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Asked: 2026-05-12T08:27:43+00:00

When I run a sample script in MATLAB, it says: Out of memory. Type

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When I run a sample script in MATLAB, it says:

Out of memory. Type HELP MEMORY for your options.

When I type “memory”, it reports:

Maximum possible array:             156 MB (1.638e+008 bytes) *
Memory available for all arrays:    740 MB (7.756e+008 bytes) **
Memory used by MATLAB:             1054 MB (1.105e+009 bytes)
Physical Memory (RAM):             3070 MB (3.219e+009 bytes)

*  Limited by contiguous virtual address space available.
** Limited by virtual address space available.

Is there any way to get around this error? I’m using Windows XP x32 with MATLAB 2009a.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Problem fixed.

    Under Windows XP x32, I managed to almost double the amount of memory available to MATLAB by editing boot.ini to add the switch /3GB /USERVA=3030

    [boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /USERVA=3030

    Together with reducing our array sizes, this completely fixed the problem 🙂

    I could have also fixed the problem by upgrading to Windows x64 or Windows 7 x64. This act also doubles the amount of memory available to MATLAB, even if you stick with MATLAB x32 and don’t upgrade to MATLAB x64. Windows x64 is just far more memory efficient, even with systems that only have 4 GB of physical RAM installed.

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