Memory Christmas Mac OS

Posted on  by
  1. Memory Christmas Mac Os 11
  2. Memory Christmas Mac Os Catalina
  3. Memory Christmas Mac Os Download
  4. Memory Christmas Mac Os X

This will purge your Mac's inactive memory - something you might want to do after closing a particularly intensive app or game. Some features are available via the free app but there is an in-app. This will purge your Mac's inactive memory - something you might want to do after closing a particularly intensive app or game. Some features are available via the free app but there is an in-app. Mac OS X 10.6 is a Mac computer with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with at least 1 GB memory and 5 GB free space ahead. This operating system no longer exists as PowerPC execution. This operating system no longer exists as PowerPC execution.

Efficient memory management is an important aspect of writing high performance code in both OS X and iOS. Minimizing memory usage not only decreases your application’s memory footprint, it can also reduce the amount of CPU time it consumes. In order to properly tune your code though, you need to understand something about how the underlying system manages memory.

Both OS X and iOS include a fully-integrated virtual memory system that you cannot turn off; it is always on. Both systems also provide up to 4 gigabytes of addressable space per 32-bit process. In addition, OS X provides approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes. Even for computers that have 4 or more gigabytes of RAM available, the system rarely dedicates this much RAM to a single process.

To give processes access to their entire 4 gigabyte or 18 exabyte address space, OS X uses the hard disk to hold data that is not currently in use. As memory gets full, sections of memory that are not being used are written to disk to make room for data that is needed now. The portion of the disk that stores the unused data is known as the backing store because it provides the backup storage for main memory.

Although OS X supports a backing store, iOS does not. In iPhone applications, read-only data that is already on the disk (such as code pages) is simply removed from memory and reloaded from disk as needed. Writable data is never removed from memory by the operating system. Instead, if the amount of free memory drops below a certain threshold, the system asks the running applications to free up memory voluntarily to make room for new data. Applications that fail to free up enough memory are terminated.

Note: Unlike most UNIX-based operating systems, OS X does not use a preallocated disk partition for the backing store. Instead, it uses all of the available space on the machine’s boot partition.

The following sections introduce terminology and provide a brief overview of the virtual memory system used in both OS X and iOS. For more detailed information on how the virtual memory system works, see Kernel Programming Guide.

About Virtual Memory

Virtual memory allows an operating system to escape the limitations of physical RAM. The virtual memory manager creates a logical address space (or “virtual” address space) for each process and divides it up into uniformly-sized chunks of memory called pages. The processor and its memory management unit (MMU) maintain a page table to map pages in the program’s logical address space to hardware addresses in the computer’s RAM. When a program’s code accesses an address in memory, the MMU uses the page table to translate the specified logical address into the actual hardware memory address. This translation occurs automatically and is transparent to the running application.

As far as a program is concerned, addresses in its logical address space are always available. However, if an application accesses an address on a memory page that is not currently in physical RAM, a page fault occurs. When that happens, the virtual memory system invokes a special page-fault handler to respond to the fault immediately. The page-fault handler stops the currently executing code, locates a free page of physical memory, loads the page containing the needed data from disk, updates the page table, and then returns control to the program’s code, which can then access the memory address normally. This process is known as paging.

If there are no free pages available in physical memory, the handler must first release an existing page to make room for the new page. How the system release pages depends on the platform. In OS X, the virtual memory system often writes pages to the backing store. The backing store is a disk-based repository containing a copy of the memory pages used by a given process. Moving data from physical memory to the backing store is called paging out (or “swapping out”); moving data from the backing store back in to physical memory is called paging in (or “swapping in”). In iOS, there is no backing store and so pages are are never paged out to disk, but read-only pages are still be paged in from disk as needed.

In OS X and in earlier versions of iOS, the size of a page is 4 kilobytes. In later versions of iOS, A7- and A8-based systems expose 16-kilobyte pages to the 64-bit userspace backed by 4-kilobyte physical pages, while A9 systems expose 16-kilobyte pages backed by 16-kilobyte physical pages. These sizes determine how many kilobytes the system reads from disk when a page fault occurs. Disk thrashing can occur when the system spends a disproportionate amount of time handling page faults and reading and writing pages, rather than executing code for a program.

