# Is Mac OS X becoming a memory hog?



## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

I've been looking around the internet, and even around these forums, and I've noticed something. Mac OS X, though originally a streamlined, simple operating system, has been requiring higher and higher system configurations, with minimal gain. 

If anyone doesn't know it already, I HATE memory hogs. This is why I prefer Windows 2000 to XP, Microsoft Office to OpenOffice, Opera to Firefox and, yes, Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. This is why I HATE Windows Vista- the worst excuse for a Windows OS ever (aside from Me). Recently, at Wikipedia, I found the system requirements for Mac OS X leopard and Windows Vista. Here they are:

*Windows Vista*

800 MHz Pentium III processor
512 Megabytes RAM
DVD-ROM drive
20 GB hard drive capacity, 15 GB of free space

*Mac OS X v.10.5*

At least 867 MHz PowerPC G4 processor
512 Megabytes RAM
DVD-ROM drive
At least 9 GB hard drive space

Certainly, OS X will run very quickly on any new Mac- just how Vista will run quickly on any new PC. But I have a friend with a 1.42 GHz Power Macintosh G4, he just upgraded to Leopard and tells me he immediately notices that the computer is up to 15s slower on startup, and that it lags on pretty much every request, aside those within the operating system (like spaces). He claims that "this is the first Mac OS that's dissapointed me". 

So, what's your opinion? Has Mac OS X become a memory hog, destined to follow the fate of Windows Vista? (I would hate a world where everyone uses Linux. That would SUCK)


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

broken_g3 said:


> So, what's your opinion? Has Mac OS X become a memory hog, destined to follow the fate of Windows Vista? (I would hate a world where everyone uses Linux. That would SUCK)


 Who cares? I have 4 GB of memory, so who cares if a little of it goes to waste. I don't care about Windows or Linux either, no relevance to my life at all.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

My Mac mini (G4) also slowed with the install of Leopard (10.5.x), but I can live with a very slight decrease in regular speed.

Pre-G5 units should stay with 10.4.11 for optimal performance. With Intel-based Macs, it's a non-issue, and with RAM being as dirt cheap as it is, it stays a non-issue for _most_ users.


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## mikefly (May 13, 2008)

I found it super annoying when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. I expected things to run faster, but it slowed my MBP down considerably, but then again, I didn't do a clean install. 

A month ago I realized that I had migrated my G4 MBP running tiger to my new C2D MBP and then upgraded that machine from tiger to leopard. It was running super slow and it was really frustrating. I finally lost it, wrote off a weekend and wiped it clean and reinstalled everything. 

I knew it was a good idea when CS3 took 15 minutes to install instead of over 50! Since then, my machine has been kicking ass. I'm loving it now! 

I'm just sad I'll have to do it all over again in the fall with Snow Leopard...


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

We have one Intel iMac running OS X 10.5, one G3 running OS 10 X 10.4 and three more G3's running OS X 10.3. They all work fine in OS X and I only run OS 9.2 if I have no other option, which is pretty much never. Really, I think you're making too big a deal about this. Your fear of OS X seems to be rooted in something else. Fear of change, maybe?


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

Maybe this is what Apple has caught on to and thus, will be releasing Snow Leopard.


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## NBiBooker (Apr 3, 2004)

broken_g3 said:


> I've been looking around the internet, and even around these forums, and I've noticed something. Mac OS X, though originally a streamlined, simple operating system, has been requiring higher and higher system configurations, with minimal gain.
> 
> If anyone doesn't know it already, I HATE memory hogs. This is why I prefer Windows 2000 to XP, Microsoft Office to OpenOffice, Opera to Firefox and, yes, Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. This is why I HATE Windows Vista- the worst excuse for a Windows OS ever (aside from Me). Recently, at Wikipedia, I found the system requirements for Mac OS X leopard and Windows Vista. Here they are:
> 
> ...


You're comparing lemons (Vista) and Apples, pardon the pun. I dare you to run Vista with those minimum requirements. Even if it does run, it runs with reduced functionality. (i.e. watered down interface). Vista's real minimum requirements are signficantly higher. My experience has been that it needs at LEAST 2 gigs of ram and a dual-core P4 class processor and a hole pile of hard drive space.

