Why is my Xwindows being a memory hog?????

[sdunn]

I have installed mandrake and redhat 6.2 and 7.0. Each time X uses between 60 and 80 meg of memory. I cannot figure out why it is using so much. This can't be normal because people run linux with less memory than 64M. What are some things that I should look for

[Muzzafarath]

The people who run Linux with less than 64 mb might now be running X, have you thought of that? http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

Anyway, what WM are you running? KDE? If so, switch to something like twm http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[sdunn]

I am running gnome and I have tried KDE and every time is uses like over half my memory. i have not tried using any others. The main reason this is being a problem. I cannot run any games that have lots of graphics. I have a vodoo3 2000 grapphics card and quake 3 runs like crap. It will load up but run really slow. I will try using other desktops thatnks for the advice.

[Pierre Lambion]

Running XFree3.36 with icewm, no wallpaper, no desktop environment: I have 22 mb ram taken globally (for linux, daemons and X).

I think you have a config problem or abusing wallapers and such stuff.

P.

[EscapeCharacter]

this may also be a shot in the dark but you did make a swap partition during the install? i have a X install using kde 2 and my physical memory use by X never gets above 30megs, even netscape uses up more than that

[ph34r]

Well, there are a few things here. One is that X is using the memory on your video card, as well as the system memory, so the stuff that top reports is including the memory on your Voodoo3 card.

The second thing is the poor Quake3 performance. I have a V3-2000, and pushing it wiht a p2-350, I can get 55fps with a tweaked config. The default id config gives me 35fps.

[sdunn]

I am using just the default backgrounds and what have ya. I installed everything and thats it. the first boot up used 65M of ram.

Yes i have a swap partition, it is 200M.

How did you tweak your configs to your card.

[redline]

two words....

1. Enlightenment
2. BlackBox

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gifRed Hat http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif

[ph34r]

Try Love2Play's Voodoo config from the teach tips/tweaks section of www.planetquake.com (http://www.planetquake.com)

[Ripley]

I use a Voodoo3 3000 for Quake 3 and it runs fine. One thing though, if your using DRI hardware acceleration, and you don't have all the correct files installed, it'll barely run. (I have no experience with pre DRI acceleration).

You might want to confirm that DRI is actually working in X.

If you thing your using DRI, look for a program named glxinfo ( http://dri.sourceforge.net/resources/resources.html ) and when executed, look for the following (or something similar) in the output.

OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Voodoo3 20000616

It must specify Mesa DRI.

[sdunn]

Thanks for all the help I will let you know how it went when I get it working.

[kev31mc]

I read an article or interview last week that kinda dispelled the myth that X is a memory hog. It only appears that way. IIRC all the processes that are active in X are also included in X's stats therein lies the large size. I will try and dig up the article/interview and post a link.

Regards,
Kevin