title: Increasing the JVM maximum heap size for memory intensive applications
body: <p>I need to run a Java memory intensive application that uses more than 2GB, but I am having problems to increase the heap maximum size. So far, I have tried the following approaches:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Setting the -Xmx parameter, e.g. -Xmx3000m. This approaches fails at the creation of the JVM. From what I've googled, it looks like that -Xmx must be less than 2GB.</p></li>
  <li><p>Using the <a href="http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/gc1.4.2/#4.2.2.%20AggressiveHeap|outline" rel="noreferrer">-XX:+AggressiveHeap option</a>. When I try this approach I get an 'Not enough memory' error that tells that the heap size is 1273.4 MB, even though my computer has 8GB of memory.</p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Is there another approach that I can try to increase the maximum heap size of the JVM? Here's a summary of the computer specs:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>OS: Windows 7 (64 bit)</li>
  <li>Processor: Intel Core i7 (2.66 GHz)</li>
  <li>Memory: 8 GB</li>
  <li>java -version:</li>
  </ul>
  
  <blockquote>
  <pre><code>java version "1.6.0_18"
  Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_18-b07)
  Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 16.0-b13, mixed mode, sharing)
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>