A condition in a virtual storage system where an excessive proportion of CPU time is spent moving data between main and auxiliary storage.
a situation in which garbage collection occurs frequently because the amount of available memory is small.
An excessive amount of disk activity in a virtual memory system, to the point where the system is spending all its time swapping pages in and out of memory, and no time executing the application. Thrashing can be caused when poor system configuration creates a swap file that is too small, or when insufficient memory is installed in the computer. Increasing the size of the swap file and adding memory are the best ways to reduce thrashing.
(n.) a phenomenon of virtual memory systems that occurs when the program, by the manner in which it is referencing its data and instructions, regularly causes the next memory locations referenced to be overwritten by recent or current instructions. The result is that referenced items are rarely in the machines physical memory and almost always must be fetched from secondary storage, usually a disk. Cache thrashing involves a similar situation between cache and physical memory.
Process in a computer system with heavy workload and insufficient memory, where the system spends more time moving pages to and from the disk than it does processing data. 8.10
Accessing data from different parts of memory, causing frequent loads of pages of memory into cache. Using random access on an array might be an example.
A condition, caused by a high level of memory over-commitment, in which the system is spending all of its time writing out virtual memory pages and reading them back in. The application programs make no progress because their pages do not stay in memory long enough to be used. Memory load control is intended to avoid or stop thrashing.
Thrashing is a term for the intensive disk activity that occurs with excessive swapping, usually indicating a memory shortage.
Removing textures used in the current frame to reclaim texture memory for subsequent frames.
To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather than performing useful computation) and are therefore said to "thrash". Thrashing can also occur in a cache due to cache conflict or in a multiprocessor. Someone who keeps changing his mind (especially about what to work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on any single task) may also be described as thrashing.
Process that occurs when an operating system spends much of its time paging, instead of executing application software. 8.10
n. The state of a virtual memory system that is spending almost all its time swapping pages in and out of memory rather than executing applications. See also swap (definition 2), virtual memory.
