A new public beta version of App Tamer 3.0 is available! The most visible change in recent builds is the ability to display the amount of RAM used by each process. To turn it on, Control-click in the stats area at the top of the window and select “Show Memory Usage”.
Note that the numbers can vary from what you see in Activity Monitor because App Tamer totals up the memory used by any sub-processes and helper apps that are employed by an app or process. It does the same with CPU usage. So the numbers you see for Safari, for example, are the sum of the memory and CPU used by Safari and all of its helper processes (Safari Networking, Safari Web Content, PluginLibraryService, etc). App Tamer will show you a list of these sub-processes if you Control-click on an app and choose “Process Details…” from the contextual menu.
But Wait, There’s More!
So what’s more exciting than that? Well, while adding the ability to collect memory information, I reexamined App Tamer’s process monitoring more generally. I revamped its CPU sampling code, making it more accurate and more efficient. And I eliminated some “slop” in the process throttling engine, allowing it to better control really CPU-hungry processes. Long story short, App Tamer is now much better at controlling CPU usage, keeping it very close to the limit you set rather than bouncing around the target value.
There are also UI improvements to make it easier to see the current temperature on the graph and a clearer indication of how processes are sorted in the process list. Organization of the options in the Stats pane of the Settings window is more logical, and a message at the bottom of the main window explains why Auto-Stop is paused when it’s inactive for some reason.
Share Your Hopes and Dreams (and Bugs)
This is a beta release, so I really want to hear from you if you’ve found a bug, or if you have suggestions or other feedback. Send an email to AppTamer@stclairsoft.com.
Download links and a full list of changes in the beta are available on the App Tamer Testing Page.