Paging of any kind, and disk thrashing in particular, affects performance negatively because it forces the system to spend a lot of time reading and writing to disk. Reading a page in from the backing store takes a significant amount of time and is much slower than reading directly from RAM. If the system has to write a page to disk before it can read another page from disk, the performance impact is even worse.

Details of the Virtual Memory System

The logical address space of a process consists of mapped regions of memory. Each mapped memory region contains a known number of virtual memory pages. Each region has specific attributes controlling such things as inheritance (portions of the region may be mapped from “parent” regions), write-protection, and whether it is wired (that is, it cannot be paged out). Because regions contain a known number of pages, they are page-aligned, meaning the starting address of the region is also the starting address of a page and the ending address also defines the end of a page.

The kernel associates a VM object with each region of the logical address space. The kernel uses VM objects to track and manage the resident and nonresident pages of the associated regions. A region can map to part of the backing store or to a memory-mapped file in the file system. Each VM object contains a map that associates regions with either the default pager or the vnode pager. The default pager is a system manager that manages the nonresident virtual memory pages in the backing store and fetches those pages when requested. The vnode pager implements memory-mapped file access. The vnode pager uses the paging mechanism to provide a window directly into a file. This mechanism lets you read and write portions of the file as if they were located in memory.

In addition to mapping regions to either the default or vnode pager, a VM object may also map regions to another VM object. The kernel uses this self referencing technique to implement copy-on-write regions. Copy-on-write regions allow different processes (or multiple blocks of code within a process) to share a page as long as none of them write to that page. When a process attempts to write to the page, a copy of the page is created in the logical address space of the process doing the writing. From that point forward, the writing process maintains its own separate copy of the page, which it can write to at any time. Copy-on-write regions let the system share large quantities of data efficiently in memory while still letting processes manipulate those pages directly (and safely) if needed. These types of regions are most commonly used for the data pages loaded from system frameworks.

Each VM object contains several fields, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Fields of the VM object

Field

Description

Resident pages

A list of the pages of this region that are currently resident in physical memory.

Size

The size of the region, in bytes.

Pager

The pager responsible for tracking and handling the pages of this region in backing store.

Shadow

Used for copy-on-write optimizations.

Copy

Used for copy-on-write optimizations.

Attributes

Flags indicating the state of various implementation details.

If the VM object is involved in a copy-on-write (vm_copy) operation, the shadow and copy fields may point to other VM objects. Otherwise both fields are usually NULL.

Wired Memory

Wired memory (also called resident memory) stores kernel code and data structures that must never be paged out to disk. Applications, frameworks, and other user-level software cannot allocate wired memory. However, they can affect how much wired memory exists at any time. For example, an application that creates threads and ports implicitly allocates wired memory for the required kernel resources that are associated with them.

Table 2 lists some of the wired-memory costs for application-generated entities.

Table 2 Wired memory generated by user-level software

Resource

Wired Memory Used by Kernel

Process

16 kilobytes

Thread

blocked in a continuation—5 kilobytes; blocked—21 kilobytes

Mach port

116 bytes

Mapping

32 bytes

Library

2 kilobytes plus 200 bytes for each task that uses it

Memory region

160 bytes

Note: These measurements may change with each new release of the operating system. They are provided here to give you a rough estimate of the relative cost of system resource usage.

As you can see, every thread, process, and library contributes to the resident footprint of the system. In addition to your application using wired memory, however, the kernel itself requires wired memory for the following entities:

  • VM objects

  • the virtual memory buffer cache

  • I/O buffer caches

  • drivers

https://hereffiles460.weebly.com/sails-of-sea-mac-os.html. Wired data structures are also associated with the physical page and map tables used to store virtual-memory mapping information, Both of these entities scale with the amount of available physical memory. Consequently, when you add memory to a system, the amount of wired memory increases even if nothing else changes. When a computer is first booted into the Finder, with no other applications running, wired memory can consume approximately 14 megabytes of a 64 megabyte system and 17 megabytes of a 128 megabyte system.

Wired memory pages are not immediately moved back to the free list when they become invalid. Instead they are “garbage collected” when the free-page count falls below the threshold that triggers page out events.

Page Lists in the Kernel

The kernel maintains and queries three system-wide lists of physical memory pages:

  • The active list contains pages that are currently mapped into memory and have been recently accessed.

  • The inactive list contains pages that are currently resident in physical memory but have not been accessed recently. These pages contain valid data but may be removed from memory at any time.

