Hi, Larry.

On 2018-02-18 18:20, Larry Baker wrote:

On Feb 18, 2018, at 9:00 AM, <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2018 11:08:24 +0100
From: Johnny Billquist <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
To: Larry Baker <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: SIMH <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 169, Issue 58
Message-ID: <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed


Johnny,

Memory mapped overlays potentially wasted lots of space. The "problem"
is that each overlay level must be page aligned, which means 8K aligned.
It also means that you cannot have more than 7 levels, since you only
have 8 pages. Compare to disk based overlays, which can pack the levels
right next to each other, and it should be obvious that you potentially
loose a lot of memory with memory mapped overlays.

I was confused why you think memory is wasted.  It actually is not.  It is true that the program address space can only be mapped by an entire window.  Thus, you have to be clever about packing the 8K address window.  However, there is no requirement that an entire address window be mapped.  The real memory allocated is only the portion that is mapped.  The system memory is packed tightly, just the same for regular contiguous (on RSX at least) allocations for any program.  Real memory is not wasted.

Oh! We're talking past each other. You are absolutely right. It does not waste physical memory space. It potentially wastes virtual memory address space. That is what I was referring to. If you want to get a lot of code in, which usually is the case if you're dealing with overlays in the first place, then memory resident overlays can make it complicated to really get more memory out of the thing with memory mapped overlays. It can be done, and it certainly is way faster, but there are potential headaches in there.

All good, I hope. :-)

  Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: [email protected]             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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