Having said that, there is a certain element of truth to your notion of Leopard running slower on older machines. Mac users have taken for granted the longer lifespans of their hardware and we sometimes don't realize how different OS X versions can be. Leopard is significantly more advanced than Tiger and much, much more than Panther, which is the OS I think the machine originally shipped with.

Could Leopard be faster? Yep. As others have pointed out, that's likely the genesis for Snow Leopard. Can be use less system resources? You betcha. Take a look at the tiny footprint of OS X on an iPhone.


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## allanyong (Jan 22, 2006)

4GB is $100 on other world computing now....

How much ram can you buy with $100 back to era of G4

The problem with Vista, it doesn't run that smoothly on the NEW machines.


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## edmondk (Jul 14, 2008)

I have a 1.25 Ghz mini with 1gig of RAM running 10.3.9 and a 1.42 Ghz ibook with 2 Gigs running tiger and I was thinking of upgrading both of them to leopard in a month or so when i get an iphone. I already feel like my mini drags sometimes and was hoping that leopard would pep it up. Part of the reason for upgrading is so that I am not forced to run ancient versions of safari and firefox. 
So is it a bad idea for my to upgrade to leopard? am I better off just upgrading my mini to tiger and leaving the ibook as it is?


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## psychodad (Apr 30, 2004)

Seems that there are expectations of improved performance without demanding more of the supporting hardware.

My 12" PB is pretty much at the limit of specs to run Leopard - and it runs it pretty well. The limit is RAM. The PB max is 1.25GB, and if I have a few apps running for a while, Activity Monitor shows a shortage of free RAM - whereas Tiger used less.

The OS still seems pretty slim to me, and since later machines accept more RAM, and it's cheap these days, then it's a price worth paying.


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## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

fjnmusic said:


> We have one Intel iMac running OS X 10.5, one G3 running OS 10 X 10.4 and three more G3's running OS X 10.3. They all work fine in OS X and I only run OS 9.2 if I have no other option, which is pretty much never. Really, I think you're making too big a deal about this. Your fear of OS X seems to be rooted in something else. Fear of change, maybe?


No, actually, I started this thread to keep Mac OS X system requirements discussions out of my Mac OS 9 poll. Actually, if you go to that poll, you will see one of my entries with a link to this page for all those who wish to take their OS X resource consumption-related comments to a specialized section:

http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/67363-poll-any-os-9-users-still-out-there.html

(go to page 4)

I'm not scared of change; just like the look and feel of the original OS better. If OS X had the ability to use a "classic" skin (kinda like the "Windows Classic" theme ability in Windows XP), incorporating the elegance of the old OS with the stability of the new one, I'd already have it.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Actually, the reason OS X likes as much RAM as possible has nothing to do with it being a "hog" and everything to do with the fact that it utilises memory VERY efficiently (at least viz older Mac OSes and Windows OSes).

Remember when the chips Apple used were lagging behind Intel and AMD by a substantial margin? More RAM made up (most of) the difference, because buffering your processor via cache+RAM is always faster than buffering through cache alone.

This led Apple to work on a number of other RAM-related innovations, like making the graphics card work harder (so the processor is free to do other things), saving swap files on sleep (faster restoration on wake) and so forth.

It was at least in part an effort to maximize OS X performance, especially for the past few years where BY DESIGN the code could not really be optimised.

Snow Leopard promises to change some of that, and will doubtless bring new innovations that couldn't be supported under PPC with it. Can't wait.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

broken_g3 said:


> So, what's your opinion? Has Mac OS X become a memory hog, destined to follow the fate of Windows Vista?


OSX has indeed become a memory hog, as every version seems to need a doubling of memory to get anything done, and Leopard moreso because everyone seems to gravitate to 4GB right off the bat. Apple wants to address this with Snow Leopard, since they know they can not double the memory requirements again without obsoleting all of the 32 bit processors.

