Activity Monitor - Wired, Inactive, Active and Free RAM?

See Link

Direct from the horses mouth ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

VM sizes typically increases over time.
A reboot should resolve the issue.

the VM size is the total hard drive space your apps and processes that are currently running can use as virtual memory. but the huge size is a bug to correct it add another column by right clicking on the column titles.

btw asking all these question when you have 10 GB (soon 18 GB) of RAM? how do you even know if you need this much?

i will give you a little info though. OS X loves RAM… it will use it all to your advantage whether its using it for memory hungry pro apps for RAW image and HD video editing or keeping closed apps and files in memory for faster access.

MythicFrost said:

Hey, under the activity monitor, there is "Wired, Inactive, Active, and Free" for your RAM, what's it mean (I understand "free" lol)?

EDIT: Also what is the "Real Memory" and "Virtual Memory" tabs mean?

EDIT Again: What's VM Size, Page ins, Page outs, and Swap used stand for????

Kind Regards

Click to expand...

Excuse my language but, What In the Hell Are You Doing that Takes Up 10 Gigs Of Ram?

Possibly such things as running Final Cut, Photoshop, and Motion, all at once. That can eat most of it right there, depending on how much you're doing with those apps. Many of us will run even more simultaneously. I await the day when I can load an entire SD project into RAM...

Macpropro80 said:

Excuse my language but, What In the Hell Are You Doing that Takes Up 10 Gigs Of Ram?

Click to expand...

10GB is really not all that much anymore, just depends on what you're working with.

I and a few others here have 32GB installed right now.

Cynicalone said:

10GB is really not all that much anymore, just depends on what you're working with.

Click to expand...

Indeed. Safari with nothing else loaded and a bunch heavy sites in tabs can eat 5 or 6 GB of RAM alone.

Tesselator said:

Indeed. Safari with nothing else loaded and a bunch heavy sites in tabs can eat 5 or 6 GB of RAM alone.

Click to expand...

What safari are you using? Mine never has broken 2 gigs. When I was testing my mac pro when I first got it, 50 youtube videos playing at once didnt break 2 gigs of ram usage.

Let's see some screen shots of systems with 10+ GB of memory in use?!

VirtualRain said:

Let's see some screen shots of systems with 10+ GB of memory in use?!

Click to expand...

I have a screenshot somewhere when my machine was paging like crazy after running out at 18GB.

Refer to the manual that came with your Mac Pro or on the Apple support website - it's got a diagram for the most efficient RAM installation. I think it's somewhere on the forums here if you mroogle it.

my friend once opened 200 separate applications on his imac to test what it can do. It took 30 minutes to open, and not everything showed up on the dock. They weren't small programs either, he had final cut pro, final cut express, the entire adobe suite, google earth, ect. Now Thats when you need 32 gigs of ram, other wise you might as well put $100 bills in your ram slots because its not doing you any good.

Macpropro80 said:

Now Thats when you need 32 gigs of ram, other wise you might as well put $100 bills in your ram slots because its not doing you any good.

Click to expand...

Hmm... thanks... I can take those bills out of there then.

Honestly, 32GB of RAM could contain EVERYTHING I have on my MacBook Air... I mean, the entire OS, my apps, and my media. LOL.