Re: [Gimp-developer] Is there any way to free Gimp memory and avoid restarting it?

[Ofnuts <ofnuts gmx com>]

On 2/5/19 5:35 PM, jEsuSdA 8) wrote:
> El 2/2/19 a las 9:58, Ofnuts escribió:
> > The fact that the memory isn't marked free doesn't mean it is 
> > unusable. Tried in Gimp 2.10 on Ubuntu:
> >
> > - load 5 20MPx Jpegs: memory is 1.35GB
> >
> > - close all: memory still at 1.35GB
> >
> > - load them again: memory is 1.4GB
> >
> > - close all: memory still at 1.4GB
> >
> > - load them again: memory is 1.4GB
> >
> > - close all: memory still at 1.4GB
> >
> > So the memory seems reused...
>
> I was thinking about your tests and the values seems to be a bit 
> strange: I mean, I you load 5 images and Gimp takes 1.35GB Memory, why 
> when you close all the images gimp still taking 1.35GB instead of less 
> than?
>
> In the same way, if you load again the same images, why Gimp consumes 
> more memory and its memory consumption rises from 1.35 to 1.40... and, 
> again, when the images are closed the memory does not get back to a 
> lower value.
>
> I think this values can corroborate my theory about Gimp lack of 
> memory release I suffer and which is absolutely needed when working in 
> professional environments.
>
> Why Gimp does not free the memory?
> Any idea? 


If memory was truly leaked,  I would have seen 1.35, 2.7, 4.05... Since 
there is no significant memory increase, we can assume that this memory 
is reused. For the rest, see Øyvind's answer.