Comments on: Resource-spotting, trainspotting of the digital age?

By: Vyacheslav Lanovets

Vyacheslav Lanovets — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:38:53 +0000

It depends on the context. If developer profiled her code and intentionally trades memory for performance then it’s cool and desired.

But I don’t see this happen. All the time I see perfect correlation between careless usage of resources and buggy code. For instance, Microsoft WMDC at the same time is the buggiest and most memory consuming application in Windows after clean install. Its two parts take more memory than Visual Studio 2008 with a project loaded.

Windows uses memory for caching. Badly written application forces Windows to give this memory to this application thus increasing response time if the user wants to launch something that was removed from cache.

Besides high memory usage, application might also have open (or even leak) other system resources like threads, window or file handles. Until Intel can demonstrate low-end CPU running at 10GHz, these resources are scarce and managing them is not free for OS.

One might have 16GB of RAM but only 1MB of L2 cache. Oh, and how could we forget about locality of references? Because of dramatic difference in performance between RAM and L1/L2/L3 caches, reducing memory footprint of application may actually improve performance, even if algorithm is slower. There is no solution for this problem in the nearest future so unjustified resource usage should not be tolerated.

In the end, some of the code consuming memory on local machines is going to be executed in the “cloud” and there will not be “unused” resources.

By: sreearun

sreearun — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:08:02 +0000

Sorry. I was quoting Ben’s comment. Please read BenN as Ben.

By: sreearun

sreearun — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:06:07 +0000

I will have to agree with BenN: I see that inspite of all these modern processors and OS, I haven’t seen noticeable improvement in the way I deal with apps. While Gonzalo notes that today’s app comes with packed features, I want to make a sweeping remark that today’s apps have atleast 20% features that could be dispensed with – well that’s based on general observation; I don’t have specific data to support. BTW, more features need not mean more resource consumption.

Nonetheless, it has become a habit to me looking at taskmanager as to who is consuming how much resources, and try to take action at those who seem to use disproportionate use of resources. And why do I do it? From my experience, if the memory meter shows more than 50% consumption, invariably I have seen drop in performance (some might want to disagree). Yes. I feel bad because the money I spent on memory is probably used to that extent – but I need it to have my apps running ‘normally’.

By: Matt Green

Matt Green — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:09:56 +0000

Don’t overlook the flip side of the coin: these same users are so easy to manipulate. Just call yourself “uApp” and make frequent mention of how “lightweight” and “fast” your app is in your press releases. Everyone will eat it up and revere you as some sort of master programmer because you used UPX on your executable and compressed it to 50% of its original size.

By: Gonzalo

Gonzalo — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:52:31 +0000

U really think that apps are equal faste 10 years ago and now? … they… look the same speed but they load a hole lot of new features… and power… and u didnt lost performance.
This while it doesnt look as a gain in performance, indeed it is…
Lets put it this way…
U are driving at 60 mph, and another car, comes and pass at ur side at 70mph… the real speed of the car is 70mph but, ull only notice that it goes 10mph faster… ull see that amount of difference…
Sames happends here… u only see 10mph… of diference… but u are not seeing its a big truck running at the ur 60mph plus 10 more…
The point is… we dont see the full picture… we only “feel” something… but there is a lot more stuff involved.

About the memory consuption… ill have to agree… its pointless to have a mem idling… difrent is maybe with procesors and disks.
Anyway the most important point here to notice is… Dont u see that u are running lots of apps… with lots of features… visual effects and all that… and despecite of that its faster than old apps… i see that as improvement…

And still.. i think there is “limitation” in the speed in wich the OS could run and still feel confortable… i prefer smooth effects and clean nice transitions between the apps… it feels friendly that way.

By: hamiltonguy

hamiltonguy — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:45:02 +0000

While I agree with most of your article, I can certainly provide you with a reason to monitor CPU utlization. I have a newer laptop. Like most modern laptops, it gets HOT. Out of nowhere, fans start churning and the thing heats up. Task Manager/ Resource allow to me to find out which process is utlizing the CPU and burning my lap. and quickly kill it, or restart IE/firefox. Flash ads, or videos are a killer.

By: Long Zheng

Long Zheng — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:06:20 +0000

@YetAnotherPC: No that’s a very poor comparison. The fact is you’ve already spent a fixed amount of money on the RAM in your PC. That does not change how you use it. However if you’re only ever using half of the RAM you have, then you have pretty much wasted half of the money you spent.

By: YetAnotherPC

YetAnotherPC — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:39:58 +0000

I disagree. It’s like saying, “I make $2,000 a month, so it’s okay if I spend $400 on toilet paper.”

By: Long Zheng

Long Zheng — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:25:32 +0000

@Phusky Phunsar: No one I know has been able to recreate a BSOD from this bug. Yes it uses lots of memory, but your system remains stable and responsive during the operation.

By: Phusky Phunsar

Phusky Phunsar — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:22:02 +0000

The issue was a rare bug resulting in a BSoD from using chkdsk.