So I've noticed something recently - my computer from 2008 keeps running out of 4GB. Both at work and at home. Even after wasting my precious time to remove all autoupdaters and such shit. When chrome came out, it consumed the least amounts of memory. It made sense over IE or FF. Now chrome can easily eat up 1GB+ with only a couple of tabs. FF and IE now look nice. Thunderbird eats up more and more on daily basis (tho not fair as my folders are ~1GB on average). IntelliJ used to run w/ 256MB, but now 1GB is a must (again probably not fair since projects have grown since '08). Newer (old) MSSQL 2008 manager eats up a lot as well. Good old 2000 is not eating more though. So forth etc... In school I've been taught memory is precious and we should conserve it. But I have this feeling someone somewhere has finally said - memory is unlimited at 64 bits and you are to no longer consider it to be a limitation, don't waste your time writing optimal code. Before someone says - upgrade your dope man - computers haven't improved enough since '08 to warrant an upgrade. If I was complaining about a '00 or even '05, then yes. But dual/quad 2.6GHZ w/ 4GB is not that fucking bad.

MrDaniil:

So I've noticed something recently - my computer from 2008 keeps running out of 4GB.

What operating system is it running? How are you measuring memory usage? How are you sure it's "running out"? (Note: if you're running Vista, which would be in-line with a 2008 computer, the memory read-out in Task Manager is very misleading.)

MrDaniil:

In school I've been taught memory is precious and we should conserve it.

When did you go to school? Virtual Memory has been ubiquitous for ages now.

MrDaniil:

But I have this feeling someone somewhere has finally said - memory is unlimited at 64 bits and you are to no longer consider it to be a limitation, don't waste your time writing optimal code.

More like... someone finally realized that memory that was sitting around unused could be better-used as a disk cache. There's zero reason to have completely unused memory in a computer, so even a MB of free memory represents a failing of the OS.

MrDaniil:

Before someone says - upgrade your dope man - computers haven't improved enough since '08 to warrant an upgrade. If I was complaining about a '00 or even '05, then yes. But dual/quad 2.6GHZ w/ 4GB is not that fucking bad.

Well, I don't have enough information to address your concerns unless I at least know what operating system you're talking about. There were a lot of people who thought that Vista was "running out of memory" because the read-out in Task Manager was misleading, and reported "empty memory" without reporting "memory which could be made empty in less than a millisecond". Which is the majority of memory used on modern Windows OSes... the Windows 7 machine I'm running now with 8 GB is actively using 3.7 GB, has 4.3 GB "available" (which means it can be cleared in a millisecond if there is demand), and has 640 MB actually free (meaning, completely empty.) That's typical.

The problem with Vista, which I suspect is what you're having troubles with, is that the Task Manager readout shows memory used by the disk cache as "used" when it should have been reported as "free". (Well, more accurately, it should have been reported as "available" like Windows 7, but the read-out only had 3 lines of data to work with, not 4.)

Anyway, lemme know what OS you're talking about and we can figure out your memory problem.

Work - Windows XP. Home - Windows 7. Measuring using task manager. I'm looking at each process and how much memory it uses MEM Usage or VM Size. Its a 32bit system, so after about 3GB of total memory usage it will start swapping. Lately its been doing too much of that because programs have been using up more and more memory - aka why does each chrome tab need 90MB or 200MB? FF takes up total of 246MB for some reason. Windows 7 does pretty well actually, my only beef is with LR4, but I don't complain about that because I'm handling ever bigger raw files. But work's PC is getting more and more annoying.

MrDaniil:

aka why does each chrome tab need 90MB or 200MB?

Much of that usage is shared .dlls that every Chrome process uses. But the answer is: depends on the website it's displaying, doesn't it?

MrDaniil:

FF takes up total of 246MB for some reason.

Firefox sucks.

MrDaniil:

my only beef is with LR4,

What's LR4? Googling it I get only a model of LandRover.

MrDaniil:

But work's PC is getting more and more annoying.

Well, Windows XP memory management is indeed far inferior to Windows 7's, as you've noticed yourself. A good first step might be to just upgrade the OS and see if it resolves the issue. You might also look at what software your employer put on it, I bet it's bloated and buggy since it always is.

There's no reason XP's "inferior memory management" should have any effect at all on performance (because I don't have inferior performance on my XP machine at home and never run out), and my work machine equipped with Vista lags the fuck out of everything, and that too has nothing at all to do with memory management. I suspect the hard drive and/or McAfee.

In other words, memory is always fast. I can't see a situation where upgrading the OS because of memory problems will fix anything. If you're running out of memory, you're doing things yourself: running leaky or super-heavy software.

blakeyrat:

There's zero reason to have completely unused memory in a computer, so even a MB of free memory represents a failing of the OS.

 

Filled ram consumes power and produces heat.

dhromed:

Filled ram consumes power and produces heat.

Uh. No it doesn't. But thanks for trying! Take home one of our consolation prizes, a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes!

blakeyrat:

Uh. No it doesn't.

 

Ok, slightly deeper research tells me that everything else about a ram module's operation probably far outweighs the refresher that DRAM capacitors need.

So I'll take that consolation prize, even though I'm still right! And I don't smoke. :(