Increase JVM max heap size for Eclipse

Question

I am trying to increase the max heap size for my Eclipse. I have tried specifying in eclipse.ini or through the command line, but are not working.

My max heap size has the exact same limit before (running jconsole) and after (System.out.println(java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory());) starting Eclipse. 1.8G

1. Is there any way to modify JVM heap size before it is launched (ex. a config file?)
2. What could I be doing wrong when specifying heap size to Eclipse?

This is the command:

./eclipse/eclipse -debug -consoleLog -vmargs -Xms1000m -Xmx6000m -XX:-UseGCOverheadLimitcl

This is my eclipse.ini (which values are overwritten by the specified eclipse launching parameters):

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20120522-1813.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64_1.1.200.v20120522-1813
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.java.product
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.6
-Dhelp.lucene.tokenizer=standard
-XX:MaxPermSize=6000m
-Xms1000m
-Xmx6000m

Answer 1

It is possible to increase heap size allocated by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) by using command line options.

-Xms<size>        set initial Java heap size
-Xmx<size>        set maximum Java heap size
-Xss<size>        set java thread stack size

If you are using the tomcat server, you can change the heap size by going to Eclipse/Run/Run Configuration and select Apache Tomcat/your_server_name/Arguments and under VM arguments section use the following:

-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-Xms256m -Xmx512M

If you are not using any server, you can type the following on the command line before you run your code:

java -Xms64m -Xmx256m HelloWorld

More information on increasing the heap size can be found here

Answer 2

You can use this configuration:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20120522-1813.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64_1.1.200.v20120913-144807
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-vmargs
-Xms512m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:+UseParallelGC
-XX:PermSize=256M
-XX:MaxPermSize=512M

Answer 3

Try to modify the eclipse.ini so that both Xms and Xmx are of the same value:

-Xms6000m
-Xmx6000m

This should force the Eclipse's VM to allocate 6GB of heap right from the beginning.

But be careful about either using the eclipse.ini or the command-line ./eclipse/eclipse -vmargs .... It should work in both cases but pick one and try to stick with it.