System Resources

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 24 Jul 2015 6:53 am

This is not something new. It has been an issue for a long time.

My browsing habits are to open three windows in Firefox with two or three tabs in each. Some are dynamic tabs like news aggregators and Facebook that constantly update themselves and some are passive like the SGF.
It does not take long before I reach the point shown in this graphic where FF becomes slow or stops responding and either crashes or needs for me to 'end process' and restart. 850,000K Â± seems to be the tipping point.

The Forum watermark is blocking "Physical Memory 67%"
Is there anything I can do to limit this rise in memory use or is it simply that I am exceeding my resources and need to change my browsing habits?

Win7, latest FF, 4G of RAM

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 24 Jul 2015 7:02 am

If you have a 64 bit version of Windows, adding memory may help. With only 4GB of RAM, it can limit how many applications (programs, tabs) that can be opened at one time

One of the main reasons to have a 64 bit OS is that it can address more than 4GB of RAM. A 32 bit OS cannot only address slightly less than the full 4GB of RAM. Additionally, a 64 bit OS requires more RAM (to run) than a 32 bit thus leaving you less of the 4GB of Ram for applications.

More than 4GB may not fix all the problems but its a good first step, if you have the 64 bit Windows 7 version (and even more better with Win 10).

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 24 Jul 2015 7:07 am

My error in not saying "this is Win7 32 bit".

When I go for Win10 next week, is 64 bit an option or would I need to see if this system is compatible?

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 24 Jul 2015 7:09 am

And yes--4GB memory but "3.25 usable"

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 24 Jul 2015 7:56 am

Answering my own question, I see that my system is 64 bit capable. I had not considered this option. I'll do some research and see if I might want to consider it.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 24 Jul 2015 8:13 am

Jon;
If you simply allow your computer to update to Windows 10, it will maintain the same bitness as you currently have. If you now have 32 bits, you will still only get 32 bit Windows 10.

You will not be able to change that without completely installing a 64 bit version of Windows from a DVD. This would require purchasing Windows 10, or downloading an ISO image and burning it to a bootable DVD. Everything will be lost, so make exports and backups to external media before installing any new operating systems.

Michael Maddex · Post by **Michael Maddex** » 24 Jul 2015 8:15 am

Jon, FWIW, I'm running a somewhat dated 64-bit Linux system (Fedora 15) on a 4GB Notebok with the current version of Firefox. I usually have one or two windows open with several tabs in each. My experience has been that Firefox is a resource hog and the only thing to do is close it and restart it from time to time. By resource hog, I mean that it doesn't seem to return memory to the system when it is finished using it. I don't think that adding more memory would help in my case because very little or none is being swapped out as it is. In your case, I think that going to 64-bit would be a big improvement.

Good luck. HTH.

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 24 Jul 2015 8:23 am

Thanks for both of those posts. Yes--my research is showing that I'd have to do a clean install of Win 10 64 after doing the in-place upgrade from 7 - 32 to 10 - 32. Although I've got everything cloned and backed up, I'm not sure I've got the fortitude to venture so far outside my comfort zone. We'll see.

And yes, I've observed that Firefox seems to be a big memory sinkhole.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 24 Jul 2015 10:40 am

Firefox is a great browser, but always way too slow for me. It doesn't matter which of my computers I use, I just can't take how slow it is.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 24 Jul 2015 10:54 am

Windows 10 comes with Microsoft Edge, which is the replacement for Internet Explorer. Tests, reported by Microsoft, say Edge is faster than Chrome.

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 26 Jul 2015 8:04 am

Jon Light wrote:my research is showing that I'd have to do a clean install of Win 10 64 after doing the in-place upgrade from 7 - 32 to 10 - 32.... I'm not sure I've got the fortitude to venture so far outside my comfort zone.

A clean install of any OS is somewhat tedious, but the tall pole in the decision to do it or not, for me, at least, would be the fact that even with everything backed up, you still have to re-install all the software to be able to use any data.

