On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 11:11, Pablo Sanchez <[email protected]> wrote:
> [ Comments below, in line ]
>
> On Thursday 07 May 2009 at 9:41 am, Antonio Augusto (Mancha) penned
> about "Re: [vbox-users] 2.2.2 - 3D Acceleration enabled - memory leak?"
>
>>
>> The Virtual size is, by no means, the actual size the is being use
>> by your program.  It refers to the size the program "thinks" is
>> available for it.
>
> Hi,
>
> I think you may have a dated definition of Virtual Size.  Directly
> from the `man top' page:
>
>  o: VIRT  --  Virtual Image (kb)
>    The  total  amount  of virtual memory used by the task.  It includes
>    all code, data and  shared  libraries  plus  pages  that  have  been
>    swapped out.
>
>    VIRT = SWAP + RES.
>
> Cheers,

Well, while this is indeed what I read from the manual this is not
what I'm seeing on my system...
For example, look at the usage of X (can't copy/paste because I don't
have internet on it right now):
VIRT: 1013m
RES: 562m
SWAP: 451m

But, on top of top itself the Swap usage of my system says that 0k are
being used :)
And as my HD is as quite as it could be, so I assume this 0k is true.

If we look more carefully at the definition of SWAP, it falls exactly
on my description above. While it says that 451m are being used by
swap, what is really means is that 451Mb COULD be swaped out.
Like I said, Virtual memory is what the program thinks is available
for it (RES+SWAP), even if its not using all of it (swap usage=0). So
what SWAP really shows is VIRT-RES, and not exactly how much of swap
space is being used.
In some situations, i.e. where you are using all virtual memory, then
SWAP from top will be equals to the swap space being used, but this is
not always the case.

Is this clear or do you have a counter-point to my observations?

Cheers

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