[R] Windows R 1.8.0 hangs when Mem Usage >1.8GB

[Spencer Graves]

      S-Plus has a similar "feature".  I once had a simulation that ran 
for months.  I programmed the simulator to store intermediate results 
using "synchronize" and issue progress reports from which I could tell 
how fast it was running.  Every day or two, I would kill S-Plus and 
restart from the last "synchronize".  I don't know the equivalent in R. 

      Is it feasible to compute in advance how big the object will 
ultimately be and then break it up into appropriately sized chunks and 
do those separately? 

      hope this helps.  spencer graves

Duncan Murdoch wrote:

>On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 10:20:16 -0800 (PST), Dick Beyer
><dbeyer at u.washington.edu> wrote :
>
>  
>
>>I have a loop that increases the size of an object after each iteration.  When the Windows Task Manager shows "Mem Usage" about 1.8GB, the Rgui.exe process no longer responds.
>>
>>I use:
>>
>>"C:\Program Files\R\rw1080\bin\Rgui.exe" --max-mem-size=4000M --min-vsize=10M --max-vsize=3000M --min-nsize=500k --max-nsize=1000M
>>
>>I have a dual Xeon 2.8GHz processor box with 4GB of memory and "R version 1.8.0, 2003-10-08".
>>
>>Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
>>    
>>
>
>Normally the maximum memory allowed for any process in Windows is 2
>GB.  It's possible to raise that to 3 GB but R 1.8 doesn't know how,
>so that's an absolute upper limit.  Version 1.9 may be able to go up
>to 3 GB, but beyond that you'll probably need a 64 bit processor:  as
>far as I know all the 32 bit OS's limit each process to 2 or 3 GB,
>because they reserve 1 or 2 GB for themselves.
>
>I don't know why you're hitting the ceiling at 1.8 GB, but it may be
>that there's unreported overhead.  I also don't know why it's not
>failing gracefully.  
>
>My only suggestion is to say "Don't do that".
>
>Duncan Murdoch
>
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