How to improve IntelliJ code editor speed?

Question

I am using IntelliJ (Community Edition) for several months, and at first I'm pleased about its speed & simplicity. But now, after upgrading to version 10, it's extremely slow. Sometimes I click a file then it takes 5 - 15 seconds to open that file (it freeze for that time).

I don't know if I have done anything which cause that: I have installed 2 plugins(regex, sql), and have 2 versions of IntelliJ on my machine (now the version 9 removed, only version 10 remains).

Is there any tips to improve speed of code editor, in general, or specifically IntelliJ? I have some experience when using IntelliJ:

1. Should open IntelliJ a while before working, cause it needs time for indexing.

2. Don't open too many code tabs

3. Open as less other program as possible. I'm using 2 GB RAM WinXP, and it just seems fairly enough for Java, IntelliJ & Chrome at the same time.

Answer 1

Try to increase using memory size at %IDEA_HOME%\bin\idea.exe.vmoptions

-Xms128m
-Xmx512m
-XX:MaxPermSize=250m

• Xms128m means that at startup there will be allocated 128 mb for heap.
• Xmx512m means that maximum heap size available for IDEA is 512 mb
• -XX:MaxPermSize=250m PermGen related to java heap.

Also you can set maximum garbage collector pause

-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=10

That means that java's GC will take max 10ms to do his work.

And use concurrent Mark-Sweep (CMS) Collector (But i'm not sure that this will help for latest version of IDEA)

-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC