[pypy-dev] GC error

[Timo Paulssen]

Hello,

PyPy has a hard limit on its heap size. It can be specified with this 
environment variable:

  PYPY_GC_MAX            The max heap size.  If coming near this limit, it
                         will first collect more often, then raise an
                         RPython MemoryError, and if that is not enough,
                         crash the program with a fatal error.  Try values
                         like '1.6GB'.

Check out the rest of th evariables for the GC in
pypy/rpython/memory/gc/minimark.py

In general, the pypy GC isn't optimised to know what pages are in memory or in 
swap, so each major collection will cause every single page to be touched. If a 
large part of your pypy process will not fit into the swap, you will probably 
experience very significant slowdowns.

Cheers
   - Timo