Sparks, when I talk about VM RAM usage I'm not referring to what you've assigned in Workstation.

For instance, with 2048MB's assigned to a VM, with no RAM intensive programs running your VM uses a small portion of that 2048MB. With a couple of RAM intensive progs running, the actual RAM usage in the VM doesn't go up very much, however the actual RAM usage in the host goes up considerably.

In other words, if you're running a program in the VM that takes 1000MBs of RAM, the lions share of that is used by the host while possibly only 100 extra MBs are used in the VM.

Clear as mud??