Where are the different RAM versions of IGB in v8.3.0

Question

[Chris Cole]

I've recently upgraded to IGB v8.3.0 on OSX, but I don't seem to have the option for choosing different RAM version as there used to be.

Anyone know how to change the RAM requirement? Currently only able to access 1GB.

Answer 1

[Nowlan Freese]

Hi ithinkiam,

Great question!

Ian is correct, IGB 8.3 defaults to using 25% of system memory. So a 4GB machine will have ~1GB of memory available for IGB to use, a 16GB machine will have ~4GB. The only exception is if you are running Windows 32bit, in which case it should default to 1GB.

For users with large memory machines, there is a way to increase the amount of memory provided to IGB. Please see dcnorris's reply below for an explanation.

[Ian]

Thanks for clarifying!

[Chris Cole]

Thanks for the clarification. Yes I do have 4GB RAM, but I previously was fine with a larger memory version.

Answer 2

[dcnorris]

Nowlan has already done a great job explaining the new default behavior, but I will add a note for power users. There is a "vmoptions" file in your IGB installation directory which contains a commented out jvm argument for setting the max heap size. If you want to manually control the heap size you simply need to uncomment this line and adjust it to your needs.

• On Mac
  • /Applications/Integrated\ Genome\ Browser/IntegratedGenomeBrowser.app/Contents/vmoptions.txt
• On Linux/Windows
  • ${IGB_INSTALLATION_DIR}/IntegratedGenomeBrowser.vmoptions

[Ian]

Thanks for clarifying!

[Chris Cole]

Perfect. I've edited the file and now can run with 2GB.

Thanks!

Answer 3

[Ian]

I have just started using IGB again and until I read your question I forgot there used to be different versions. It looks as though memory is now dynamically allocated... On the bottom right of the screen you can see the current memory usage. My installation is currently showing a maximum RAM of ~4Gb. The total memory available on the system is 16Gb. Do you have 4Gb in total by any chance? BTW I have it installed on a Linux VM.