do you need the extra RAM? probably better putting money towards ssd or new computer o recon
Android is running a Linux kernel and the way Linux handles memory is to allow a program to have its memory space whilst its running, when the program ends it still sits in memory using up the space it used, so it may appear that you have no memory left and you think you'll improve performance by killing some of those programs that are sitting in RAM using it up but not being used by you. But Linux has been designed to do this on purpose, if you restart a program, e.g. a web-browser, its already in memory and starts up quicker. But what about when a new program is started and there isn't enough free RAM I hear you ask, well thats not a problem, because at that point the kernel glances at whats in RAM, checks to see whats actually being used and kicks out that program which is sat there and not being used, freeing up enough RAM for the new program. Thus you don't actually need to waste your time actively killing programs you've exited just to free up RAM, because it won't make any difference to performance as the kernel is very good at managing RAM. My Linux systems (one with 6Gb and one with 8Gb RAM) regularly have close to 0% of RAM free, but I never experience any delay/lag in opening up new programs or with general usability. And to get to the crux, stuff sat in memory doesn't use any power, stuff using the CPU will do. If you've apps running that you don't want stop them from starting up in the first place, otherwise you'll be forever trying to kill them. (See under Settings somewhere, kind of depends on which app, some have settings within the app, I found ShopSavvy always started up on its own and sat there, never use it so deleted it). You can read an article on this specifically about Android task managers here.
New Ram might help the situation but it won't solve your problem
Nothing wierd going on, Photoshop is using 2.5GB, Lightroom 1Gb, with Firefox, Thunderbird and OS fighting it out for the rest.QuoteNew Ram might help the situation but it won't solve your problemWhy not? I'm guessing most of you aren't flipping big files between LR and PS like I am. PS is famous for chewing RAM, as soon as I exit it things are fine, and RAM useage drops down to 1.3GB/ 32%.Only annoying thing is a lot of the time LR will export a big file, I'll downsize it in PS significantly, but purging PS cache doesn't seem to do owt and I have to exit PS to free up RAM.
The linux post is irrelevant.You need more RAM.Note that a lot of applications do what PS does: once they've grabbed memory, they won't release it back - just hang on to it so they don't need to compete with other stuff to get it back from the OS if they do want it.
I've a vague recollection of that stuff from when I did some rudimentary C programming (and also remember malloc being a pain to understand).But regardless the OS will still have to handle which programs are using which bits of memory and when to invoke swap(/page-file under M$) if physical RAM requirements are exceeded, and thats what I'm hazy about under Win7 (and indeed other incarnations of Win).
Quote from: slack---line on September 21, 2011, 07:38:52 amI've a vague recollection of that stuff from when I did some rudimentary C programming (and also remember malloc being a pain to understand).But regardless the OS will still have to handle which programs are using which bits of memory and when to invoke swap(/page-file under M$) if physical RAM requirements are exceeded, and thats what I'm hazy about under Win7 (and indeed other incarnations of Win).Hmm you have a point there, from memory if unix apps were too large it would swap a load out to the swap file which would make it bloody slow but it wouldn't crash.. N idea about ms..
