Max memory on IRIX?

[Dave Wyble <wyble(at)cis.rit.edu>]

We're having some memory difficulties. The problem is that we cannot
seem to get IDL to use any more than about 1.2GB of RAM. We have tons of
swap space allocated, and have verified that it is used correctly. No
matter what we do, IDL seems to have a maximum amount of memory it will
give us, and then no more is to be had.

The procedure is to simply allocate storage:
z1 = fltarr(1000,1000,20)
z2 = ...
until the out of memory error occurs. We monitor system memory and swap
space used. There is nothing else running on the machine, and since we
don't approach the 8GB limit of physical memory, swap space doesn't seem
to come into play.

The system specifics are:
SGI Onyx2
8 CPUs
8 GB memory
IDL 5.2 or 5.3 (identical results)

Any ideas out there?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dave Wyble
Munsell Color Science Laboratory
RIT