Pause times are unneccessarily long, what parameters can I use to tune this?
There are several things to try in this arena. First, give -Xincgc a try. This uses the “Train” garbage collection algorithm, which attempts to collect a fraction of the heap instead of the entire thing at once. The train algorithm clusters objects that reference each other together, and collects these clusters individually. For most programs this results in shorter pauses, although throughput is usually worse. Next, you might try decreasing the amount of heap used. A larger heap will cause garbage collection pauses to increase because there is more heap to scan. Try -Xmx32m. If your application requires more memory than you can adjust the size of the eden (young generation space) with -XX:NewSize=… and -XX:MaxNewSize=… (for 1.3/1.4) or -Xmn in 1.4. For some applications a very large eden helps, for others it will increase the times of minor collections. For most programs, collecting eden is much faster than other generations because most objects die young. If you currently invoke
