🚀 go-pugleaf

>From ghost  Thu Oct  1 20:06 PDT 1992 remote from aladdin
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 20:06:08 PDT
From: ghost@aladdin.com (L. Peter Deutsch)
Subject: Re: Problem with TeX
Message-ID: <9210012006.0.UUL1.3#5127@aladdin.com>
To: drector@math.uci.edu
cc: bug-ghostscript
In-Reply-To: Your message of 30 Sep 92 18:26:52 GMT

Re <9210011722.AA14286@cookie-crisp>
<199209301826.AA10021@news.service.uci.edu>:

> >I would like to use ghostscript to preview TeX output with ps graphics
> >inclusions.  When I attempt to view a TeX output file I get an
> >insufficient memory message.  I am using gs252 on an msdos '486
> >machine, 16mb ram, with windows 3.0.  I get the same result with
> >gs386.exe, gswin.exe, and gs.exe (expected for 640k version).
> >My TeX ps files are produced by ptips (Personal TeX version of dvips).
> 
> >Is there any way to get ghostscript to use more memory?
> 
> I have some more information (having learned far more about postscript
> than I wanted to):
> 
> The source of the problem was an "enhancement" Personal Tex Inc. added
> to its ps driver, but it points up a ghostscript departure from level 1
> practice and level two specs.
> 
> Before processing, the PTI postscript file checks to see that free VM
> (maximum - used) is greater that 144000--I presume this is to detect a
> failed previous job on the printer.  This works on most printers since
> most Level 1 devices provide 240000 bytes VM (Appendix B, Postscript
> Language Reference Manual (2nd ed.), Adobe Systems Inc.).  Ghostscript
> (MSDOS versions) starts up with a VM limit of 105000.  In addition, I
> have not been able to find that Ghostscript implements Level 2
> interpreter parameters, such as MaxLocalVM (Appendix C, ibid.).

Not yet.  Ghostscript 2.6 will support a few of them, but of course
only if the Level 2 features are included in the configuration (which
they normally are for gs386.exe, but not for gs.exe or gswin.exe
because they take up so much space).

What do you think the semantics of MaxLocalVM should be?  If you set
it, should Ghostscript immediately attempt to acquire that much
memory? 

> Question (again): is there any way to force Ghostscript to allocate
> more VM before running a program.

Well, not really.  Ghostscript is designed to be a "good citizen" on
small machines, and only allocates VM (by calling the operating
system) when it needs it: you will see the "maximum VM" value rise in
the course of a job.  You can force Ghostscript to acquire and then
release a lot of VM by doing something like
	100 { 500 array } repeat
	100 { pop } repeat
which acquires and releases 400K.  (Because of the way Ghostscript's
memory manager works, doing this with a single large array won't have
the desired effect, and may cause a limitcheck.)

L. Peter Deutsch :: Aladdin Enterprises :: P.O. box 60264, Palo Alto, CA 94306
ghost@aladdin.com, ...decwrl!aladdin!ghost ; voice 415-322-0103 ; fax 322-1734
    "Implementation is the sincerest form of flattery."    new--->^^^^^^^^^^^^