How does this work? Ram is green but higher than exists

[Andy_2341]

I have a MBA M4 16/256. It is doing magic somehow with it's RAM while I'm running windows 11 in VMware (allocated 7.5GB) and I was wondering if anyone could explain how.

 

[galad]

The part of the data in RAM that's least used is compressed, as you can see at the bottom of that screenshot: "Compressed: 6.17 GB". And if that's not enough, it will use the boot disk to store the RAM content (aka swap).

 

[Andy_2341]

Ohhh so of the ram VMware is using a lot of it is likely compressed. That makes sense. Thank you.

 

[maflynn]

Ohhh so of the ram VMware is using a lot of it is likely compressed. That makes sense. Thank you.

virtual machines will push your ram utilization into the yellow and red

 

[MacCheetah3]

The Memory Pressure graph lets you know if your computer is using memory efficiently.

• Green memory pressure: Your computer is using all of its RAM efficiently.
• Yellow memory pressure: Your computer might eventually need more RAM.
• Red memory pressure: Your computer needs more RAM.

Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor

Use Activity Monitor on your Mac to see if memory is being used efficiently and if you need more memory (RAM).

support.apple.com

Explanations of the other details:

View memory usage in Activity Monitor on Mac

In Activity Monitor, view the amount of system memory being used on your Mac, including physical, compressed, wired, and app memory.

support.apple.com

Apple silicon Macs feature Unified Memory, in which main system memory is used by CPU cores, GPUs, and other components including the neural engine, ANE. Where relevant, GPU memory use in Apple silicon is indicated by [AS] below.

Memory Used is the total amount of physical (real) memory being used by the system and apps. [AS] should include that being used by the GPU.

App Memory is the total amount of physical memory allocated to system processes and apps. [AS] might or might not include that being used by the GPU.

Wired Memory is physical memory which can’t be either compressed or swapped out to disk. This is required by the system to operate, and can’t be freed for other purposes. [AS] should include all that being used by the GPU.

Compressed is physical memory which hasn’t been used recently, so has been compressed to save space. [AS] shouldn’t include any being used by the GPU.

For individual processes:

• Real Memory is physical memory being used by that process.
• Real Private Memory is physical memory being used exclusively by that process for its own code and data.
• Real Shared Memory is physical memory being used by that process which is shared with other processes.
• Purgeable Memory is physical memory being used to store items that could be cached to disk if necessary to free up physical memory.
• Compressed Memory is physical memory which hasn’t been used recently, so its contents have been compressed to save space.

Note that all memory sizes are given in old-style bytes, with 1024 B in 1 KB, and so on, sometimes referred to KiB, MiB, etc., to distinguish them from rounded sizes, where 1000 B are 1 KB.

Activity Monitor: meanings and misleadings

How to interpret various measurements reported in Activity Monitor, from % CPU to Energy Impact, and how they can be compared across different Macs.

eclecticlight.co

Getting more from Activity Monitor: Memory

All about memory: different types, Unified Memory, Mach zones and the kernel, and how to manage system memory problems.

eclecticlight.co

Memory Lane: Grokking memory problems in Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor’s Memory view is the perfect place to watch for memory problems, such as a leak. Demonstrated here in macOS 12.0.1 and 12.1.

eclecticlight.co

 

[Andy_2341]

virtual machines will push your ram utilization into the yellow and red

So far I'm hovering around green/yellow with no hints of going towards red. Which is impressive, considering MacOS has 3 windows of Safari with atleast 6 tabs each plus photos, mail, notes, and pages. VMWare is running 1 edge window with 5 tabs and is trying to download solidworks.

 

[!!!]

You can right-click the headers in Activity Monitor and add the compressed column, it will show how much memory is compressed for each process.

 

[boppin]

virtual machines will push your ram utilization into the yellow and red

Only when you gave them top much RAM Like I did with 8 GB.

And: memory management has very improved.

 

[gilby101]

I have a MBA M4 16/256. It is doing magic somehow with it's RAM while I'm running windows 11 in VMware (allocated 7.5GB) and I was wondering if anyone could explain how.

Adding to what has already been said about compressed memory:

I always have more columns in my Memory tab of Activity Monitor. All of these:

Real Memory is physical memory being used by that process.
Real Private Memory is physical memory being used exclusively by that process for its own code and data.
Real Shared Memory is physical memory being used by that process which is shared with other processes.
Purgeable Memory is physical memory being used to store items that could be cached to disk if necessary to free up physical memory.
Compressed Memory is physical memory which hasn’t been used recently, so its contents have been compressed to save space.

I used the words from https://eclecticlight.co/2022/08/13/activity-monitor-meanings-and-misleadings/

The Memory column is number concocted by an undocumented algorithm which presumably includes compressed memory. Generally I refer to Real Memory and Compressed columns..

Note that the compressed memory column is headed "VM Compressed" in which the VM suggests to me that it is the memory before compression. So if you were to add them up you would get number bigger than the "Compressed Memory" (in the box at the bottom) which is the physical memory occupied by compressed memory. I use "were" and "would" because I don't recommend trying to add up any of the columns - that just leads to confusion.

 

[throAU]

virtual machines will push your ram utilization into the yellow and red

Depends how much ram you allocated and what else you're doing.

 

[blufrog]

I ran VMs on 8 GB of RAM and never saw memory pressure go red, even after I opened everything on the Mac there was to open. It did start using the swap, but never went red. It didn't even seem to affect performance. Very impressed.

I did this on a PC and crashed it.

 

[boppin]

I ran VMs on 8 GB of RAM and never saw memory pressure go red

From another forum:

- the RAM is completely occupied by programs AND
- the compressed swap space has reached its maximum size AND
- the swap area on the system disk has reached its configured maximum size, or the disk is full.

The memory pressure in Activity Monitor will then be red.

 

[blufrog]

From another forum:

- the RAM is completely occupied by programs AND
- the compressed swap space has reached its maximum size AND
- the swap area on the system disk has reached its configured maximum size, or the disk is full.

The memory pressure in Activity Monitor will then be red.

That is some serious memory usage. I don't have TB of videos to edit to do that.