RAM not being freed after closing apps

Hey guys, I’m having a problem which is basically: my ram is permanently occupied after using heavy softwares like Blender and Substance Painter. Right now I have 24gb RAM, when I initialize my system I have about 20/21gb ram to use, when I start to render in Blender or make any texture in Substance Painter on most occasions I have around 3 or 4 GB of RAM available while these programs are open. But after closing this softwares I have 10 or 12gb to work with, sometimes even less, so I need to reboot my computer to get all the RAM back. What should I do to fix it? I’m don’t know which kind of information I should provide to better describe my problem, but I’ll send a inxi -Fxz

inxi -Fxz                                                                                      ✔ 
System:
  Kernel: 6.5.3-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.2.1
    Desktop: GNOME v: 44.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B450M-GAMING/BR v: Rev X.0x
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 2006
    date: 11/13/2019
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen+ rev: 2
    cache: L1: 576 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2286 high: 3905 min/max: 1550/3400 boost: enabled cores:
    1: 2874 2: 1557 3: 1550 4: 1730 5: 3891 6: 1558 7: 3905 8: 1557 9: 1652
    10: 1729 11: 3879 12: 1557 bogomips: 81468
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
    vendor: XFX Pine driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-4 bus-ID: 08:00.0
    temp: 57.0 C
  Device-2: A4Tech REDRAGON Live Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    bus-ID: 3-4:3
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.8 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.0 driver: X:
    loaded: amdgpu unloaded: modesetting,radeon dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
    resolution: 1920x1080~74Hz
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.1.7-1 renderer: AMD Radeon RX 570 Series
    (polaris10 LLVM 16.0.6 DRM 3.54 6.5.3-1-MANJARO) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
    vendor: XFX Pine driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 08:00.1
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 0a:00.3
  Device-3: FIFINE Microphones K670 Microphone
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB bus-ID: 1-1:2
  Device-4: A4Tech REDRAGON Live Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    bus-ID: 3-4:3
  API: ALSA v: k6.5.3-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.80 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: ASUSTeK PRIME B450M-A driver: r8169 v: kernel port: f000
    bus-ID: 07:00.0
  IF: enp7s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Cambridge Silicon Radio Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode) driver: btusb
    v: 0.8 type: USB bus-ID: 1-3:5
  Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 5.1
    lmp-v: 10
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 447.13 GiB used: 328.55 GiB (73.5%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37480G size: 447.13 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 438.75 GiB used: 328.55 GiB (74.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 312 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 16.29 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile1
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 46.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 57.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 1095
Info:
  Processes: 351 Uptime: 1h 27m Memory: total: 24 GiB available: 23.4 GiB
  used: 9.33 GiB (39.9%) Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 13.2.1 clang: 16.0.6
  Packages: 1435 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9 inxi: 3.3.29

RAM is there to be used. What point is there in empty RAM?

https://www.linuxatemyram.com/

3 Likes

Nothing, because your perception of what is going on is wrong. :stuck_out_tongue:

The memory in use is only cache and buffers, and the kernel will free that memory again if something needs it.

4 Likes

Thanks for the explanation!

1 Like

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