[SOLVED] Integrated graphics using all of the ram

[cjcj11]

Hi, so my girlfriends MacBook Pro 15" (mid 2012 I believe) sometimes starts acting ridiculously slow. I'm not sure for exact specs, but it's got an i7, 4gb of memory and the 1440x900 screen. The thing starts to become extremely slugggish and sometimes unresponsive for a few seconds up until a minute or two. I have come to believe that I think it's the integrated graphics, the integrated graphics are set to use 2.5 gbs out of the 4. Upon further investigation, it seems like only the newer retina models were supposed to get that 2.5gb to the integrated graphics through updates. Now is there any possible way for me to change this? It seems like my girlfriend doesn't quite want to spend the money on upgrading the memory, and I don't really want to risk breaking her laptop upgrading it by doing something stupid (my luck is it would break the second I touch it because it isn't mine) especially if the memory definitely isn't the problem. Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks

 

[dudeman509]

It needs more RAM. Apple's latest OSX builds gobble it up.

 

[cjcj11]

is there any way to change how much the integrated graphics uses? and for an upgrade do you think she should just to go a store to get it done?

 

[dudeman509]

Don't think so, but a Mac isn't grabbing all that for integrated graphics if she's not playing games or graphics chip intensive tasks like Google Earth or something. It'll release it back to the OS.

A 2012 is super easy to put RAM in - just take the bottom off and pop it in the slot.

 

[cjcj11]

Don't think so, but a Mac isn't grabbing all that for integrated graphics if she's not playing games or graphics chip intensive tasks like Google Earth or something. It'll release it back to the OS.

A 2012 is super easy to put RAM in - just take the bottom off and pop it in the slot.

i ended up upgrading her macbook to 8gb and what do you know, the allocated memory for her integrated graphics instantly dropped to 1.5 gb down from the 2.5 gbs, funny that now theres more memory available, the graphics are using less. must have been some kind of bug somewhere. anyway, her mac runs completely fine now, low memory was definitely the culprit, now just to convince her to get a SSD 😀