  • The free list contains pages of physical memory that are not associated with any address space of VM object. These pages are available for immediate use by any process that needs them.

When the number of pages on the free list falls below a threshold (determined by the size of physical memory), the pager attempts to balance the queues. It does this by pulling pages from the inactive list. If a page has been accessed recently, it is reactivated and placed on the end of the active list. In OS X, if an inactive page contains data that has not been written to the backing store recently, its contents must be paged out to disk before it can be placed on the free list. (In iOS, modified but inactive pages must remain in memory and be cleaned up by the application that owns them.) If an inactive page has not been modified and is not permanently resident (wired), it is stolen (any current virtual mappings to it are destroyed) and added to the free list. Once the free list size exceeds the target threshold, the pager rests.

The kernel moves pages from the active list to the inactive list if they are not accessed; it moves pages from the inactive list to the active list on a soft fault (see Paging In Process). When virtual pages are swapped out, the associated physical pages are placed in the free list. Also, when processes explicitly free memory, the kernel moves the affected pages to the free list.

Paging Out Process

In OS X, when the number of pages in the free list dips below a computed threshold, the kernel reclaims physical pages for the free list by swapping inactive pages out of memory. To do this, the kernel iterates all resident pages in the active and inactive lists, performing the following steps:

  1. If a page in the active list is not recently touched, it is moved to the inactive list.

  2. If a page in the inactive list is not recently touched, the kernel finds the page’s VM object.

  3. If the VM object has never been paged before, the kernel calls an initialization routine that creates and assigns a default pager object.

  4. The VM object’s default pager attempts to write the page out to the backing store.

  5. If the pager succeeds, the kernel frees the physical memory occupied by the page and moves the page from the inactive to the free list.

Note: In iOS, the kernel does not write pages out to a backing store. When the amount of free memory dips below the computed threshold, the kernel flushes pages that are inactive and unmodified and may also ask the running application to free up memory directly. For more information on responding to these notifications, see Responding to Low-Memory Warnings in iOS.

Paging In Process

The final phase of virtual memory management moves pages into physical memory, either from the backing store or from the file containing the page data. A memory access fault initiates the page-in process. A memory access fault occurs when code tries to access data at a virtual address that is not mapped to physical memory. There are two kinds of faults:

  • A soft fault occurs when the page of the referenced address is resident in physical memory but is currently not mapped into the address space of this process.

  • A hard faultDigital diamond baseball mac os. occurs when the page of the referenced address is not in physical memory but is swapped out to backing store (or is available from a mapped file). This is what is typically known as a page fault.

When any type of fault occurs, the kernel locates the map entry and VM object for the accessed region. The kernel then goes through the VM object’s list of resident pages. If the desired page is in the list of resident pages, the kernel generates a soft fault. If the page is not in the list of resident pages, it generates a hard fault.

For soft faults, the kernel maps the physical memory containing the pages to the virtual address space of the process. The kernel then marks the specific page as active. If the fault involved a write operation, the page is also marked as modified so that it will be written to backing store if it needs to be freed later.

For hard faults, the VM object’s pager finds the page in the backing store or from the file on disk, depending on the type of pager. After making the appropriate adjustments to the map information, the pager moves the page into physical memory and places the page on the active list. As with a soft fault, if the fault involved a write operation, the page is marked as modified.



Copyright © 2003, 2013 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Policy Updated: 2013-04-23

System cleanup in one click
Make your Mac fast and secure with CleanMyMac X.

Few things are more frustrating than your Mac telling you it has run out of memory when you're trying to be productive. It's more frustrating when you've ignored the problem for quite some time and your Mac's limitations simply won't let you put a solution on hold any longer.

  • How to get rid of low memory notifications

Usually, a popup warning isn't the first sign that something is amiss. You may have noticed that your Mac isn't running as fast as it used to, with the fan louder than normal as if it's struggling to carry a heavy load up a hill.

Although Macs are wonderful computers, they have limitations. Thankfully, there is plenty you can do to resolve this problem and get your Mac operating smoothly again.

Reduce memory usage with Setapp

Instead of manually deleting files, get Setapp. It not only removes the clutter but also gives you full control over memory usage.

Your system has run out of application memory - Fix it

Mac memory usage is often occupied by apps, even browsers like Safari or Google Chrome. In the most dire circumstances, your Mac will toss a warning at you: 'your system has run out of application memory.'

