how do i see how much RAM is being used?

bolindilly

John Galt Member
in OS 9, if you went to about this computer, it would show how much ram each of the current applications were curently using up... how do i see this in OS X? i went to the "Process Viewer," but that was jsut for processes...

help?

BoLinDilly
 
Open a Terminal window and type in top . This will show you how much memory you have free, how much is used, how much swap, and all processes and how much memory they are using.

bioz
------
MacOS X - Unix Power-Apple Looking - The Future of computing
 
i know how to do that, i was just hoping that there was a way to represent it graphically, like in OS 9...

BoLinDilly
 
Well, ProcessViewer does show some memory information... (especially under the statistics tab). As for total memory usage, you can probably count on most of your memory being used at all times. At least when you've had your comp running a while. It's the way memory management under OS X works.
I suppose the only way to get real information at the moment is top.
 
hi all ...

i just went to the TERMINAL and just did the "top" command ..

i feel like a mission impossible crazy hacker and this is 101% cooler than a mazda RX-7 silver with nitro!!!

and the dynamic updating is nifty too :D

question: what other commands are available form the command line like this? i know that a process can be killed, and now to view them, but is there a master list of getting started with UNIX that applies?

from what i understand, development tools arent available with OSX PB but does that limit the commands in TERMINAL?

wondering
quix
 
hi all ...

i just went to the TERMINAL and just did the "top" command ..

i feel like a mission impossible crazy hacker and this is 101% cooler than a mazda RX-7 silver with nitro!!!

and the dynamic updating is nifty too :D

question: what other commands are available form the command line like this? i know that a process can be killed, and now to view them, but is there a master list of getting started with UNIX that applies?

from what i understand, development tools arent available with OSX PB but does that limit the commands in TERMINAL?

wondering
quix
 
I started off as a Unix newbie on OS X using the "Unix for Dummies" book. You could also try the O'Reilly book dedicated to Csh and Tcsh. I forget the exact name at the moment, something like "Learning Csh and Tsch." I noticed it the other day in a local book store in with other O'Reilly books in the Unix section.
 
The whole concept of an app "using memory" is a whole lot less significant these days under Mac OS X than under Mac OS 9.

In Mac OS 9 everything was doled out in very brittle heaps when an app was launched. You had to worry about fragmentation of the memory space and how your app would fit all of the code and the user's documents into the RAM space.

Under Mac OS X that's largely irrelevent for the end user. The industrial quality virtual memory system of Mac OS X means that your app asks for what it needs. The only parts that are "wired" to real RAM are in the kernel so unless you're writing device drivers this is largely irrelevent.

That's not completely true, an Apple developer on the OmniGroup developer mailing list said that the kernel hard wires around 17 megs of RAM. If you are trying to squeeze apps and data into memory you'll be much happier if it all squishes into as much "real RAM" as you have. No app can "hog" your RAM just by having it open (like in Mac OS 9) but if you have 160 megs of RAM you'll get much swifter performance than with 64.

I'm curious what you want to do with these RAM numbers? If you're a programmer you probably want to have a second machine set up and get your stats via ethernet so that the top command itself doesn't spoil the numbers too much. If your an end user, you can get some numbers but they'll be highly subject to what you're trying to do at the moment and the only real control you have as a user is whether to plunk your VISA card down and spring for more chips or not. I dunno about you, but I find that much easier to do by "feel" rather than with top.
 
Cool.

Now I can see how efficiently the system is running and how much RAM each application is grabbing. I guess as long as you have physical RAM free, it's a good sign...

Cheers.
 
In response to ... is there a master list. ..? by quizx :
Go ask around in the Unix Newbie Forum here at MacOSX.com, I'm sure they can tell you most everything you want to know. :)
 
Once Yahoo gets their act together I will not need Classic. :/

Fire is just not good enough to use for Yahoo messenger service so don't suggest it. :)

Originally posted by sverre
Especially if you have the classic env running. It eats memory fast...
 
Let's be real here... Yahoo hasn't updated their Mac version of the client for ages. In fact, it's still advertised on their site as being for Mac OS 8.5!!!

They've skipped giving Mac users all the cool features that the Windoze guys have and their Java version doesn't even run properly...

If a program like Fire can provide the functionality I need under the "new" OS, I'm more than happy to make the switch.

Cheers.
 
Back
Top