Activity Monitor Memory Pie Chart

I set the dock icon to monitor my memory usage as I do a lot of work in VM's that can chew through what's available. After updating the only icons are CPU, Network, and Disk usage. What happened to Memory?
And yes, I know there are other more informative resource monitors out there, but Activity Monitor had the best "at a glance" dashboard.

This is no longer an option, especially since Mavericks has new memory management routines (ie, memory compression) that make the charting of memory usage less straightforward. Apple has switched to a new "Memory Pressure" approach to viewing memory usage, which is available in the Memory section of Activity Monitor, but so far has not been added as a Dock icon option. Hopefully Apple will do so, as this would perhaps be one of the more useful Dock icon options.

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Activity Monitor -- Memory. Details Needed.

Could anyone point out what exactly the "Free" and "Inactive" memory spaces are??
I'm running on a 2GB RAM MacBook Pro. I don't run too many mem intensive programs. But quite often the "Free" mem would drop to 100-150 MB. But at that point, the "Inactive" mem would be around 500-600 MB. So what exactly a I looking at? Am I facing a mem crunch?
I'm new to OSX. from my previous experience with Windows OSes, how much ever RAM you give it, the OS will take a huge chunk and then free up as necessary. Is it something like that that I'm looking at over here? Or am I supposed to go for a mem upgrade?
And I know the next question is might be out of place, but, after quite wome time of browsing on Firefox, it seems to take 500+ MB of RAM. Is that normal??
Thanks in advance for your replies & suggestions.

About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
It's not abnormal for browsers to eventually use a huge amount of RAM. Use the latest version of your browser that's available. Emptying some of the browsers caches like the History cache will help somewhat, but the best way to recover the memory is to quit then relaunch the browser - or just don't worry about it and put more RAM in your computer.

Activity monitor memory usage pie chart gone?

What happened to the pie chart that sits in the dock that shows memory usage? I found this very useful in the past, and Mavericks seems to have removed it from the dock options.

Uhhh, I know it's a bit late for this but...
darlingdearie wrote:
I don't have a dock icon called "memory pressure graph".
I have
CPU Usage
CPU History
Network Usage
Disk Activity
so it's hard to know what you're taking about when referring the the "memory pressure graph".
Please clarify. Thanks!
... it sounds like you have a previous version of the Activity Monitor. The one that comes with 10.9 has
CPU
Memory
Energy
Disk
Network
The memory pressure is at the bottom of the Memory tab.

Activity monitor memory numbers don't add up

Activity Monitor reports that I have 7.99 GB of memory in use. However, the numbers for individual processes don't add up to nearly that large of a number. What could be causing such a huge disparity between those two? Is there something I'm missing (and yes, I have it set to show all processes)?

For one the File Cache is not included in the process display as the use of the file cache is system wide. It is also not shown in the kernel usage.
At the moment Activity monitor for my system shows the Kernel using 1.019 GB of real memory, the File cache at 2.95 GB.
There may well be other memory allocations that are system wide function and services that are not readily attributable or allocatable to individual processes. If you look at the screen shot above:
Memory Used = App memory + File Cache + Wired memory.
I suspect that App Memory = the sum of the Proceess Real memory column

Activity Monitor & Memory

I have 8 GB installed in my MBP, so why does Activity Monitor report only 7.75 GB?
Mark

Hi Mark,
256MB of the main memory (REM) is shared with the Nvidia 9400M graphics processor regardless if its in use or not.
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP546
Regards
Stefan

Activity Monitor, Memory and Freezes

I've had a few Logic freezes recently so I open Activity Monitor to try and find some info. Firstly if the CPU use and threads next to Logic Pro keep changing is there a chance that Logic will unfreeze if it's been stuck for say over 5 minutes?
Also I'm trying to see how near I am to the memory ceiling. I've got 32 GB in my MacPro so it's not a shortage of RAM more hitting the single app limit. I don't understand the relationship between "Real Memory" and "Virtual Memory" as regards the single app limit. Logic has just crashed and the associated readings are Logic Real 2.13GB Virtual 3.88GB, VSL Daemon Real 7.02MB Virtual 867MB, VSL Server 2.35GB Real 3.31 GB Virtual. ousiad (is this East West Play plug-in?) 816kb Real 2.57 GB Virtual, Vienna Ensemble 882MB Real 2.5GB Virtual. Total free memory is 20.11GB.
If someone can help my understanding this would most be welcome!
Thanks
Julian

