RAM

6. Extended use of RAM and better RAM diagnostics in QW-Simulator

With the increasing clock speeds of contemporary processors, it appears that the amount of RAM is often a bottleneck for size of projects that can be analysed. Standard 32 bit applications can address up to 2 GB of RAM, which corresponds to roughly 20 million FDTD cells. Version 6.0 of QW-Simulator has been modified in such a way that it allows addressing 3GB on 32 bit systems, and 4GB on 64 bit systems, hence doubling the size of tractable projects. Note that to take advantage of this new option, the 32 bit system should be set into Physical Address Enable mode (PAE). The forthcoming 64 bit version of QW-Simulator will practically alleviate this limit completely.

Version 6.0 also brings better RAM diagnostics. Prior to any major memory allocation, QW Simulator checks availability and issues a warning about possibly insufficient RAM.