title: How to convince the memory manager to release unused memory
body: <p>In a recent post ( <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4463979/my-program-never-releases-the-memory-back-why">My program never releases the memory back. Why?</a> ) I show that when using FastMM, the application does not release substantial amounts of memory back to the system. 
  Recently I created an artificial test program to make sure the issue it is not a memory and that it only appears with FastMM. </p>
  
  <p>In this program I create and destroy an object (same as the one used in the previous post) 500 times.</p>
  
  <p><strong>The memory requirements are ("Private working set"):</strong></p>
  
  <p>Without FastMM<br>
  Before running the loop: 1.2MB<br>
  After running the loop: 2.1MB  </p>
  
  <p>With FastMM (aggressive debug mode)<br>
  Before running the loop: 2.1MB<br>
  After running the loop: 25MB  </p>
  
  <p>With FastMM (release mode)<br>
  Before running the loop: 1.8MB<br>
  After running the loop: 3MB  </p>
  
  <p>If I run the loop several times, the memory requirement does not increase. Which means that the unreleased memory is re-used so this is not a memory leak (a memory leak would increase the memory footprint with several KB/MB at each run).</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>My questions are:   </p>
  
  <p>How can I disable this behavior in FastMM? Is it even possible? I know, if I release the program without FastMM or with FastMM Release Mode it will "waste" moderate amounts of RAM. But disabling this behavior on demand, will help me (us?) identifying memory leaks. Actually in my first post (see link) many people suggested that I have a leak. The confusion was created obviously just because of this behavior. No, it is obvious there is no leak. It is just the memory manager that refuses to release large amounts of memory.</p>
  
  <p>It will ever release the extra memory? When? What triggers this? Can the programmer trigger it? For example when I know that I have finished a RAM-intensive task and the user may not use the program for a while (minimize it), can I flush the RAM back to the system? What happens when the user open multiple instances of my program? Won't they compete for RAM?</p>