# \[f9 AS3\] Understanding System.totalMemory

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f9-as3-understanding-system-totalmemory/219533
**Category:** flash
**Created:** [March 17, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f9-as3-understanding-system-totalmemory/219533 "2007-03-17T15:04:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Rezmason](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/rezmason/32/30447_2.png) [@Rezmason](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Rezmason)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f9-as3-understanding-system-totalmemory/219533/1 "2007-03-17T15:04:00Z")

</div>

Hello!

For a long time I’ve been puzzled by the new System.totalMemory variable. Whenever I make an AS3 project, I try using the following code:

```auto
package whatever {
	import flash.system.System;

	public class Example extends Sprite {
	private var mem:int=0;
	private var n:Number;
	.
	.
	.

	private function checkMem():void {
		n = System.totalMemory;
		if (mem != n) {
			trace( n, (n-mem)/4096 ); 
			mem = n;
		}
	}
}

```

So the checkMem function outputs the number of 4-kilobyte chunks of memory allocated or deallocated since the last call to checkMem. And more often than not, calling this function at regular intervals will reveal something like this:

```auto
9273344 2264
9269248 -1
9527296 63
9535488 2
9547776 3
9551872 1
9576448 6
9633792 14
9662464 7
9711616 12
9715712 1
9723904 2
9719808 -1
9728000 2
9723904 -1
9719808 -1
9723904 1
9728000 1
9740288 3
9736192 -1
9732096 -1
9736192 1
9732096 -1
9736192 1
9732096 -1
9736192 1
9740288 1
9736192 -1
9748480 3
9752576 1
9756672 1
9752576 -1
9768960 4
9764864 -1
9768960 1
9773056 1
9793536 5
9797632 1
9801728 1
9805824 1
9809920 1
9814016 1
9842688 7
9895936 13

```

(The above output is from four or five seconds of one running AS3 project.)

This raises several questions. Does Flash always allocate memory in 4K chunks? And how can I diagnose this leak? I mean, using the Example class above as the document class, and leaving as it is written above, will still result in a memory leak!

So far I’ve read the [gskinner blog entries on memory management](http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2006/06/as3_resource_ma.html), and they really can only do so much good- they say nothing about how to find a leak. Does anyone have any advice?