03-07-2008, 12:24 AM

Hello,

When going into the "Activity Monitor" in my macbook, upon viewing "System Memory"... It says "VM Size: 36.73 GB" .

That seems pretty big to me for VM, but i'm new to Mac so not really sure how this works on osx.

Also on the "Processes" list, under the "Virtual Memory" column.. most a majority of the processes are using more then 860 MB. Is this normal?

By the way for further information here is the other stats:

Free: 1.04 GB
Wired: 169.0 MB
Active: 702.65 MB
Inactive: 103.91 MB
Used: 976.14 MB
VM size: 36.73 GB
Page ins: 316.05 MB
Page outs: 0 bytes
Swap used: 0 bytes

Threads: 236
Processes: 51



Thank you in advance for your replies.

03-07-2008, 07:07 AM

VM Usage

Understanding OS X Memory Usage

03-07-2008, 08:26 AM

The important numbers to worry about is the ratio of Page Ins to Page Outs. That is when you Mac runs out of real ram and starts hitting the hard drive for necessary information. If in the course of normal use that ratio starts creeping up you need more ram. The rest of those numbers look good.

03-07-2008, 10:33 AM

Thanks for the replies and the links. But isn't the VM size: 36.73 GB kinda large?

In windows I use to set the VM to twice my amount of RAM. So to me, 36GB is pretty insane lol.

I'm still open to feedback, but I'll see what I can find out on my own as well.

Thanks to those who took the time to read this and respond.

03-07-2008, 03:34 PM

The VM size is just a potential.

The VM in windows you are thinking of is cPagefile.sys. Normally 1.5 times the amount of physical ram. It is a static file. Versus the OS X pagefile which is dynamic.

03-08-2008, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by MacsWork

The VM size is just a potential.

The VM in windows you are thinking of is cPagefile.sys. Normally 1.5 times the amount of physical ram. It is a static file. Versus the OS X pagefile which is dynamic.

Thank you