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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Free Up Ram

agustn23 - Jul 19, 2005 - 1:37 am

my powerbook g4 loads up its ram (it takes a while so no worries about freakin out)
til it's really slow and i have to reboot when it does this

is there any way to see what's in the ram and delete it accordingly...i.e. free up my ram??

(kinda like ctrl alt del on a windows *cringe* machine)

skapp - Jul 19, 2005 - 2:37 am

This behavior is normal. The memory management system in OS X manages memory to assure that active applications receive the RAM they require. Unlike Windows OS X has a sophisticated memory management system that does not require third-party utilities to release previously used RAM.

If your computer is slowing down then you simply need more RAM. Slowdowns occur when you do not have adequate physical RAM and the OS must start using the disk-based VM (virtual memory.) OS X needs between 512 MB and 1 GB or RAM, optimally, for typical users. More if you are using apps like Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign, FCP, etc. which are heavy memory users.

If you want to see how memory is allocated as well as what processes are loaded and how much CPU time they are using, then open your Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities/ folder.)