How can I monitor my current RAM usage?

D

d54321k

Registered
Is there a utility in OS X that would allow monitoring my current RAM usage (i.e. how much RAM is each running app using, and also check if RAM has been cleared after this particullar app quit)?

I tried the CPU Monitor, but can't find where (if at all) does it addresss the RAM issue.

Thanks
DK
 
If you use Process Viewer, you'll see some of the info you're asking for. Also a TOP command in terminal shows which apps are using memory, as well as memory usage by the system as a whole.
Memory usage is not really cleared after use in the same way that OS 9 handled it (thank goodness!) OS X handles memory usage much differently, assigning memory, but adjusting that memory usage dynamically. Even if you view how much memory is 'assigned' as in use, it changes as you watch, including paging memory out to the disk when necessary.
I watched top run on a system with 256 MB of installed RAM running about 40 apps at the same time, really crappy performance, TOP showed about 3.5 GB of virtual memory in use! But all apps could be used (useful?? not really, but working). When you close out all those apps, not all the memory is freed up, some is kept in cache, for later opening those same apps, as a performance enhancement. That's OS X and Unix working together to do its job!
 
Check out iPulse. It shows you the activity levels of a number of tasks on your computer, including memory, disk usage, and network traffic, in a small, round colored circle. It's quite cool.
 
My method is to open the terminal (In Applications/Utilities) and enter the "top" command. It gives a very good breakdown of memory usage by program.
 
Open Terminal and enter man top. Peruse this document, then enter the top combination with the combination of trailers you want, to limit the number of listings or sort it by CPU usage, for example.

The problem with any of these tools is that they also take memory. Look in top, for example, and see how much (and what %) of your memory top itself takes. This goes back to the whole "If you measure a particle's position, you change its velocity, and if you measure its velocity, you change its position" quagmire. However, these processes will still give you what you want.
 
This is great, thanks guys.

What's "MemRegions" (displayed in the Terminal)? If "memory regions", what's a "resident memory region"?
 
I like MemoryStick, hid it and you can see it in the dock because the icon is the meter. Although i think you need to click the dock icon to update it, I haven't used it in a while.
 
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