However, OSX is not destined to follow the fate of Fi$ta. Fi$ta has it's own set of problems, being a memory hog is the least amongst them. For instance, drivers and hardware is the first fiasco, as most devices do not and probably will never have a proper driver. Fi$ta also comes in at least 15 different variants, so perhaps Fi$ta Homeboy will work on some systems, but most Fi$ta software will not run on what is basically a screwed over and warmed over of XP. And getting Ultimate to run can be costly, since a low end NVidea card for Ultimate is in the $500 range alone. Fi$ta is completely broken when it comes to video cards and is completely unsuitable for low end systems with integrated video.

These are simply not problems that OSX has. It is true that some devices are left without drivers under Leopard. However, there is third party support for legacy devices (which may require some hackishness on the user's part), and other drivers are released on a regular basis. All-In-One printers are generally broken anyways, on any platform. OSX comes in two flavours, the regular version and a Server version, and anything that runs on the regular version runs on the Server version - since the kernels are the same. And video cards are not broken under OSX. OSX will run on even the crummiest of Intel video - perhaps not well or in an acceptable manner - but it will run.



> Mac OS X, though originally a streamlined, simple operating system, has been requiring higher and higher system configurations, with minimal gain.


Apple has been trying to "out feature" the vapourware that the Evil Empire keeps talking about (but never produces). However, even if the features are crummy, or outright ugly like Dashboard - they all do work and work correctly. This is a crucial difference because Windoze features are usually broken or dain bramaged from the get go. Plus, Apple usually does not drop core items like the Evil Empire is prone to do. For instance, Apple keeps Safari, while the Evil Empire did scuttle MS Interblech Exploder in favour of some reskinned junk called Windoze Interblech Exploder. They also got rid of Outlook Express. Many of the extras that Apple does include are very good programs, like iTunes, QuickTime, etc. when compared to what, Winblowz Media Exterminator?!



> Recently, at Wikipedia, I found the system requirements for Mac OS X leopard and Windows Vista. Here they are:


I would say they are pretty minimum requirements on the part of Vista. No practical Vista system could be based on an obsolete 800MHz Pentium III, though perhaps if you don't mind the giant X on the screen everytime you click on an icon, you could run Fi$ta Homeboy.

OSX, on the other hand, publishes a minimum, and the system is entirely adequate at that minimum (unless one is doing a lot of rendering, something that can't be done in Windoze anyways). Not to mention the number of people that use the various work arounds and obtain satisfactory performance out of lesser machines.

As for your friend... He really has to let the system build the Spotlight metafile first, before making a ciomparison.


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

NBiBooker said:


> You're comparing lemons (Vista) and Apples, pardon the pun. I dare you to run Vista with those minimum requirements. Even if it does run, it runs with reduced functionality. (i.e. watered down interface). Vista's real minimum requirements are signficantly higher. My experience has been that it needs at LEAST 2 gigs of ram and a dual-core P4 class processor and a hole pile of hard drive space.
> 
> Having said that, there is a certain element of truth to your notion of Leopard running slower on older machines. Mac users have taken for granted the longer lifespans of their hardware and we sometimes don't realize how different OS X versions can be. Leopard is significantly more advanced than Tiger and much, much more than Panther, which is the OS I think the machine originally shipped with.
> 
> Could Leopard be faster? Yep. As others have pointed out, that's likely the genesis for Snow Leopard. Can be use less system resources? You betcha. Take a look at the tiny footprint of OS X on an iPhone.


I totally agree here, my personal experience with Vista is that you need 3GB of RAM to use it comfortably and not feel like you have Jedi-like reflexes. It would take 4GB of RAM running Vista to measure up to 2GB of RAM running Leopard IMO.


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## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

EvanPitts said:


> As for your friend... He really has to let the system build the Spotlight metafile first, before making a ciomparison.


I think he's already done that. Even though it's refered to as "building" the metafile, he claims that the HD is "indexed". Still stuck using the old Mac OS 9 terms, I guess, but I'm assuming it basically means the same thing. He claimed that, before "indexing", the computer would be even slower. 

