[comp.sys.sgi] Kernel parameters...

garrett@oscar.ccm.udel.edu (10/26/88)

A colleague of mine is using Template Graphics' FIGARO, a mostly
PHIGS-compliant graphics library on a 3030 with 12MB of RAM.  He is
working on porting a graphics program that evidently uses a lot of
phigs-structure-related storage for large images (I know little if anything
about phigs or the actual memory requirements of his program).

The problem he is having is with speed - or the lack thereof.  When it comes
time to display the images on the screen (composed of many filled polygons)
the display is fast as all get-out.  However, before it can display, the
system evidently has to do some moving of things around in memory.  During
this time the light on the swap device goes mad for a while and when it
settles down, the image practically flashes onto the screen.

I would tend to think that his program was hitting some kind of limit
to the amount of physical memory a user process is allowed to use - or is it?
Is there some kind of kernel parameter or the like that you can modify
to fix this if this is the problem?  I find it hard to believe that the
person's program would be using up a majority of the 12mb of ram, so this
would seem to be the logical explanation.  Any suggestions?

					Thanks in advance!

+-------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Joel J. Garrett, Research Associate |         Phone: (302)-451-2332        |
|   Center for Composite Materials    |   inet:  garrett@oscar.ccm.udel.edu  |
|       University of Delaware        +--------------------------------------+
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