memory usage....

steven_lufc

steven_lufc

Registered
Hiya..

I have just added 512mb extra ram, taking my total to 768mb. I don't know if I'm expecting too much but Jaguar doesn't seem much faster, I still get the spinning beachball and menu meters says that 758mb is being used even though I've only got Safari and iTunes open (and finder!). Does this sound about right and are my expectations too high or is something wrong? I was expecting to see a little improvement ie apps opening quicker and less spinning beachball :(

I've checked 'About this Mac' in the apple menu and it has definitely registered that I have added more RAM.

G3 Graphite Slot-Loading 600MHz iMac
40gb HD
768mb RAM
10.2.6
 
If you have more than 256MB of RAM, many of the obvious advantages are less noticable, as the biggest advantage is OSX being able to defragment the files it has in RAM, thus increasing the speed of RAM access.

Note that as long as your pageins are larger than your pageouts, you are usually still all good.
Eg: My Machine - 11614(0) pageins, 830(0) pageouts.

Bear in mind that the spinning beachball is a GENERAL progress meter, and in some cases those processes are dependant on things other than RAM, like the CPU time required for the processing of files needed when an app opens, for example - Indesign is a good example; I have 896MB of RAM at work, but InDesign still takes a while to start up because it has a very CPU intensive start up sequence.
That said, you might find you get a good boost if you defragment your hard drive (if you haven't been doing this regularly), since the files can then be loaded into all that RAM faster cos they (and all their parts) are easier to find on your hard drive.

Lastly, OSX is always going to be noticably slower on ANY G3 based machine, as it is designed primarily for the G4 chips, and gets a marked speed boost from the Altivec accelleration that these chips provide.
 
My 500 mHz iBook feels sluggish (usually, a bit; sometimes quite) in OS X. Still, I preferrred it to Win XP on an 800mHz PC (sold it) and to OS 9. I don't miss the latter's instability.

Doug

P.S. I'm SURE you will find that 768 megs will help, esp. when you're running lots of programs at once, and switching between them. Your hard drive access should also be faster on the whole due to less usage of virtual memory.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top