Unit Frames Memory Usage

[daphoosa]

Last night I started making new unit frames in oUF. My old unit frames are Pitbull4 and I wanted to try something different and maybe a bit more lightweight.

I started by installing oUF and oUF_classic into my addons folder as I intend to modify classic to match my current frames. I then completely deleted PB4 from my addons directory to eliminate any possible conflicts.

What surprised me was after installing oUF and deleting PB4, my in game addon memory usage went up by 10MB. After playing with oUF for a while, I switched back to PB4 as my oUF layout wasn't ready for raiding. After removing oUF and reinstalling PB4, my in game addon memory usage went back down 10MB to where It was before.

Has anyone else seen this before? I was under the impression I should see a reduction in memory usage.

I'm hoping to have time tonight to re-test this, but this time remove all of my addons except the unit frames to make sure it wasn't another addon going crazy.

Do any of you have memory usage numbers for what you expect to see your unit frames use?

[macke]

So, you have 2 diffrent Unitframes and one takes up more memory then the other?

[ComputerNerd]

Memory usage is a poorly used measure of how demanding an addon is.
CPU usage is what matters but is often overlooked because it is not so easily measured.
10mb is nothing compared to what wow uses, and nothing compared to even 1-2gb ram you are likely to have.

[Myte342]

Memory usage is a poorly used measure of how demanding an addon is.
CPU usage is what matters but is often overlooked because it is not so easily measured.
10mb is nothing compared to what wow uses, and nothing compared to even 1-2gb ram you are likely to have.

I must be slow today, everyone is posting what i want to say just before I can post it!

[Needalight]

I used to use Pitbull4, and was getting 10-15 fps in raids. as soon as i replaced with ag_unitframes, my fps went up to 30-40 in raids.

[Taryble]

There are only 2 metrics that can be applied to addons in WoW as comparisons.
1) CPU Usage
2) Memory Delta (that is, the rate at which an addon uses more and more memory during a session - climbing memory usage rates during play is expected, but if an addon's memory usage rate is climbing at an insane rate, that's a problem)

Static memory usage is _NOT_ and is _NEVER_ a problem, unless you are running WoW with less than the suggested requirements for WoW. On my rather insanely memory-heavy UI, I run in excess of 75mb static memory usage, climbing well over 100mb in a raid (thanks to turning on raid frames, boss mods, buffcheck addons, etc). However, once those addons are running, my memory usage is fairly static. Since WoW only uses about 1-1.5gb, and my addons use a whole 100-115mb, this doesn't make much of a hit on my 4gb system.

[iLive]

Static memory usage is _NOT_ and is _NEVER_ a problem, unless you are running WoW with less than the suggested requirements for WoW. On my rather insanely memory-heavy UI, I run in excess of 75mb static memory usage, climbing well over 100mb in a raid (thanks to turning on raid frames, boss mods, buffcheck addons, etc). However, once those addons are running, my memory usage is fairly static. Since WoW only uses about 1-1.5gb, and my addons use a whole 100-115mb, this doesn't make much of a hit on my 4gb system.

0.o That's a lot of memory usage :P And I though 10 MB was a lot xD

[daphoosa]

Memory usage isn't an issue for me. My computer has 8GB.

I was just surprised by it going up when swapping to oUF. Like I said in my original post, I'll probably try it again tonight and remove all of my other addons, just to see if it was a fluke.

[Slafsinator]

There are only 2 metrics that can be applied to addons in WoW as comparisons.
1) CPU Usage
2) Memory Delta (that is, the rate at which an addon uses more and more memory during a session - climbing memory usage rates during play is expected, but if an addon's memory usage rate is climbing at an insane rate, that's a problem)

Static memory usage is _NOT_ and is _NEVER_ a problem, unless you are running WoW with less than the suggested requirements for WoW. On my rather insanely memory-heavy UI, I run in excess of 75mb static memory usage, climbing well over 100mb in a raid (thanks to turning on raid frames, boss mods, buffcheck addons, etc). However, once those addons are running, my memory usage is fairly static. Since WoW only uses about 1-1.5gb, and my addons use a whole 100-115mb, this doesn't make much of a hit on my 4gb system.

Quoted for absolute truth.

Stop obsessing about memory usage and CPU profile your addons if you're concerned with addon performance.

[Taryble]

iLive, I run something over 200 addons, not to mention a full art replacement suite for those UI frames that aren't replaced with addons. Mostly minor tweaks, sometimes they're things that just make the game better, and some that don't make me hate some choices that the Blizzard programmers made. (addons like Closeup or Cosplay that make you able to rotate the models in the character sheet and in the dressing room, etc).

But 100-115 is nothing. Back in BC, I'd often see my addon memory usage during raids topping the 140 MB mark (149 being the highest I can recall). Was still pulling 80+ fps. Today I only get about 50 in a raid, due to higher graphics potential in 3.x over 2.x. (WoW makes higher demands on the GPU now than it did during BC).

[daphoosa]

Just as an update, it was not the change from PB4 to oUF that caused the memory increase that I observed. I re-tested and removed all of my addons, but the one for memory monitoring and again switched uit frames. PB4 used 1.5MB and oUF used 0.5MB.

For my curiosity, I'm going to try to CPU profile both unit frames while raiding as I have now gotten my oUF layout to nearly duplicate my previous PB4 layout.

[ComputerNerd]

Certainly the CPU usage will be interesting to look at, since WoW on my computer is performing badly though I think that is more through an underpowered CPU which is not as easy an issue of less demanding addons.