site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com Michael Smith writes:

On Mar 13, 2007, at 9:32 AM, Andrew Gallatin wrote:

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But before I go trying to re-compile these applications, I'm still wondering if there is any way to limit the ubc like in Tru64...

Limit in what way?

To using no more than a certain percentage of memory, like ubc-maxpercent does in Tru64.

FWIW, what I'm doing is nothing "serious", just watching high-def, MPEG-2 files recorded over the air by my MythTV DVR with either MythFrontend or VLC. This is on a Core2 Duo iMac with 1GB RAM. After watching a few minutes of an HD recording, nearly everything on the desktop (like mail clients, web browsers and even portions of the video player not in the critical path for playing) gets paged out, and switching between the video and any other application is miserable. I have nearly the same experience (but it takes longer to happen because the quality is lower, and the file size is smaller) watching shows purchased from iTunes.

File cache pages join the queue in a deprivileged position (at the head of the inactive list), so they tend not to cannibalise your working set.

They do totally swamp any apps you haven't touched in a while, and create a huge paging storm though, which tends to drive the user experience through the floor. The problem is really exacerbated by the usage pattern watching HD video. You watch 5 or 10 minutes of a video, then you realize you have an email, you pause the video to answer the mail, and curse while the portion of the video player responsible for pausing gets paged in, then curse some more while the mailer gets paged back in, etc.

Because there is no logical division between buffer cache and VM cache, there's no straightforward way to implement what you describe...

Thanks for letting me stop looking, but it sure would be nice if you added one ;). There is a lot of good stuff in Tru64, especially for Darwin, since Tru64 was also a "shotgun wedding" of Mach and BSD, with no servers, etc. Heck, I think they even used Mach-O! Too bad HP ended up with it rather than you guys. At any rate, I've wanted to re-build MythFrontend for a while, maybe this is finally the excuse I need.. Drew _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Darwin-kernel mailing list (Darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/darwin-kernel/site_archiver%40lists.a... This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com