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Hard memory limit of 16GB under Windows?

9 messages · Tomas Kalibera, Marc Schwartz, Thierry Onkelinx +3 more

#
Hi,
I am not not sure whether this topic belongs to this mail list, but I 
feel the subscribers here should be the right audience.
I noticed that the memory limit reported under Windows is 16 GB. I am 
wondering how to increase it. I didn't found anything in Rprofile.site 
nor .Rprofile. Is this limit hard coded at compilation?
Best,
Samuel
#
Hi Samuel,

could you please provide more information? Where do you see the limit 
reported or how did you trigger it, what version of Windows do you have, 
are you using 64-bit build of R (sessionInfo())

Please check help("Memory-limits") and section 8 of R Admin manual

Best,
Tomas
On 4/7/20 1:35 PM, Samuel Granjeaud IR/Inserm wrote:
#
Hi Tomas,

Many thanks for your answer.

Here is a copy of a fresh session under RStudio, and after a copy under 
Rgui.
Strangely enough the result of memory.limit() is not the same. Without 
your question I would not have looked to RGui, being used to work with 
RStudio.

The value under RGui sounds to correspond to the total RAM of the 
computer. It makes me noticing that the value is in MB.

The value under Rstudio was so huge (1.759219e+13) that I just 
interpreted it as GB. But I was totally wrong. So in fact I don't know 
what it refers to. The documentation says "For a 64-bit versions of R 
under 64-bit Windows the limit is currently 8Tb.", but it looks like 
being 16TB, which my computer don't have of course.

I still have to understand why my colleague has a problem of memory 
allocation (cannot allocate vector of size 12.6 Gb).

Sorry for the wrong interpretation, but thanks for the help,
Samuel

--- RStudio

R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29) -- "Holding the Windsock"
Copyright (C) 2020 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

 > memory.limit()
[1] 1.759219e+13
 > sessionInfo()
R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 18363)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=French_France.1252  LC_CTYPE=French_France.1252    
LC_MONETARY=French_France.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=French_France.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.6.3 tools_3.6.3
 >

--- RGui

R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29) -- "Holding the Windsock"
Copyright (C) 2020 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

 > ls()
character(0)
 > memory.limit()
[1] 32627
 > sessionInfo()
R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 18363)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=French_France.1252  LC_CTYPE=French_France.1252    
LC_MONETARY=French_France.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                   LC_TIME=French_France.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.6.3
 >
#
Hi Samuel,

please also have a look at ?memory.limit. You can set this limit at R 
startup. It is in megabytes. Maybe R Studio sets it at runtime.

Best
Tomas
On 4/7/20 3:57 PM, Samuel Granjeaud IR/Inserm wrote:
#
Hi Samuel,

You may already be aware, but if not, RStudio has their own support mechanisms here:

  https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us

If this does turn out to be RStudio specific, you may wish to check there for additional insights.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz
#
Dear Samuel,

The most important information from your mail was the actual error message:
"cannot allocate vector of size 12.6 Gb".

You'll need to know what code generated this error message. And then figure
out if the code does something sensible. Often that is not the case when
you get a similar error message.

Best regards,

ir. Thierry Onkelinx
Statisticus / Statistician

Vlaamse Overheid / Government of Flanders
INSTITUUT VOOR NATUUR- EN BOSONDERZOEK / RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR NATURE AND
FOREST
Team Biometrie & Kwaliteitszorg / Team Biometrics & Quality Assurance
thierry.onkelinx at inbo.be
Havenlaan 88 bus 73, 1000 Brussel
www.inbo.be

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more
than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say
what the experiment died of. ~ Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher
The plural of anecdote is not data. ~ Roger Brinner
The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not
ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.
~ John Tukey
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

<https://www.inbo.be>


Op di 7 apr. 2020 om 16:16 schreef Samuel Granjeaud IR/Inserm <
samuel.granjeaud at inserm.fr>:

  
  
#
Dear Samuel

Does the FAQ for Windows section 2.9 help you here?

Michael
On 07/04/2020 12:35, Samuel Granjeaud IR/Inserm wrote:

  
    
  
#
Agreed. I don't see any evidence of a "hard limit" here. It just looks 
like the code you're running has exhausted the memory of your machine. 
It doesn't require creating a lot of 12.6 Gb vectors to do that, even on 
a machine with a lot of memory ;-)

H.
On 4/7/20 08:05, Thierry Onkelinx via R-devel wrote: