How to calculate the java heap required - Stack Overflow
jvm - How to calculate (and specify) the total memory space allowed for java process? - Stack Overflow
java - Increasing the JVM maximum heap size for memory intensive applications - Stack Overflow
How is the default max Java heap size determined? - Stack Overflow
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top reports 1.6GB because PermSize is ON TOP of the heap-size maximum heap size. In your case you set MaxPermSize to 512m and Xmx to 1024m. This amounts to 1536m. Just like in other languages, an absolutely precise number can not be calculated unless you know precisely how many threads are started, how many file handles are used, etc. The stack size per thread depends on the OS and JDK version, in your case its 1024k (if it is a 64bit machine). So if you have 10 threads you use 10240k extra as the stack is not allocated from the heap (Xmx). Most applications that behave nicely work perfectly when setting a lower stack and MaxPermSize. Try to set the ThreadStackSize to 128k and if you get a StackOverflowError (i.e. if you do lots of deep recursions) you can increase it in small steps until the problem disappears.
So my answer is essentially that you can not control it down to the MB how much the Java process will use, but you come fairly close by setting i.e. -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=384m and -XX:ThreadStackSize=128k -XX:+UseCompressedOops. Even if you have lots of threads you will still have plenty of headroom until you reach 1.5GB. The UseCompressedOops tells the VM to use narrow pointers even when running on a 64bit JVM, thus saving some memory.
At high level JVM address space is divided in three main parts:
- kernel space: ~1GB, also depends on platform, windows its more than 1GB
- Java Heap: Java heap specified by user using the
-Xmx,-XX:MaxPermSize, etc... - Rest of virtual address space goes to native usage of JVM, to accomodate the malloc/calloc done by JVM, native threads stack: thread respective the java threads and addition JVM native threads for GC, etc...
So you have (4GB - kernel space 1-1.25GB) ~2.75GB to play with,so you can set your java/native heap accordingly. But generally we should keep atleast 500MB for JVM native heap else there is a chances that you get native OOM. So we need to do a trade off here based on your application's java heap utilization.
When you are using JVM in 32-bit mode, the maximum heap size that can be allocated is 1280 MB. So, if you want to go beyond that, you need to invoke JVM in 64-mode.
You can use following:
$ java -d64 -Xms512m -Xmx4g HelloWorld
where,
- -d64: Will enable 64-bit JVM
- -Xms512m: Will set initial heap size as 512 MB
- -Xmx4g: Will set maximum heap size as 4 GB
You can tune in -Xms and -Xmx as per you requirements (YMMV)
A very good resource on JVM performance tuning, which might want to look into: http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/hotspot/gc/gc_tuning_6.html
Get yourself a 64-bit JVM from Oracle.
On Windows, you can use the following command to find out the defaults on the system where your applications runs.
java -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal -version | findstr HeapSize
Look for the options MaxHeapSize (for -Xmx) and InitialHeapSize for -Xms.
On a Unix/Linux system, you can do
java -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal -version | grep HeapSize
I believe the resulting output is in bytes.
For Java SE 5: According to Garbage Collector Ergonomics [Oracle]:
initial heap size:
Larger of 1/64th of the machine's physical memory on the machine or some reasonable minimum. Before J2SE 5.0, the default initial heap size was a reasonable minimum, which varies by platform. You can override this default using the -Xms command-line option.
maximum heap size:
Smaller of 1/4th of the physical memory or 1GB. Before J2SE 5.0, the default maximum heap size was 64MB. You can override this default using the -Xmx command-line option.
UPDATE:
As pointed out by Tom Anderson in his comment, the above is for server-class machines. From Ergonomics in the 5.0 JavaTM Virtual Machine:
In the J2SE platform version 5.0 a class of machine referred to as a server-class machine has been defined as a machine with
- 2 or more physical processors
- 2 or more Gbytes of physical memory
with the exception of 32 bit platforms running a version of the Windows operating system. On all other platforms the default values are the same as the default values for version 1.4.2.
In the J2SE platform version 1.4.2 by default the following selections were made
- initial heap size of 4 Mbyte
- maximum heap size of 64 Mbyte