In a recent post ( My program never releases the memory back. Why? ) I show that when using FastMM, the application does not release substantial amounts of memory back to the system.
Recently I created an artificial test program to make sure the issue it is not a memory and that it only appears with FastMM.
In this program I create and destroy an object (same as the one used in the previous post) 500 times.
The memory requirements are (“Private working set”):
Without FastMM
Before running the loop: 1.2MB
After running the loop: 2.1MB
With FastMM (aggressive debug mode)
Before running the loop: 2.1MB
After running the loop: 25MB
With FastMM (release mode)
Before running the loop: 1.8MB
After running the loop: 3MB
If I run the loop several times, the memory requirement does not increase. Which means that the unreleased memory is re-used so this is not a memory leak (a memory leak would increase the memory footprint with several KB/MB at each run).
My questions are:
How can I disable this behavior in FastMM? Is it even possible? I know, if I release the program without FastMM or with FastMM Release Mode it will “waste” moderate amounts of RAM. But disabling this behavior on demand, will help me (us?) identifying memory leaks. Actually in my first post (see link) many people suggested that I have a leak. The confusion was created obviously just because of this behavior. No, it is obvious there is no leak. It is just the memory manager that refuses to release large amounts of memory.
It will ever release the extra memory? When? What triggers this? Can the programmer trigger it? For example when I know that I have finished a RAM-intensive task and the user may not use the program for a while (minimize it), can I flush the RAM back to the system? What happens when the user open multiple instances of my program? Won’t they compete for RAM?
SOLVED
As suggested by Barry Kelly the memory will be released automatically by FastaMM.
To confirm this, I created a second program that allocated A LOT of RAM. As soon as Windows ran out of RAM, my program memory utilization returned to its original value.
Problem solved.
Thanks, Barry.