for the same price

 

[brepublican]

Wow.

Well, the rule of thumb seems to be that there is no such thing as too much RAM- but ZERO pageouts? Even with 1GB RAM, unless you are just doing some light Photoshop or something... I guess you don't need the extra RAM

 

[Malfoy]

More ram is never a waste! (Ok well maybe going from 15 gbs of ram to 16...)

My comp has been up for 2 days and 13 hours and claims to have 6,954 page outs and this is with 4.5 gbs of ram. Then again I was playing some UT2004 yesterday and opened PSCS2 a few times(although I didn't do anything heavy)

Anywho, unless your computer is super optimized, you definitely can't go wrong with having more ram. Better to have some unused then suffer from hard drive writes when you least expect it.

Attached is my typical process list and the space it takes up as well as menumeters output of what my processes take. I don't think I'm a 'heavy' casual user by any means but I sitll use close to a gig if not more constantly. If you have similiar processes, I'd say upgrade.

 

[JasonGough]

Man, sounds like i've stuck somthing unusual here!

Yeah, i'm running tiger, got ProTools 7 running. Got a 2.3 dual core PM with 1 gig ram.

Been going for a good few hours, been opening and closing lots of different pro tools projects, and not a single page out..

I know i've not got as much stuff running as Malfoy, but i've been checking mail, using safari, all the usual stuff during the afternoon aswell...

would be nice to have 2 gig of ram, but does all this mean i realy don't need it?

 

[mkrishnan]

Wait...so there's something I really don't get about your Activity Monitor report. It shows the number of page ins and outs since boot, correct? How can you have 8 gigs of VM with zero total page outs? How did the stuff get into VM to begin with if there were never page outs?

Is this just something I fail to understand, or is this really weird?

 

[Malfoy]

At the moment it seems that you just might not need it.(This is really is shocking). I'm going to reboot, not open UT2004 or PSCS2 and see if I get a ton of page outs. I'll post another monitor shot around 2.

 

[Malfoy]

Wait...so there's something I really don't get about your Activity Monitor report. It shows the number of page ins and outs since boot, correct? How can you have 8 gigs of VM with zero total page outs? How did the stuff get into VM to begin with if there were never page outs?

Is this just something I fail to understand, or is this really weird?

I think VM is created by default. What size it picks for the mac i don't know since I have 4.5x ram but 2x the VM.