High memory usage under php

[ewildgoose]

Hi

I am trying to get the ram requirements down on my server. I ran up a bunch of php interpreters under fastcgi using the lighttp starter script and I see huge virtual memory usage for each interpreter (85MB)

# ps axu
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
nginx 27121 0.0 0.3 85456 7620 ? Ss 14:24 0:00 /usr/bin/php-cgi
nginx 27122 0.0 0.1 85456 3084 ? S 14:24 0:00 /usr/bin/php-cgi
nginx 27123 0.0 0.1 85456 3084 ? S 14:24 0:00 /usr/bin/php-cgi

Can anyone suggest why the virtual usage is quite so high? Fairly default install of PHP 5.2 in a new virtual machine..

Any way to reduce memory requirements here?

Thanks