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Chapter 4: Managing Virtual Memory in a RealTime Program

When planning a real-time program you must understand how IRIX creates the virtual address space of a process, and how you can modify the normal behavior of the address space. The major topics covered are:

"Defining the Address Space" tells what the address space is and how it is created.
"Interrogating the Memory System" summarizes the ways your program can get information about the address space.
"Locking Pages in Memory" discusses when and how to lock pages of virtual memory to avoid page faults.

This chapter is a condensed version of a longer discussion of virtual memory management which can be found in the book Topics In IRIX Programming. In particular, Topics In IRIX Programming has detailed information on memory mapping.

The the structure of physical and virtual address spaces is discussed in the IRIX Device Driver Programmer's Guide and the MIPS architecture documents listed on page xxiii.

Defining the Address Space
Interrogating the Memory System
Locking Pages in Memory
Reducing Cache Misses

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