[R] receiving "Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1.5 Gb"

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Please study the rw-FAQ.  With a 2GB address space your chance of getting 
a 1.5GB contiguous block is essentially zero.

On Tue, 2 Sep 2008, Hayes, Daniel wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>
>
> In my attempt to run the below modelling command in R 2.7.0 under windows XP (4GB RAM with /3GB switch set) I receive the following error:
>
> Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1.5 Gb
>
>
>
> I have searched a bit and have tried adding: --max-mem-size=3071M  to the command line (when set to 3G I get the error that 3072M is too much)
>
> I also run:
>
>> memory.size()
>
> [1] 11.26125
>
>> memory.size(max=T)
>
> [1] 13.4375
>
>
>
> Modelling script:
>
> model.females <- quote(gamlss(WAZ11~cs(sqrtage,df=12)+country, sigma.formula=~cs(sqrtage,df=3)+country,
>
>              nu.formula=~cs(sqrtage,df=1), tau.formula=~cs(sqrtage,df=1),
>
>            data=females, family=BCPE, control=con))
>
> fit.females <- eval(model.females)
>
>
>
> the females  (1,654KB) that is being modelled by the GAMLSS package contains 158,533 observations
>
> I have further installed various memory optimization programs under XP but to no avail.
>
> I believe that I perhaps need to set the Vcells and Ncells but am not sure which nor to what limits.
>
> Any other help in maximizing my RAM usage in R would be great
>
>
>
> I am quite a novice so please excuse any obvious mistakes or omissions.
>
> Thank you in advance for your help
>
>
>
> Dr. Daniel Hayes
>
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595