Is there a way to tell how much memory your program is using, while it's running?

Questions
1

The reason is I’m using some big texture images for a mesh, and I wanted to find out if the images remain in memory after they’ve been used to texture the mesh, ie whether it makes a difference what size images you use to texture a particular mesh.

But knowing how much memory you’re using is useful anyway.

2

@Ignatz… @Jmv38 has a memory monitor in his Windows library. I believe he uses:

local kb = gcinfo()
3

Thanks!

4

Hi! I have always wondered if this command really measures the memory used by images and meshes. Please let us know if you find out.

5

I ran it on an empty app and it showed about 180, then on my app with big mesh images, and it was up to 400. Is that 400mb?

6

gcinfo is a Lua function, so I’m not sure it picks up the total memory used by Codea, even if Codea uses Lua to store everything.

7

The value returned is in KB

8

Does anyone know what size is going to cause a problem with memory limits?

9

A non-answer could be: it depends on the other apps opened…
I know i have constantly memory problems if i dont use collectgarbage() at adequate places…
So assuming all apps are closed, and you use collectgarbage a lot, then … I dont know.
But the available memory in my ipad1 is generally 100Mo, a fullscreen color image is 1024x768x3 so about 2.4Mo, so the absolute limit would be 40 images? The real limit should surely be 1/2 or 1/3 of that.

10

Interesting. Without garbage collection, I am currently at 270 plus. When I do garbage collection while setting up my mesh, it drops to 175, but then climbs steadily back to 250 plus. If I put periodic garbage collection into draw, it drops down to 175 each time, then climbs slowly again until I collect it again.

11

fps class

-- fps

fps = class()

function fps:init()
    parameter.watch("fps")
    parameter.watch("mem")
end

function fps:update()
    fps = math.ceil(string.format("%.2f", 1/DeltaTime))
    
    collectgarbage()
    collectgarbage()
    collectgarbage()
    mem = collectgarbage("count", 2) --in KB
end

use in main

function setup()
    monitor = fps()
end

function draw()
    monitor:update()
end