How to reduce Eclipse's memory usage?

Question

The memory usage of Eclipse 3.4 is through the roof to the point where it's becoming an issue.

I have a simple BlackBerry project loaded and the usage skyrockets to nearly 400 MB, sometimes higher. Is there something that can be done to bring it down?

Answer 1

Eclipse 3.4 can consume a lot more memory than the previous versions, courtesy the spellchecker plug-in.

You can switch off the plug-in by going to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Editors -> Text Editors -> Spelling, and unchecking the box title 'Enable spell checking'.

Of course, the tips offered to use larger heap sizes and better garbage collectors would do you good as well.

Answer 2

Checking General -> Show heap status will enable this

in the bottom bar. This way you can manually run the garbage collector whenever you want by clicking on the trash can. It's not a fix, more like a workaround, but it helped reduce massively my RAM / CPU usage.