Re: How to Improve Memory Usage?
- To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
- Subject: [mg1744] Re: How to Improve Memory Usage?
- From: "Kenneth D. Ham" <hamkd at ornl.gov>
- Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 00:43:56 -0400
- Organization: Martin Marietta Energy Systems
jumping at ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Jumping ) wrote: >I was wondering if anybody could tell me why Mathematica for Windows >is horrendous in managing its memory. No matter what I do, it seems that >the memory usage can only go up and almost never down, regardless whether >I have cleared and removed variables from previous use. Can anybody explain >why Mathematica is doing that and is there a good method for improving >memory management? I was also wondering if Mathematica reserved some of >the memory it says is free for its own use. Thanks in advance. > >J.T. Tsai > > > > I think you might get some (better) specific answers if you posted some code, but I will venture to give some suggestions from my experience with version 2.2.3 and 2.21 (which will probably apply to most windows versions). Windows memory is a combination of physical memory and virtual memory, make sure you have at least 16mb combined (more may be needed). Exit other programs, etc., to make sure all the memory is available to MMA. Older versions of MMA (before 2.2.3, I think) allowed you to specify how much memory to allow for the kernel. Set this to the upper limit. The kernel was ultimately limited by windows 16mb memory blocks (and appears to remain, in spite of a Wolfram techs explanation of 2.2.3's features to me). Improvements have helped memory management in the newer version, and I could be missing something. Try the MMA package memoryconserve. It can help reduce the maximum memory needed by a small amount. Hope this helps! Kenneth Ham