Don't despair – it's solvable. The first thing to note is this is a natural issue; your Mac has a limited amount of RAM. Though more expensive Macs have more RAM, even they can butt against limitations when too many applications are running.

It may also be an app that is hogging all of your resources. This is especially true of older applications which haven't been optimized for modern computer architecture. Websites may also be a culprit.

Check RAM usage on Mac

Mac

To check your RAM use on any Mac, take the following steps:

  1. Open Activity Monitor from your list of applications
    Note: You can do this is the Mac's control center, via the Finder in your Mac's dock, or by pressing command-space and typing 'Activity Monitor' in the Spotlight search field.
  2. Toggle to the 'Memory' pane in the Activity Monitor window

As you see in the above screenshot, Activity Monitor shows you all of your processes, sub-processes, and how much memory each is taking up. The most pertinent portion of the window is the bottom, where it shows you the total memory usage, and how it's affecting your Mac.

A better way to monitor your Mac's memory use is with iStat Menus. After installing the app, it makes a home in your Mac's menu bar, and monitors just about everything, including memory, CPU, GPU, disks, and network usage.

You can choose which systems you'd like to monitor in the app itself. Only the items you're monitoring will have an icon in your menu bar. A simple click on the menu bar icon surfaces a drop-down menu of how your Mac is performing at the time, and hovering over each graphic brings up a larger menu, as you can see below.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Checking CPU use on your Mac is similar to the steps above for checking memory use. For Activity Monitor, you'd make sure to highlight the 'CPU' section of the window. This will show you all the processes using your Mac's CPU at the time.

Similarly, iStat Menus has a 'CPU & GPU' toggle just above the memory section. Activating that will add a CPU and GPU monitor to your Mac menu bar, which has the same interactivity as the memory icon and menu shown above.

How to free up memory on Mac

Knowing how to clear memory on Mac is important, especially if you have a Mac with limited resources. One option is using Activity Monitor:

  1. Open Activity Monitor on your Mac
  2. Select an app using a lot of memory
  3. Click the 'x' icon on the top left of the screen

This is straightforward, but there's a better way. CleanMyMac X has an automated CPU and memory monitors built-in, which can give you a real-time view of memory usage in your Mac's menu bar. It also has a really quick and easy way to free up memory without digging through Activity Monitor and manually shutting down apps.

All you have to do is click the CleanMyMac X icon, select 'Free Up' in the memory pane, and the app takes care of the rest! Oftentimes, it doesn't even shut apps down.

This is a quick fix, but CleanMyMac X takes it a step further in the app itself. Under the app's 'Maintenance' section is an option to 'Free Up RAM,' which helps you clear RAM on Mac. Once you've got this option selected, simply select 'Run' at the bottom of the window, and CleanMyMac X will do a thorough scrubbing of your Mac's RAM, and clear unused files out of the way.

How to get rid of low memory notifications

Most apps are pretty good about how they use your Mac's resources. Having too many open or running in the background can severely limit what your Mac can handle, and is often why a Mac overheats or slows down.

Here are a few tips to reduce high memory usage manually if you're experiencing unique warnings or issues:

Fix 'kernel_task', a high CPU usage bug

You may have noticed through Activity Monitor something called kernel_task absorbing a large amount of processing power. One of the functions of kernel_task is to help manage CPU temperature; you may find that your Mac fan is loud and always on, even if the device isn't hot to the touch.

kernel_task usually performs this way when one or more applications are trying to use too much CPU. Unfortunately, one of the potential downsides is a Mac can overheat to such an extent that internal systems are damaged, sometimes irreparably.

Working through the following steps in this article is one way to avoid similar problems. If none of this work and kernel_task is still absorbing a high percentage of your CPU, then one or more of the following could be the cause:

  • Cooling system inefficiency
  • A failed or disconnected temperature sensor
  • Another hardware issue, including a worn out batter
  • Your System Management Controller needs a rest

If you're experiencing severe issues, Apple recommends a system management controller (SMC) reset. It's essentially a hard reset for your Mac, and should help your RAM and other hardware components start from scratch. Keep in mind you won't lose any data in this process.

Reduce memory usage in Finder

One common culprit for RAM issues is Finder, your Mac's file manager. If iStat Menus or Activity Monitor has highlighted Finder as using hundreds of MBs of RAM, there is an easy solution: change the default display for a new Finder window so it doesn't show All My Files.

