Is it worth adding a swap partition?

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daveyw
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Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by daveyw »

My A1XE has only 1 GB RAM, so I added a 1GB Swap partition. I'm not sure it ever worked or got used.

My X5000 has 2 GB RAM. Is it worth adding a swap partition, or with 2 GB being the max is this pointless?
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by K-L »

With 2GB, it's useless.
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Raziel
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by Raziel »

daveyw wrote:My A1XE has only 1 GB RAM, so I added a 1GB Swap partition. I'm not sure it ever worked or got used.

My X5000 has 2 GB RAM. Is it worth adding a swap partition, or with 2 GB being the max is this pointless?
2 GB RAM (may it be physical or "virtual" through a swap partition) is still the maximum AmigaOS4 can use.

I think it is because of the 32bit technic AmigaOS4 uses.
"More" is only possible/usable thorugh memory tricking (i think it's called "bank switching" or something like that) and it needs to be compiled into every single program...
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daveyw
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by daveyw »

Raziel wrote: "More" is only possible/usable thorugh memory tricking (i think it's called "bank switching" or something like that) and it needs to be compiled into every single program...
Ah, bank switching. I remember that from my old Atari 130XE.
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Raziel
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by Raziel »

Yes, someone on some other forum mentioned that this trick goes back to the early computer days.

If it helps using more than 2 GB of RAM...
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by trixie »

If it helps using more than 2 GB of RAM...
Exactly. Despite the technique being simple and ancient, it's better than having the extra memory completely unusable. Programs working with large data (such as a sound- or video editor) may use it as a handy storage, rather than swapping out to disk. I can certainly imagine such scenarios.
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Re: Is it worth adding a swap partition?

Post by Raziel »

trixie wrote:
If it helps using more than 2 GB of RAM...
Exactly. Despite the technique being simple and ancient, it's better than having the extra memory completely unusable. Programs working with large data (such as a sound- or video editor) may use it as a handy storage, rather than swapping out to disk. I can certainly imagine such scenarios.
I *think* it being already out in the wild, but i'm not sure if it is supported yet?
SDK support, OS support?

There's already some rudimentary information on the wiki
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