"Anthony D. Baye" <Sha### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Lonnie wrote:
> > This might actually be made to work with photons, although be prepared to
> > have your swap file limit increased to an astonomical size and a LONG
> > render time!
> >
> >
>
> What's a swap file?
>
> I'm on a Mac.  maybe it's called something else.
>
> A.D.B.

A "swap file" or more correctly a page file, is what a Windows computer uses
when it runs out of RAM.  Data is "swapped" in and out of memory to the
hard disk as needed.  While it works OK for background tasks that only need
to access their data occasionally, things like a big photon map will slow a
system to a crawl.  The CPU is spending far more time waiting on the hard
disk than it is crunching numbers.  I'm not sure how a Mac does this, but
it has to be something similiar.

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