Can someone explain what these fields mean to me...

[marcre]

I'm not sure this is in the correct section, but hopefully it fits.

Anyway, I've wondered for awhile what the exact meaning of these terms are. I attached a couple screen shots from my istat widget. They are the sections for the memory and the CPU.

On the CPY I take it the "User" percentage is what percent of the CPU I am using and the "System" is the percentage the computer is using. Idle is what isn't being used, but what is the "Nice" percentage relate to? If I am incorrect about any of the other sections, please let me know.


Also, on the memory section I'm sure the "Free" is the amount of RAM not being used, but what exactly does the "Wired", "Active" and "Inactive" refer to? Thanks for the clarification.


Marc

 

[aristobrat]

This has a pretty easy to read explanation about the different memory types:
http://sg80bab.blogspot.com/2007/03/is-my-mac-using-too-much-memory.html

 

[iShater]

I'll take the quick one. Nice describes process for which you have changed the execution priority. Nice/Renice are UNIX commands available in OSX that allow you to do that. So since you haven't done that to any processes, you shouldn't see any "nice" ones.

 

[marcre]

Cool, thanks for the quick replies. I appreciate it. Now I know what that stuff is and I'd be able to explain it to some one else.

marc