  1. Click on the Finder icon in the Dock and click on the Finder menu, then select Preferences
  2. Click on General. Under 'New Finder windows show', click the dropdown menu and choose any option except All My Files
  3. Close Preferences, press Alt-Control, and click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Click Relaunch

Finder will now relaunch with new windows opening at the option you selected in step two.

Improve Chrome's Task Manager

Chrome is a popular browser, but it's a resources hog! Chrome uses a GPU Process as standard, which means it speeds up the loading of web pages, which can be great except at times when your computer is struggling with insufficient RAM.

Here's how:

  1. Open Chrome on your Mac
  2. On the right side of the Chrome window, select the three-dot menu
  3. Select 'More tools'
  4. Select 'Task Manager'
  5. Select a Chrome process you'd like to kill
  6. Select 'End Process' at the bottom right of the window

Here's another way to reduce Chrome's use of your Mac's memory:

  1. Open Chrome on your Mac
  2. On the right side of the Chrome window, select the three-dot menu
  3. Select 'settings'
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select 'advanced'
  5. Scroll down to 'System,' and toggle 'Use hardware acceleration when available' off

This will affect how Chrome runs on your Mac, and your experience won't be as smooth. You can also remove unused or unwanted Chrome extensions to help it use less resources on your Mac.

Get CMM X to free up space

Install CleanMyMac X and streamline the entire process of memory management on Mac. Clever memory usage control done for you.

Clean up browsers

In every browser you use regularly, there are always going to be extensions and popups that take up space and use RAM. You can manage each one manually, or use a tool such as CleanMyMac X to identify and delete them.

In the CleanMyMac X app is a section titled 'Extensions,' which lists each extension you have for your browser or browsers. All you have to do is view the list of extensions, select the ones you no longer want, and remove them. It's really that simple!

Disable login items

Login items, browser extensions, and preference panes, such as Flash, are another common source of memory usage. Most of us have several installed that we rarely use, but which hog memory and reduce performance.

One way to do this is through System Preferences:

  1. From your Mac menu bar, select 'System Preferences'
  2. Select 'Users & Groups'
  3. Select 'login items'
  4. Deselect items you no longer want active at login

Another way, one that is even quicker, is to employ CleanMyMac to identify and cleanup login items.

  1. Open CleanMyMac X
  2. Under 'Speed,' select 'Optimization'
  3. Select 'login items'

You can remove all login items, or select the ones you'd like to remove individually on the right side of the window.

Disable desktop widgets

Older Macs running a version of macOS older than Catalina can disable widgets. Desktop widgets can provide a useful shortcut to apps you need to access fairly often. But they can take up processing memory that is slowing your whole Mac down. One way to close them completely is in System Preferences.

Go to: Mission Control > switch off the Dashboard

Declutter your desktop

Apple's built in decluttering tool is handy for many. All you have to do on your cluttered desktop is right-click, then select 'Use Stacks.' This places all of your desktop files into folders unique to their filetype, like 'screenshots' and 'images.'

A better way is to use Spotless, an app that gives you far more control over how your Mac is organized. It has several triggers for automated cleanup of files on your desktop, placing them wherever you see fit. It's particularly useful for power users who produce several files daily, but don't want to take the time to place each in a respective folder.

You can also select many files on your Mac desktop, and tell Spotless to tidy them up. You always have full control!

Schedule regular cleanups

Memory Christmas Mac Os 11

Constant use of your Mac, or leaving it on all the time, will slow it down over time. Shutting it down and restarting is a traditional way of 'cleaning up' a computer.

Memory Christmas Mac Os Catalina

We also like CleanMyMac X's scheduled cleanup feature. Telling the app when you'd like to perform a thorough cleaning up of your Mac's system is a method many prefer to shutting down and restarting often. It has the upshot of removing files and folders you no longer use, and cleaning up tasks that are slowing your Mac down behind the scenes. A simple shutdown may not do this.

Memory Christmas Mac Os Download

Keeping your Mac in tip-top shape is critical. While we'd all like to think computers are brilliant little devices that can handle anything, they need some care, too.

All of the apps mentioned in this article help with taking care of your Mac, and protecting your investment. Best of all they're each free as part of a seven day trial of Setapp. Give it a try today!

Setapp uses cookies to personalize your experience on our website. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our cookie policy.

Memory Christmas Mac Os X