memTools... The premier Mac OS X memory management system. With MemTools you can utilize three powerful methods to manage your memory resources allowing you increased flexibility in your performance expectations while using your applications. With MemTools you can use time, memory levels and full manual control to delegate powerful automation that when used appropriately can help almost completely eliminate the "spinning color wheels" that result from memory recycling of the advanced Mach Virtual Memory(VM) system part of every Mac OS X advanced computing system.
Every Macintosh
What's New
Version 1.1a: This version is faster and with greater flexibility. In addition the new trial is full features - so you can try out all the memory reclamation scenarios that are possible with the FULL product.
From the article mentioned below:
"As RAM optimizers force the available-memory counter up, they force other processes' data and code out of memory. Say that you're running Word, for example. As the optimizer forces the available-memory counter up, the text of open documents and the program code that was part of Word's working set before the optimization (and was therefore present in physical memory) must be reread from disk as you continue to edit your document. The performance degradation can be severe on servers because the file data that's cached in the standby list and in the System working set (as well as the code and data used by active server applications) might be discarded."
That's what iFreemem does since it only does manually activated 'deep' memory recycling.
From memTools' Help :
"Note try to avoid going too deep as it just causes potentially useful cache to be discarded and the MAC then has to re-cache various program caches. Try to use the least to do the job, and you will usually get incredible free memory performance."
I'm typing this from a 500MHz G3 iMac with 512MB of RAM memory and using memTools' Recycle By Time option (set closer to 'fast' for 300 sec. intervals). Firefox is noticeably smoother like this.
If only memTools was a preference-pane and remembered its user-settings, then maybe call it 'Pro' ;)
The home page uses technobabble to sound authoritative, but it seems to do exactly what all these hoax optimizers do, force active and inactive RAM page out of memory. The kernel is tuned to handle this most efficiently, applications like this just disrupt the memory manager's work.
Until the author provides proper technical information of how he is doing something innovative here instead of the technobabble of his homepage, this is snake oil and hoax, just as with Windows "memory managers". iFreeRam, another hoax app used to have "benchmarks" on his page showing how it really helped, his benchmarks were artificial and he eventually removed them as they were worthless.
----
[1] Get a free reprint of his article via this: http://license.icopyright.net/user/serviceGroup.act?gid=2&inprocess=t&tag=3.7009%3Ficx_id%3D41095&urs=WEBPAGE&urt=http%3A%2F%2Fwindowsitpro.com%2Farticle%2Farticleid%2F41095%2Fthe-memory-optimization-hoax.html
[2] If you want to buy snake oil, iFreeMem is cheaper than this and does the same thing.
While I largely agree that "memory optimization" tools are not useful for most users, iFreeMem is occasionally useful to me when all of my RAM (8 GB) is in use with much of it marked as "Inactive". On its own, Mac OS X will free inactive memory this as needed, but with a processor and memory intensive app (such as video capture tools) running, this can slow the system (and this app) down while the "Inactive" memory is made available. iFreeMem allows me to force the system to free this memory manually before I run my video capture app, preventing minor stuttering that would occasionally occur otherwise.
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memTools... The premier Mac OS X memory management system. With MemTools you can utilize three powerful methods to manage your memory resources allowing you increased flexibility in your performance expectations while using your applications. With MemTools you can use time, memory levels and full manual control to delegate powerful automation that when used appropriately can help almost completely eliminate the "spinning color wheels" that result from memory recycling of the advanced Mach Virtual Memory(VM) system part of every Mac OS X advanced computing system.
Every Macintosh computer has the advanced Mach Kernel combined with the solid foundation of UNIX. Memtools was designed with the Mac OS X advanced virtual memory system in mind. In addition Memtools has critical level statistics available to help you decide what levels, complexities, and timings will offer you the best performance for your mix of applications all the while staying out of the way of your work routine.
+2
This one History?
+29
backpacker reviewed on 05 Feb 2009
http://memtools.info/mtg3/purchase.html
memTools Pro is now US$5.27 !
C'mon, make it a prefpane which keeps user-settings, and earn more stars.
+29
Why isn't more time being spent improving the app than twiddling with its price ?
+1
+148
+29
"As RAM optimizers force the available-memory counter up, they force other processes' data and code out of memory. Say that you're running Word, for example. As the optimizer forces the available-memory counter up, the text of open documents and the program code that was part of Word's working set before the optimization (and was therefore present in physical memory) must be reread from disk as you continue to edit your document. The performance degradation can be severe on servers because the file data that's cached in the standby list and in the System working set (as well as the code and data used by active server applications) might be discarded."
That's what iFreemem does since it only does manually activated 'deep' memory recycling.
From memTools' Help :
"Note try to avoid going too deep as it just causes potentially useful cache to be discarded and the MAC then has to re-cache various program caches. Try to use the least to do the job, and you will usually get incredible free memory performance."
I'm typing this from a 500MHz G3 iMac with 512MB of RAM memory and using memTools' Recycle By Time option (set closer to 'fast' for 300 sec. intervals). Firefox is noticeably smoother like this.
If only memTools was a preference-pane and remembered its user-settings, then maybe call it 'Pro' ;)
+5
+236
nontroppo reviewed on 28 Jan 2009
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/41095/the-memory-optimization-hoax.html [1]
The home page uses technobabble to sound authoritative, but it seems to do exactly what all these hoax optimizers do, force active and inactive RAM page out of memory. The kernel is tuned to handle this most efficiently, applications like this just disrupt the memory manager's work.
Until the author provides proper technical information of how he is doing something innovative here instead of the technobabble of his homepage, this is snake oil and hoax, just as with Windows "memory managers". iFreeRam, another hoax app used to have "benchmarks" on his page showing how it really helped, his benchmarks were artificial and he eventually removed them as they were worthless.
----
[1] Get a free reprint of his article via this: http://license.icopyright.net/user/serviceGroup.act?gid=2&inprocess=t&tag=3.7009%3Ficx_id%3D41095&urs=WEBPAGE&urt=http%3A%2F%2Fwindowsitpro.com%2Farticle%2Farticleid%2F41095%2Fthe-memory-optimization-hoax.html
[2] If you want to buy snake oil, iFreeMem is cheaper than this and does the same thing.
+2
+14
+480
Negritude rated on 30 Jan 2012