Can't make a decision myself, I've yet to use Leopard outside a brand new Macintosh, where it is indeed very speedy. As I like to make analogies to the Windows world, OS 10.4 and 10.5 kinda remind me of Windows 2000 and XP. 2000, like 10.4, will run much faster and more efficient on old hardware. However, once you have a computer that's powerful enough (Pentium 1.6 GHz or equivelant), XP will end up being faster and more efficient due to its more modern (albeit more hungry) design, much like Leopard. But if I ran XP on my 933 MHz Inspiron, Christ would it ever be slow... just like Leopard on a 1.42 GHz G4, I guess.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Jimbo Slice said:


> I totally agree here, my personal experience with Vista is that you need 3GB of RAM to use it comfortably and not feel like you have Jedi-like reflexes. It would take 4GB of RAM running Vista to measure up to 2GB of RAM running Leopard IMO.


He sees things before they happen. That's why he appears to have fast reflexes. Check his mitochlorian count.


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

fjnmusic said:


> He sees things before they happen. That's why he appears to have fast reflexes. Check his mitochlorian count.


LOL, my bad, what I meant was, I feel like I've been freed of the Matrix and everything is in super slow-mo like Neo


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## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

fjnmusic said:


> He sees things before they happen. That's why he appears to have fast reflexes. Check his mitochlorian count.


I'm actually a Sith, but whatever


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Well, Sith you put it that way…

YouTube - Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of the Sith Parody


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

fjnmusic said:


> He sees things before they happen. That's why he appears to have fast reflexes. Check his mitochlorian count.


LOL my bad, what I actually meant was I felt like I'd been freed from the Matrix and I had bullet time on my side.


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## PierreB (Mar 5, 2007)

*Mac Mini*



edmondk said:


> I have a 1.25 Ghz mini with 1gig of RAM running 10.3.9 and a 1.42 Ghz ibook with 2 Gigs running tiger and I was thinking of upgrading both of them to leopard in a month or so when i get an iphone. I already feel like my mini drags sometimes and was hoping that leopard would pep it up. Part of the reason for upgrading is so that I am not forced to run ancient versions of safari and firefox.
> So is it a bad idea for my to upgrade to leopard? am I better off just upgrading my mini to tiger and leaving the ibook as it is?


Have a Mini with similar specs to yours. No problems running Leopard - if anything, especially after the last update, the machine is quite snappy under Leopard.


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## DR Hannon (Jan 21, 2007)

I have a MDD 1.25, running 10.5. I have had no issues at all. It only has 1 gig of memory, but it feels very snappy.


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

Excuse my ignorance but whats a MDD?


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

Jimbo Slice said:


> Excuse my ignorance but whats a MDD?


Probably the best Mac Apple ever produced, given it's productive longevity. I'm not about to retire mine... :clap:


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Ah yes, one of these:


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

Bjornbro said:


> Probably the best Mac Apple ever produced, given it's productive longevity. I'm not about to retire mine... :clap:


That does look pretty sweet, superb that you're running Leopard on it snappily (if thats a word). Thanks for the edu


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

Jimbo Slice said:


> That does look pretty sweet, superb that you're running Leopard on it snappily (if thats a word). Thanks for the edu


Actually, I'm not. Just Tiger, but it does run _s-m-o-o-t-h_ as silk on glass.


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## DR Hannon (Jan 21, 2007)

My MDD, went to my 3 year old son. Even so I use it from time to time. I have to say the leopard runs great. Not quite as nice on my Macbook or my wife's intel imac. BUT, it is still runs at a decent pace. While I love my Macbook, the MDD is staying for a while yet.


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## rubeole (Oct 21, 2005)

Those machines are effin' loud.


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## edmondk (Jul 14, 2008)

what does your three year old do on the computer?


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

edmondk said:


> what does your three year old do on the computer?


Drool, mostly. 

(actually I don't have kids, and wouldn't let a three-year-old NEAR a functional computer myself -- but that was a straight line I couldn't resist!)


