How do I allocate more memory to MATLAB 2011a in OS X 10.6.8?

I do a lot of analysis in MATLAB, 开发者_运维百科and while the machine on which I run it has 16 GB of memory, MATLAB almost never uses more than 1GB of Real Memory. Even if I disable the virtual memory, it seems not to use all the RAM at its disposal.

Generally, the blue pie wedge of 'inactive' RAM (as indexed by the Activity Monitor) continues to grow until I have to log out and log back in again.

Is there any way to fix this, to assign memory specifically to MATLAB, or to optimize memory management in 64-bit MATLAB?

Thanks

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Firstly, make sure that nothing else is using a lot of RAM, and then try creating a large variable (a = zeros(20000,10000); should use ~1.5GB of RAM), and check whether this will increase the Real Memory above 1GB (it does on my system). If that doesn't increase Real Memory, you have serious problem with your system configuration, and it may be time for a trip to the Genius Bar.

Secondly, if you use large Java objects in your code, make sure that the Java Heap Space gets allocated enough memory (with 16GB of RAM, you set it to 4GB). Use these instructions if you can't set it to 4GB in the Matlab preferences.