Technical Solutions

Solution:

The asterisk next to a row in the output of dumpmemmex.dll indicates that the item in that row has allocated more than 64 KB or has more than 64 KB of space between it and the next item loaded into memory. This extra space can be important, as certain system libraries are loaded into fixed places in memory and automatically reserve extra working space for themselves.

The total free space listed at the end of the output of dumpmemmex.dll indicates all the free space (including small pieces of memory between the system .dlls and the extra memory those .dlls reserve for their own use) in the virtual address space. This virtual address space is independent of the physical memory size and the swap file size. On machines which load much the same set of drivers into memory, the amount of free virtual address space will be fairly similar. The total free space includes the large blocks which MATLAB can use to allocate matrices and other objects as well as the memory reserved by system .dlls.

To install the dumpmemmex.dll, do the following:

1. Download dumpmemmex.dll using the link at the bottom of this solution.
2. Place dumpmemmex.dll in a directory on the MATLAB path or add the directory that holds dumpmemmex.dll to the MATLAB path.

Now dumpmemmex.dll can be used by executing the following in the MATLAB command line:
dumpmemmex