Hello,
I have created a volume class (called VoxelVolume) with a self-organizing memory management, since the GC in C# didn't provide a good mechanism for managing contents of the volume for mapping, unmapping and remapping. Although I could have used the mechanisms of virtual memory, the problem is that the files are often too large to fit into the page file and I don't want to force the users to increase the pagefile size.
Currently this system is working quite well and there is no problem in lacking resources and OutOfMemoryExceptions since the InsufficientMemoryException using the MemoryFailPoint works quite well. This was all testes on a 32bit WinXP system with 2GB of main memory.
Running the same mechanism on 64bit system with 32GB of main memory also works well, but when the application runs the MemoryFailPoint suddenly throws an exception although 24GB of main memory are still free. Another point is when the MemoryFailPoint has fired once, it fires everytime and there is no chance to get rid of it.
What I have read so far, that there is a small object and a large object heap (SOH and LOH). But only for the SOH the GC takes real care of and I can free the SOH from unused objects by applying GC.Collect() and GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers. The MemoryFailPoint is obviously the only way to get a little bit of control for the LOH, but since there is enough memory left on the system I see no reason why the MemoryFilePoint should fire.
Is there any experience around here using the MemoryFailPoint?
Thank you for your help Martin