I just noticed this. There seems to be a much higher memory usage in Opera 9 than in the previous version. Has anyone else noticed this? I guess it hasn't really affected me so it doesn't matter, just curious. I like 9 a lot better. They added some basic things that were lacking.

Its intentional.
Opera now uses memory efficiently. If you have got free and unused RAM, it will use it. There is no point in having 1gb of ram with half of it left unused.

Moved

If you really wanna watch the memory usage, watch Opera while it is open, then watch it as you minimize the screen...

^^^ i did that and wow...lol, jumped from about 9k to 33k

Yeah i noticed a huge jump as well. I didn't even know it was consuming that much memory until I saw this thread.

It doesn't seem to go down much when I start up some programs that need more memory than Opera does, such as audio editing programs.

hey, I'm just happy that it uses less than Fx did before it, especially with multiple tabs open (night and day, for lack of better analogy). And I can now watch video AND browse the internet, when you scroll a long page in Fx it's CPU usage goes up to 35%, and that's too much to maintain smooth playback especially with h264 stuff needing about 70% of CPU and other programs taking some too (video stutter, and I get static on speakers), with Opera CPU usage is under 5%, video is smooth, sound is cryspy. AWESOME! Let it use RAM, I've got lots.

Explanation here: http://my.opera.com
Well.. in shortly:
And by the way. Have you ever tried Linux.. Because every single linux is using ~90-99% of memory. (RAM is wasted if it isn't used)

As said before "If you have got free and unused RAM, Opera will use it." (currently my Opera 9 "use" 200mb)

Cool, and you registered just to bump this old topic?

Opera 9 does use slighty more memory i have to admit.

Hmm what I actually meant by minimizing was hiding opera to the system tray only, I don't know why I said minimize

On my system hiding opera (Ctrl-H) has it drop drastically. But MrF is correct, since the memory is wasted anyway, Opera just uses it until something else wants it, then gives it up freely.

mine is using 80mb! n when i minimize it 27mb!
what the?! is something wrong?

When you minimize the program, and you aren't downloading anything, it assumes you are doing something else, so it freely gives up a section of the memory it is currently using for whatever you want to do. It gives better performance without being a hassle for other programs you are running.

Opera is ment to use a large amount of memory. Unlike firefox this is not a memory leak, it is keeping a lot of cache in memory so you can load up pages more quickly. minimizing opera shows you that it releases it's memory when not in use.

Exactly. Opera is hogs the memory until something else wants it

Its actually got a pretty intelligent memory usage . . uses lots when available, but minimize it or load other programs that require the mem, and opera releases what it can spare.

I personally really like opera browser.

MrF,

your comment that Opera uses extra memory (and you go on to say Linux in general) as a "feature" on the premise that if memory is available, it ought to be used, is utter nonsense.

You are saying that using more resources than necessary - for the soul purpose because they're there - demonstrates a program is being "efficient." Do you know what efficiency means?

Total nonsense.

-cheesemoldy

I have the newest Opera 10 beta, and it has the lowest memory footprint of any browser on comparative sites

Don't think this thread needs to be resurrected.