"Virtual 3.88GB" - That's the one that kills your Logic app.
You can read a lot on the forums that Logic has this limit of around 3.5GB of memory that it can allocate. I want to point out two things from my experience.
1) This limit is about the "Virtual Memory" not the "Real Memory".
2) When you get close to that limit, Logic just crashes. You would figure that it might give you just an alert box with a memory warning, no - poof - Logic is gone.
A few more things.
* Keep your Activity Monitor open and be very careful when you go across the 3GB "Virtual Memory" line. Every additional Plugin could push you over the edge.
* Besides loading additional instruments, there are other factors that you should be aware of. i.e. Apple Loop Browser. If you have a big Apple Loop library and you make a search on all loops, you can see in the Activity Monitor that such a search could require a few hundred MB of additional Virtual Memory. That's enough to cross the line and crash Logic. Believe me, it took me a while (and a lot of frustration and restarts) until I figured that out.
So why the difference between the "Real Memory" and "Virtual Memory" number. I seems that this leads into hardcore programming voodoo,aka "I have no idea". One observation I made is the impact of the graphic cards. Usually the Virtual Memory number is about 300-500MB bigger thatn the Real Memory number. When I changed my 2 graphic cards to new ones with more VRAM the difference between the Real and Virtual Memory number grew to 1GB . Don't asked me how long it took me to figure out that relation. All I saw was that I couldn't load big Logic Projects that I worked on before with no problem.
Bottom line:
The more stuff you load into Logic, the closer you have to monitor Activity Monitor and save more frequently.
Think about how often you read forum posts that Logic is completely unstable and crashes all the time. I bet that a high percentage is related to user hitting that Virtual Memory limitation.

MacPro sees 16g mem but Activity Monitor Only Shows 8 Gig

I have 4 simms of 4GB mem in my 2008 MacPro. I always thought all was ok as "About this Mac" shows 16GB of mem. But when I run Activity Monitor, the System Memory pie chart says I have 8GB. Is there another way to confirm how much mem is being recognized by my MacPro?
I only discovered this when running "icleanmemory" from the app store, and noticing I only ever have approximately 3GB free at any one time. Looks like my Mac is not seeing at least 8Gig of mem EVEN THOUGH "About this Mac" clearly shows 16GB.

And not just a reboot, but boot in Safe Mode.
Sometimes a clean install or reinstall over what you have, because a few people (a fraction of a fraction) had a system problem
Some background tasks dont' uninstall, not easily.
They get added to launch services and have to be removed through launchd
Heat is always an issue with RAM
Not showing up all the time with what it should be.... call it defective, call it marginal, have the vendor exchange and let them use more robust testng
FBDIMMs get subjected to heat, and heat-cool cycle stresses electronics
Keeping them below 72*C is important - I use Smcfancontrol 2.x
Riser releated issues
All 4 on one Riser?
Ideal is one set on each Riser
Swap al the Ram to first one andthen the other (the top Riser has to be populated and can't be left empty
Try with one pair, then the other and insure you get 8GB eachtime.
Narrowing it down to a pair, to Riser, to placement.
A common thread, DIMMs show but half capacity. Defective, gone bad.

Strange activity monitor display

Since going to Lion, I have a strange occurance with the activity monitor at times. The area below the process list will change to a black background and sometimes the black will cover some of the indicators. Sometimes only part of that area will turn black. Other times I get odd lines, like the single black line that just showed up. Earlier it was some red lines.
The only sure way to get rid of it is to restart. It seems to come around when I am having problems with Safari. I have not had this problem with any other displays other than the activity monitor.
It may or may not be related, but I also get two tiney rectangles that show up at various place on the display form time to time. Moving the display by scrolling or moving a window will make them go away. Sometimes they go away by themselves.

Yes, I noticed too the new category of "File Cache". That might be masking the real memory usage and making it harder for us to compare Mavericks to Mountain Lion. So we might be comparing apples to oranges... I, too, am showing 0 swap and that, as you say, is a good thing.
This might also explain why they did away with the Memory pie chart that I used to use as my dock icon so I could instantly see my memory usage... Perhaps with File Cache in this mix, it would make no sense to show that as a pie chart... Who knows...??
thanks bob...

Running Activity Monitor To Shut Unnecessary Functions Off?

