MSVC gives up on template heavy code with “fatal error C1060: compiler is out of heap space”

Question

I am trying to compile some relatively template heavy code with MSVC (2010), and it eventually quits with fatal error C1060: compiler is out of heap space.

The whole thing is just one translation unit, and, in comparsion, gcc handles it quite easily (inside a VM, with significantly fewer resources).

Any hints what to look for? Are there any relevant compiler options?

Answer 1

You might be able to counter this by explicitly adding the /Zm option to the C/C++ options of your project. e.g. /Zm256

Answer 2

See this page for the possible solution with the /Zm compiler option, as Mordachai suggested. Instead of using higher limit for the precompiled header, you may want to try lowering it, so the system has more free memory avaible.

Answer 3

I was able to resolve a C1060 error with moderate template code by reducing the amount of template arguments on my templates. For example, if Foo expects three types:

template< typename T1, typename T2, typename T3 > struct Foo
{
  T1 t1;
  T2 t2;
  T3 t3;
};

Foo< int, char, bool > foo;

Then encapsulate the types into a single struct, and use that struct as the argument.

template< typename T_ARG > struct Foo
{
  typename T_ARG::T1 t1;
  typename T_ARG::T2 t2;
  typename T_ARG::T3 t3;
};

struct FooArgs
{
  typedef int  T1;
  typedef char T2;
  typedef bool T3;
};

Foo< FooArgs > foo;

If specialization is required, then consider:

• Push specialized behavior into policies and inherit from them.
• Keep arguments on which you need to specialize in the argument list.
• Chain the types into a typelist. Foo< TypeList< int, TypeList< char, TypeList< bool, NullType > > > >.

Answer 4

In case anyone run into this problem, here's a possible solution:

One potential cause of this error is cl.exe is bumping against the 2 gig application memory limit in 32-bit version of Windows. Normally Windows split the 4 gig address space right in the middle, giving 2 gig to the OS and 2 gig to an application. You can change that to a 1/3 split instead. On Windows 7 and Vista, run the following in a command prompt as an administrator:

bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072

Then restart the computer. Now MSVC has 3 gig to work with instead of 2.

Doing so has just allowed me compile a project that was failing due to error C1060. According to Resource Monitor, cl.exe was consuming just above 2 gig of memory. It would have failed under the regular address space arrangement.

Limiting the OS to just 1 gig can have adverse impact on performance during everyday use of your computer. To change the split back to 2/2, run the following:

bcdedit /deletevalue IncreaseUserVa

Answer 5

I had a similar issue (also template-heavy), and I was already using /Zm1000 to compile my code (which worked initially). However, after cleaning-up the code, dividing long functions to smaller ones, putting stuff to namespaces / etc., the compiler would spit out the error message:

fatal error C1060: compiler is out of heap space.

right after starting, without any delay (not actually seeming to compile anything). At first, I was confused, as I have 32 GB of swap space and only about 6.1 GB was used at the time. I'm also running x64 OS, so there should be a plenty of memory and swap for everyone.

I referred to MSDN and found out that I actually needed to lower to /Zm800 and now it works great. My understanding is that taking up all heap space for the precompiled header buffer actually locks out the memory space; so using /Zm2000 would leave a 32-bit compiler without means to dynamically allocate memory for other stuff (which it somehow also needs, making the /Zm option completely ridiculous - use with caution).

I'm using MSVC 6.0, but I hope this helps in 2010 as well.