Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

    I don't know why, but you might want to try running FREEMEM after
    you log in and after all the process activations settle down.  I
    submit it from my DECW$LOGIN file with a delta time of +5 minutes.
    I get about 60% of my memory back by doing this.  For instance, my
    clock goes down to 175 pages.

    248000EB DECW$CLOCK   LEF   5    86   0 00:00:11.17    1674   175

            Dave

I suspect its because the clock loads so many fonts when it starts (so it can
resize them).

You can have the clock use only one font by changing font specification:

Clock*fontFamily:       -Adobe-Times-Bold-R-Normal--*-180-*-*-P-*-*-*

This is described in the decw$clock.dat file.

neal

Hi There.

This FREEMEM program - Where do you get it??

I tried to search this conference, but could not find anything about it, and it
does not seem to be part of the standard kit.

Best

JOS. Svendsen - COPCLU::Svendsen

    FREEMEM is one of those little programs that floats around DEC.  It
    was written by CW Hobbs, and I got a copy of it a long time ago from
    the VMS conference.  It was especially useful back in the days when
    memory was not as cheap or plentiful as it is now.  I find that it
    is still quite useful to reduce the amount of memory that DECwindows
    applications use after they start.  They are so busy at first that
    their memory consumption is quite high.  They very rarely need that
    much memory once they get going however.  I like to watch the memory
    comsumption on my BANNER window before and after FREEMEM runs.  The
    difference is quite amazing.  I've created a public directory on our
    CIMTWO node here with the FREEMEM files in it.  They are quite small,
    so I'll leave it there indefinitely.  I run the program from a
    privileged account, although I'm not sure what its exact privilege
    requirements are.

                Dave

    Directory CIMTWO::DECW$PUBLIC:[FREEMEM]

    FREEMEM.DOC;1                       16/18           24-MAY-1988 15:29:44.00
    FREEMEM.EXE;1                        8/9             8-OCT-1989 10:05:55.00
    FREEMEM.LNK;1                        1/3            24-MAY-1988 15:57:35.00
    FREEMEM.MAR;1                       13/15           24-MAY-1988 15:49:57.00
    FREEMEM.OBJ;1                        4/6             8-OCT-1989 10:05:19.00

    Total of 5 files, 42/51 blocks.

However, using FREEMEM may just mask the problem temporarily.  Unless you
tell it otherwise, the system starts the various applications in their 
subprocesses with the full working set quota and extent that your username
has.  I force certain applications to use a smaller working set by having
a set of command files, one for each application, that look something like
this:

	$ set noon
	$ set work /extent=1700
	$ set proc /name="Calendar"
	$ run sys$system:decw$calendar
	$ exit 1

Then I add my own AutoStart definition $Calendar to replace the standard one
with a command of "@[.sm]calendar" (where [.sm] is the directory I keep
files like the above in and "calendar" is the name of the file).  Thus
it not only sets the process name the way I want it, but limits it to
1700 pages of memory.  I get back a lot of memory this way, and there is
minimal page faulting.

				Steve

	Re .2

	Thanks for the pointer, I hadn't read the system .dat file.

	By setting up the single 12 point font I've reduced the memory usage
	by 1/2.

	Thanks again,

		Mark.

	(Now to look at what freemem does for me!)

Something else that may help is to induce swapping on the system. If you have
space available for a swapfile, you can reduce BALSETCNT to push out relatively
idle processes. You may encounter some sluggishness when moving from one 
application to another, but it does get memory back. I've found that it makes
an unusably slow system be acceptable, especially if your tight on memory. 

James

Hi Again.

Thanks a lot, for your very informative replies. 
My 8Mb VS3100, seems to have a bulid-in memory gobler, and I have
been desperately AUTOGEN-ing in order to have some performance. 

I will return with some results, as soon as I get my
disk changed, as my application-disk just went to where-ever disks go, when
they crash.

Best

JOS. Svendsen - COPCLU::SVENDSEN