4 GB of RAM not enough...

[QuarterSwede]

So far the two pictures posted show that they have a lot of RAM that applications can use.

Free RAM is RAM that has no application's "signature", if you will, on it.

Inactive RAM is RAM that has an application's "signature" on it, but it's not being used due to the application being closed. The "signature" stays in case you want to open the application again. This is where you get your "warm start" and "cold start"

Active is the one being used...if that hits like 3.5+GB then you know that 4GB isn't enough. This can actually be used by other programs too, though. It just slows the application that they're taking it from.

Wired is the RAM given to the OS which cannot be freed by other applications.

Therefore, you two have 1+ GB of usable RAM, which is still good.

Not to mention that OS X is designed to use as much RAM as it can for optimal performance.. So looking at how much is free tells you absolutely nothing.

 

[Sun Baked]

Not to mention that OS X is designed to use as much RAM as it can for optimal performance.. So looking at how much is free tells you absolutely nothing.

As does keeping the same user logged in for a month and complaining about pageouts.

Some say reboot, but logging out and back in occasionally or using a memory flush app could help.

But some apps do tend to get porky with long uptimes, like Safari. Though some apps flush themselves by simply quit/restart every now and then.

Funny always seeing all the complaints about Safari, and people don't look around at the other apps. Almost the Explorer vs. Netscape argument coming to Mac OS X, aka if you install it they won't use anything else.