Matlab doesn't release memory when variables are cleared

258 次查看（过去 30 天）
Bonnie Tyler
Bonnie Tyler 2016-12-13
评论： Science Machine 2022-4-8
I am working with very large data sets (~50 GB) in matlab R2015a. When I clear variables, matlab frequently does not release the memory. I have tried clear all, clear classes, clear java and running the java garbage collector. The only way I can get matlab to release the memory is close and restart matlab. Is there a better way?
  9 个评论
显示 7更早的评论
Science Machine
Science Machine 2022-4-8
you can write a script to close matlab and continue with the next function in a new file, after saving variables to disk. Not ideal for sure, but it seems that eg. even shutting down parallel workers does not release a substantial chunk of ram, and that fully closing is indeed the only option here..

请先登录，再进行评论。

请先登录，再回答此问题。

采纳的回答

dpb
dpb 2016-12-13
It has more to do with Windows and how its memory-management routines work (or not) regarding what memory that is marked as unused by the application is actually physically released and when. Also, even though there may be sufficient total free memory, it is free contiguous memory that is limiting when creating arrays; if there isn't sufficient for the job, you're stuck.
There are guidelines to help and also some newer techniques more recently introduced you can try--
<efficient-use-of-memory>
<large-files-and-big-data>

更多回答（4 个）

Sean de Wolski
Sean de Wolski 2016-12-13
You can force clear a variable from memory by setting it to empty rather than calling clear on it.
x = [];
v.
clear x
  2 个评论
Bonnie Tyler
Bonnie Tyler 2016-12-15
I have tried both setting the variables to [] and clearing and have the same problem.
dpb
dpb 2016-12-15
编辑：dpb 2016-12-15
They're the same; all an application can do is mark the memory as "unused"; it's up to the OS to reclaim it; see the above.
In the olden days in FORTRAN with nothing but static memory allocation, the "trick" was to allocate a very large chunk of memory and then use it by subscripting within it judiciously.
Perhaps reusing existing memory from one of your processing step to the next would be a similar possibility here of assigning the output of the step to the same variable as previously used. Matlab may still need to make copies if it can't tell that memory can be overwritten safely, so it may not help; there again may not be sufficient contiguous memory for the temporary, but it's a tactic you could possibly try.
Alternatively, perhaps it's time for mex files or, if you were able to illustrate specifically what your processing steps are, perhaps with some additional background others may have more efficient processing ideas.

请先登录，再进行评论。

Adam Danz
Adam Danz 2017-10-18
Bonnie mentioned that clear all, clear classes, etc didn't work but what worked for me was using:
clearvars -global
This immediately reduced memory devoted to Matlab from 3.2 gig to 0.7 gig. In my case, one or two GUIs that were closed were still occupying a lot of memory.
Arwel
Arwel 2019-7-4
Previously, Ive just done something this which seems to work.....
% After deleting your large variable, go....
evalin('base','save(''myVars'')');
evalin('base','clear');
evalin('base','load(''myVars'')');
Christian Schwermer
编辑：Christian Schwermer 2020-8-19
Hello,
i had a similar problem in my GUI, where i used a cell array as FIFO buffer to acquire images. Memory usage increases for every session. Only closing matlab and restart releases the memory usage:
bufferSize = 450;
frame_buffer = cell(1, bufferSize);
....
flushdata(VideoInputObj)
delete(VideoInputObj)
frame_buffer(:) = {[]}=;
clear('frame_buffer')
imaqreset
When i preallocate the buffer for each cell . Memory usage stays on a constant acceptable level. Nevertheless it wasn't possible to release memory without restarting:
ROI = VideoInputObj.ROIPosition;
bufferSize = 450;
frame_buffer = cell(1, bufferSize);
frame_buffer(:) = {zeros(ROI(4), ROI(3) ,'uint8')} ;

类别

在 Help Center 和 File Exchange 中查找有关 Timing and presenting 2D and 3D stimuli 的更多信息

标签

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!

Translated by