I just ran Activity Monitor to see how the CPU on my MacBook was doing and saw all these "root" functions and this Quicklook thing that list almost 600MB of RAM/Virtual Memory usage. iVirus usage 171MB. Are there ways to disable apps and directory actions that are totally unnecessary to save RAM and CPU actions? Any links to Activity Monitor tutorials?
Also since the SL 10.6.1 update, the fan comes on more frequently and the casing underneath is getting warmer. I assume this has to be related to something related to what is going on in Activity Monitor. Any clues there?
I have 4GB RAM.
Thanks for any help and ideas on what could improve the MacBook performance.
Steve

I would stay away from killing processes you know nothing about as that can lead to the OS failing to function. As for Activity Monitor and memory management see the following:
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.
About OS X system processes - MacFixIt;
OS X Process Management- Guide to Activity Monitor - MacFixIt.

Activity Monitor misreports RAM?

I have the brand new aluminum macbook with 2 gigs of ram. I looked in activity Monitor before and it was telling me that I was using 500 megabytes of ram, with no programs running. I looked at all the processes and they could not possibly have added up to 500. I know that green and blue are free and that red is for the OS. It was just the yellow that I looked at and all the processes, even including kernel_task (which is counted under wired, right?), could not have added up to 500. Please help!

You've given us nothing to suggest a problem. Activity Monitor does not provide information on background processes. When you say, "they could not possibly have added up to 500," that means you don't really know what they added to nor that you know what to add.
See the following:
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.

Activity monitor Page Out question

Is there a way to get Page Outs to report the number of page outs rather than bytes ?
And when did this change, as it used to report in # of pages.... I think in 10.5

Sorry, but that cannot be changed. If you want a better report of that information then open the Terminal and enter: top then press RETURN. Top's information is more complete than what is reported in Activity Monitor. Also see:
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.

What happened to the "pie chart" on the Activity Monitor? The new version is of no use to me as I do not know what the graft is telling me and there is no manual for it.

What happened to the "pie chart" on the Activity Monitor?

It's gone.
See -> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5890.
Clinton

Where have the disk usage pie charts gone in the activity monitor utility

Wherer have the disk usage pie charts gone?

>About This Mac>More Info
Click the Storage tab
They're bar graphs now.

Activity Monitor - Column Heading Memory Types

I'm chasing a memory issue in my MBP, and am using Activity Monitor to try to figure it out. I've found explanations for "Wired", "Active", "Inactive", and "Free". Makes sense to me, no problemo.
Now comes the interesting part, trying to map processes to memory use. I've added all the available memory columns to Activity Monitor, but cannot find any correlation between the column headings and the memory reported in the bottom area/pie chart.
How do the Shared, Real, Private and Virtual Memory column headings map to the Wired, Active, Inactive and Free categories at the bottom?
There are plenty of explanations on what to be concerned about with the various pie chart categories. However, I'm trying to determine when an particular process is getting out of hand, and would like to understand what each of the column headings really mean, and in particular, how they map to the pie chart categories.

As Kappy says, the virtual memory information is mostly meaningless except to developers, and most of them do not really care.
In this case the Java VM usage is most likely a math error on the part of either the operating system, or Activity Monitor (when a 64-bit number goes negative, but is then displayed as an unsigned value, it can look like what you are seeing; ignore it).
What you ARE interested in is "Real Memory" usage, and who is using it. Look at those numbers in Activity Monitor.
If you want to see if pageout activity is affecting your performance, then start Applicaitons -> Utilities -> Terminal and run the command "sar -g 60 100" which will report pageout numbers once a minute for 100 minutes (adjust the numbers to suit your tastes). Mostly zero means no pages outs. Occassional spikes generally occur when starting an app or switching to an app which has been idle for awhile. Sustained pageouts starts to indicate a problem. High sustained pageouts means you could benefit from either having more RAM or running fewer concurrent applications.

Activity Monitor Dock Icon - Memory - Missing

Why is the Memory option for the Activity Monitor Dock Icon missing now in Mavericks?
Why would Apple remove this feature?
I was happily using this little pie chart for a Dock Icon to keep track of overall memory usage on my system.
Has anyone else found a solution to bring this back?

Yes, thanks for the confirmation. I did some googling and found more people with eight-cores who could not view more than one bar in the dock icon.
I understand that showing eight bars in the icon might've been unreadable, but I would have preferred that they show two bars for the dual processors, instead of leaving us with one bar. I'll have to look into some alternate utilities, but it's a shame Apple decided to regress functionality on their top-end machines.

Activity Monitor Memory Pie Chart

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