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  4. Inactive Memory dilemma

  • Inactive Memory dilemma

    J
    J
    I've discovered a strange phenomenon when using the VIs over time. I start losing memory to a thing called "inactive memory" and it continues to eat up my memory even though I optimize my VIs. I soon run out (4.5 gigs!) with only a few instruments loaded. If I reboot the computer, I get it all back again.

    Does anybody know what this "inactive memory" is and how it can be reclaimed without rebooting?

    Cheers,
    James
  • R
    R
    Not really sure of all of the technical aspect of why OSX operates this way but I have found a little shareware program that actually "reclaims" the inactive memory...it's called "iFreeMem".

    http://www.activata.co.uk/products/ifreemem.html

    I've used it for a short period of time and it's works great...now you don't have to reboot to get that memory back...

    Hope this helps!
  • J
    J
    Rob-
    That sure did the trick. I was down to 45 meg of memory, I hit the iFreeMem button and ended up with 2.5 gig and no reboot! Great little program. Thanks!

    Best,
    James
  • M
    M
    But is this actually really necessary? I mean won't OSX boot old stuff out of ram anyway when you start filling up or is there a problem where it gets full and doesn't let you access more ram?

    Miklos.
  • R
    R
    if you go to the iFreeMem (listed above) website, they sort of explain how OSX utilizes memory and why inactive memory happens...I'm no computer tech but I got the context...maybe this will help you understand why this happens. It helped me.
  • J
    J
    Interestingly, I bought iFreeMem this morning after successfully using it last night...If I use shareware, I always buy it. This morning, all it does is crash and burn. I entered the serial number, and that was the last time it worked! Damn, no good deed goes unpunished! I contacted them and hopefully they'll get back to me with a solution.

    James
  • M
    M
    Seems a bit redundant to me, unless you are loading stuff and the osx memory cache is slowing you down... Also there is a free app called onyx that will clean out memory caches and do a lot of other actually very helpful house cleaning like running maintenance scripts etc if you're worried about that sort of thing. best thing to do with OSX is don't fill up your hard drives more than 2/3's capacity - 3/4 as a max. Apart from that if you leave it alone it runs great. You can also repair permissions occassionally but that doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with 10.4 - I run it sometimes, it rarely makes any changes, sometimes one or two, but again this is free - just disk utility which is part of osx.

    Miklos.
  • R
    R
    last edited
    last edited

    @mpower88 said:

    Seems a bit redundant to me, unless you are loading stuff and the osx memory cache is slowing you down... Also there is a free app called onyx that will clean out memory caches and do a lot of other actually very helpful house cleaning like running maintenance scripts etc if you're worried about that sort of thing. best thing to do with OSX is don't fill up your hard drives more than 2/3's capacity - 3/4 as a max. Apart from that if you leave it alone it runs great. You can also repair permissions occassionally but that doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with 10.4 - I run it sometimes, it rarely makes any changes, sometimes one or two, but again this is free - just disk utility which is part of osx.

    Miklos.


    Very happy that it's working for you without any issues...as for me I know that even though I have external firewire drives (6 Mac Minis) that aren't even half full, running nothing but Rax and load one set-up on each computer I find that after a while the "auido load meter" (a couple of them that are loaded up pretty heavily) on Rax approaches "critical mass" unless I shut them down and reboot.

    The "inactive memory" seems to be an issue and this little ditty seems to help. So,"redundant or not" it's a quick fix that I'm glad I found.

    btw, let me know what "computer gods" you pray to that you don't have to contend with this issue...would love to have a trouble free studio! [:D]
  • J
    J
    Just heard back from John Wylie at Activata (iFreeMem) and he said they have run into the crash issue with G5s that have tons of memory on a few occasions. I have 4.5 gigs, so he wasn't surprised. They're working on it currently and will send me an update on the application tonight with hopes that it will fix the problem. Now that's what I call tech support.

    James
  • J
    J
    Just to finish my end of this string, John at Activata sent me an email with a link to another version of iFreeMem around 8 O'clock NYC time which didn't work. I emailed him the crash log, and an hour later he emailed me a another new version of the app. This time it worked! My point is this guy is in England and up at three in the morning writing code for a customer who's having problems. That's what I call one kick ass company. Try that with MOTU. You're lucky if they answer your email within twenty four hours or days. Reminds me of Emagic when they still owned Logic!

    This is a great little application, and a really stand up company.

    Cheers,
    James