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

Hey Chas...you might be rather surprised at what some 3-year-olds can do on computers!!! (mine loved Kidpix at that age and played various kid games) My now-16-year-old figured out how to climb up on the chair and turn our Mac IIsi on when he was just 10 months old. We had to dispense with our Oscar the Grouch trash can soon after - it didn't take him long to figure out how to make Oscar sing! (it sang "Oh, I love trash" every time you put something into the trash and "I love it because it's trash" every time you emptied it.   

(BTW - 99.9% of them are about 2 years past the drooling stage at age 3!)

As for the original question - I have had to increase the RAM on my G5 with Leopard. I'm now up to 4.5 GB and it's working well. I do tend to have a lot of applications running at once when working on web sites (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Word, several browsers) but I'd have to say the worst offender still seems to be Safari/Webkit. At least I've reduced the page outs to almost nil.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

I remember the Oscar trash can! Eventually they made a standalone version after many customers had all kinds of important things go missing when little kids were looking for stuff to throw out.


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## DR Hannon (Jan 21, 2007)

Well, my 3 year old knows how to put his movies in the dvd tray (though I still have to open the program), he also likes to play games like tumble bugs, chuzzles, tux paint and I like the fact that if he adds a folder or deletes one it is not on my main computer. For his age he is very bright. Though we have allowed him to explore our computers since he was able to sit upright.


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## jicon (Jan 12, 2005)

I noticed back in 1995 when there was the switch from the 16 bit world of Windows 3.11 to the 32 bit version of Windows 95 (or Windows NT 3.51) that program sizes themselves were nearly double what they were under their 16 bit equivalent.

Windows 3.11 could work magnificently with 16MB of RAM. That was all you needed.


Today, program sizes continue to increase, and such, utilize more and more RAM. A lot of OS X is gravitating to 64bit (Still significant portions written in 32bit), meaning another hit on program sizes. 

Wanna get those program sizes a little larger? Let's throw in Universal binaries.

I keep telling myself that the doubling of space required on HDDs or RAM will soon hit a limit, but history suggests we'll be seeing 1GB RAM minimums on boxes and web stores any time now.


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## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

fjnmusic said:


> I remember the Oscar trash can! Eventually they made a standalone version after many customers had all kinds of important things go missing when little kids were looking for stuff to throw out.


Yeah. My cousin's little kid deleted most of her financial information using that stupid trash can thing, just to get Oscar to talk. It took her nearly a year to recover from the disaster. Even though he's nearly 14 now, she still doesn't allow him to even _*enter*_ the room where her computer is, let alone touch it!


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

You can safely let little kids play on an OS X Mac if you give them their own accounts. Nothing that the kid does in a restricted account can affect the whole Mac (except maybe jamming two disks in the DVD slot) :->


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## biovizier (Dec 21, 2005)

...unless they happen to download and run a trojan that takes advantage of the ARDAgent privilege escalation vulnerability that still remains unpatched 6 weeks since it hit the internet...


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

Why would someone program something like that


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## broken_g3 (Jun 27, 2008)

Jimbo Slice said:


> Why would someone program something like that


What, the Oscar trash can thing or the Trojan?

If you're talking about the Oscar Trash can thing, it's because they thought that it would be a neat little thing for kids to have, whenever they emptied the trash can on their Macintosh. Unfortunately, they could not forsee the complications of stupid little kids who decide to delete their parents' stuff. 

If you're talking about the Trojan, it's because the person is a loser who lives in their parents' basement and has nothing better to do with their life than ruin the computers of those who are actually successful. Especially the poor Windows users. To all Virus programmers out there: I wish you were all shot dead.


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## Jimbo Slice (Jul 14, 2008)

broken_g3 said:


> What, the Oscar trash can thing or the Trojan?
> 
> If you're talking about the Oscar Trash can thing, it's because they thought that it would be a neat little thing for kids to have, whenever they emptied the trash can on their Macintosh. Unfortunately, they could not forsee the complications of stupid little kids who decide to delete their parents' stuff.
> 
> If you're talking about the Trojan, it's because the person is a loser who lives in their parents' basement and has nothing better to do with their life than ruin the computers of those who are actually successful. Especially the poor Windows users. To all Virus programmers out there: I wish you were all shot dead.


Amen!


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