Having said that, 64-bit is the only way to go, IMO. It's more capable in a lot of ways, and it's win-win; it runs 32-bit apps as well as 64-bit apps, and 32-bit Windows can't do that. I switched to 64-bit years ago, and never looked back.

And yes, I've observed that Firefox seems to be a big memory sinkhole.

I just don't see any of the Firefox "slowness" or memory issues mentioned here. It could be that I'm not the "power surfer" others may be, and don't have as much going on. I do have 32GB of ram, and that may explain some of my lack of issues.

But just being able to run Adblock Plus, YesScript, Blur (masked emails and surfing location - web sites think I'm somewhere in Virginia), makes things a lot easier on the web.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 26 Jul 2015 8:51 am

As a part time webmaster and developer I find that Firefox is the only standard browser that does what I need a browser to do. One of those things is opening to the the last tab used when the browser was closed and NOT loading any other tabs until I click on them. Chrome always loads all previously open tabs as soon as it starts. This slows Chrome to a crawl until this needless task has completed.

This tab issue is important because, if you have many open tabs and restart your browser, it can bog down to a halt until all the content in those tabs is fully downloaded. Web developers, like me, often have dozens of tabs that are regularly used, thus left in place each time we close the browser. Only Firefox offers a standard, built in checkbox to only load the current tab when it opens. The current tab being the last one viewed when the browser was closed.

Add to this feature the web developer version of Firefox and all the developer tools and it blows away all the competition.

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 26 Jul 2015 8:54 am

It doesn't take all that much browsing activity to push me into the marbles but maybe I'm just working too many windows/tabs. The diff between 4GB and 32GB....well it's gotta count for something, ya think?

I'm intrigued by the 64 option but considering that this is my internet and 'office' (word processing) computer --- my DAW is on an old off-line XP rig --- I will have to ask myself how much time and effort this upgrade is worth to me. Leaving things as they lay is possibly the best decision I could make.
Not that I tend to make the best decisions.

Scott Duckworth · Post by **Scott Duckworth** » 26 Jul 2015 9:54 am

Thumbs up for Firefox here.. on Windoze XP and Puppy Linux...

Dave Potter · Post by **Dave Potter** » 26 Jul 2015 11:48 am

Jon Light wrote:It doesn't take all that much browsing activity to push me into the marbles but maybe I'm just working too many windows/tabs. The diff between 4GB and 32GB....well it's gotta count for something, ya think?

It does, Jon, but I definitely didn't install all that RAM for Firefox - never had issues with it when I had much less. The RAM is for the real memory-intensive stuff, audio and video editing. My Sony FDR-AX1 video camera shooting 3840 x 2160p at 60 fps makes some pretty big files for the PC to manipulate.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 27 Jul 2015 1:48 am

Various comments here about Chrome and Firefox make Microsoft Edge a contender, is that right?

I just checked my system and find that I have a measly 3 gigs installed memory.
Will that be enough for Win 10? Seems I checked, but now I wonder, with the larger memory numbers posted here.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 27 Jul 2015 2:19 am

3GB will work for a 32 bit OS but not for a 64 bit OS. How well 3GB will work?? If all you do is check e-mail and occasional internet it MAY be sufficient. Not too long ago 3GB was a lot of memory, today its "nothing".

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 27 Jul 2015 4:25 am

I see, Jack; it seemed like it would be inversely proportional, but it's not. What was I thinking; of course that couldn't have been right.

I do email and the forum, and can have five tabs (steel resources, wikipedia, ebay) open with no problems,
and will have DAW running, but not at the same time.
It's been OK so far. Make sense? Learning curve....

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 27 Jul 2015 6:57 am

Charlie:

I have 4 GB of RAM on a 64-bit Windows 7 system.

I typically use less than 2 GB of the 4 and VERY rarely use 3 GB.

I often have a dozen or more Firefox tabs open.

When I rebuild, I'll probably go to 8 GB, but only because it's cheap and there is some quite remote chance I'd need more than 4.

I haven't read anything that suggests that Windows 10 is more memory-hungry than Windows 7 or 8.