

#Memory monitor for mac install
If you see the numbers increasing steadily, install more memory the system is being forced to swap data from real memory onto disk to share the real memory among programs. Virtual memory size, Page ins, Page outs, Swap used The Page ins and Page outs are useful: ideally these numbers stay a zero (but it’s normal for a small amount of paging to occur). Used Ignore this it’s a summary statistic. This is not a waste, it can greatly speed up some programs, like Photoshop.

Inactive Typically means that the memory has been used to cache disk I/O. Active The memory is actively being used by programs and/or the system software.
#Memory monitor for mac drivers
Wired The memory is locked down and cannot be shared, or swapped to disk (system software and drivers require Wired memory). Here’s your guide to what the terms mean: Free The memory is completely unused. Note that out of 16GB (above), nearly 8GB of memory is being used in one way or another. Ignore the VSIZE figure.Īuthor’s typical memory use scenario, click for larger image Actual usage could be higher when activity is taking place, so observe the usage when programs are actually in use, have files open, etc. The name changes from RSIZE to Real Memory depending on the width of the column-it’s the same thing!īelow we can see that Photoshop is using 2.55GB and Dreamweaver is using 215MB at that particular moment. To show the - Real Memory column, right-click (control-click) on the column header and select it. The RSIZE or Real Memory column (same thing) shows the amount of real memory the program is using on the memory chips. You can check the actual real memory usage of an application in Apple’s Activity Monitor ( Activity Monitor is available in /Applications/Utilities). This is called paging, or virtual memory paging. When there is not enough real memory, the system has to “swap” memory to and from the hard disk so as to share the real memory between programs, which slows everything down tremendously. See Using Activity Monitor in OS X Mavericks. Note: Activity Monitor in OS X Mavericks has changed in appearance and certain terminology. Send Feedback Related: Apple macOS, memory, optimization, Photoshop
