Could anyone explain these ram figures please?

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If I'm just browsing the web and not much else my ram figures get to around 3GB in use. If I then open a vm that vm will increase its ram use to around 2.41GB (which is round about the amount allocated to it in preferences).
But instead of adding that to the 3GB that Mac OSX is using the total quickly becomes 6.6GB or more in use - sometimes even higher so that the beachball can appear on occasions.
Even though the blue portion of the display below reports that 1.87GB of that ram is inactive and another 1.11GB of ram is free (in green).
If I then shutdown the vm the figures drop to about 4.84GB in use and then stay there, which is about 2GB higher than it was before I ran the vm.
The figures don't add up to me.

And what's the "wired" entry in red of 3.41GB ?

Please help me understand ;D
Thanks

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OP
MacDuck
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Thanks bobtomay, those links have explained a lot to me.
At one point I had 5GB of page outs, but I hadn't rebooted the machine for a day or so and I had been playing a lot with the vm.
Today virtually no page outs, which is obviously much better.

With previous experience in pc's I would have thought for my usage that 8GB would be plenty, but I hadn't played with a vm much then :)

I'll keep an eye on things.

Thanks again.
 

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