Hi,

We are trying to run a case on windows2000 with STAR v.3.10b. The computer has got 2GB RAM, swap is set to 4GB. When running case demanding over 1GB of memory, it allways ends with error saying :

temporary file: could not allocate more memory.

anyone has any idea, where is the problem?

thanks

Matej

Hi Matej,

try turning off RAMFILES so that temp files are written to disk instead of to memory

kevin

kevin - ne change. and it seems to be not very likely to change anything, we have got two times more RAM that the size of the calculation needs.

more over - it is doing the same thing under linux as well.

is there anything strange about the 1GB limit? or is there some special switch we do not know about?

thanks matej

It is the same with my linux configuration. One possibility is to run the case in parallel, so that the memory requirement for each task is below 1GB.

With your problem you see some of the limitations of a 32bit system ;-)

The limit for one job under WIN2000 is 2 GB.The maximum size under Linux should be greater than 2 GB but I'am not sure.

Linux kernels prior to 2.4 (ie 2.2.x) were real hack jobs when it came to using memory. We found that using dynamic memory in prostar, it let you go up to 2Gb, but using common blocks for memory storage in STAR, it only let you access around 950 Mb (depending on how your kernel was configured). Linux 2.4 never had that problem and we have been able to run executables as large as 3.6 Gb on it. We have also recently managed to get around the 950Mb limit for STAR. So upgrade to kernel 2.4 or call your support agent for help in relinking STAR to avoid this limit.

As for windows, I can't say that we have tried anything really large, but there might be the same sort of issues. We will give it a try.

Steve,

it's fine to hear, that you manage to run such a large calculations. So it is possible.

I had just tried to run it with 2.4.18 kernel with 4GB RAM option compiled, but no succes. as it is also the case with windows version - i think it is a problem with STAR and we try to dig some answers from our support.

I'll tell you when i find the trick!

matej