[Larceny-users] freezing for garbage collection?

[Matthew Parker]

Ah, ok, well that's good new that you are putting in a new collector.  I 
would like to test it for you, as well.

I have been using chicken scheme already and it doesn't ever freeze the 
screen from garbage collection (I don't know why not).  It also happens 
to be quite slow compared to larceny or even maybe gambit-c.  I tried 
using gambit once and it did the same freezes.

Tell me when you've got something you'd like me to test.  I'll go back to 
using chicken until then, I suppose.

Matt


On Tue, 4 Mar 2008, William D Clinger wrote:

> Matt Parker wrote:
>> Will running the game in a thread work?
>
> No.
>
>> I tried running it with your options and there were still pauses (less
>> frequent, but just as large delays).
>
> That will be a problem with all of Larceny's current
> garbage collectors (and with other stop-the-world
> collectors, including Chicken's).  Generational
> collectors make the delays less frequent, but don't
> do anything to reduce their duration.
>
> So far as I know, there are no implementations of
> Scheme whose garbage collectors can meet your needs.
> Marc Feeley has said he was working on a real-time
> collector for Gambit, but I don't know its current
> status.  We are working on a new collector for
> Larceny that should meet your requirements, but it
> isn't finished yet.
>
>> Could I set it so there are frequent
>> small garbage collections, like one after every frame of the game, with
>> no apparent pause?
>
> The settings I gave you already increase the frequency
> of minor collections, and reduce the duration of most
> major collections, but there is currently no way to
> eliminate all of Larceny's full collections.
>
>> Perhaps I could manually call the collector after every frame?
>
> That won't help either.
>
>> I really
>> can't have any noticeable pauses in the game since it will mess up the
>> AI's behavior.
>
> We understand the problem.  We have designed a collector
> that should work for you, but we don't expect to release
> it until this fall.  If you are willing to test the new
> collector for us, however, then we might have something
> for you to try a little sooner.
>
> Will
>