[Numpy-discussion] A memory problem: why does mmap come up in numpy.inner?

[Dan Yamins]

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 10:07 PM, David Cournapeau <
cournapeau at cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp> wrote:

> On Wed, 2008-06-04 at 21:38 -0400, Dan Yamins wrote:
>
> >
> > Anne, thanks so much for your help.  I still a little confused.   If
> > your scenario about the the memory allocation is working is right,
> > does that mean that even if I put a lot of ram on the machine, e.g. >
> > 16GB, I still can't request it in blocks larger than the limit imposed
> > by the processor architecture (e.g. 4 GB for 32, 8 GB for 64-bit)?
>
> Definitely. For 32 bits, it is actually smaller than 4 Gb, because the
> whole address range is used by the processus and the OS, and the OS
> generally needs at least 1 Gb (I don't know the default for mac os X,
> but both linux and windows default to 2 Gb: so a processus cannot use
> more than 2 Gb of memory).
>
> It is not stupid, I think everyone whished it was possible.
> Unfortunately, in mac os X case at least, you cannot do it so simply
> (yet).
>
> David
>


Anne and David, thank you both so much for your very lucid explanations.  (I
apologize for my ignorance -- with your help and some additional reading, I
think I understand how memory allocation works a bit better now.)

Best,
Dan
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