baskett@decwrl.UUCP (Forest Baskett) (01/17/84)
In a well designed hardware MMU system the choice of page size is often a compromise between performance and addressability and frequently has little to do with what size system software designers desire. Performance degradations on the order of 20% on every memory reference are not uncommon in systems where the choice was made incorrectly. In a well designed software MMU system, the choice of page size is often a compile time parameter. The hardware compromise point is likely to change as technology changes. Some software designers have realized that and are now decoupling the hardware page size from the software page size in all possible places. Forest Baskett {decvax|ucbvax}!decwrl!baskett