According to my friend (With a true Mac) taken from my chat log:

No. Even if it's not used, swap space is allocated each time a process starts.
You need at least the amount of swap space that you have RAM. Double is better.
IRIX has four kinds of swap space:

1. Raw swap partition--this is the fastest, but requires that you
repartition the disk to change it.

2. Preallocated file--this is the second fastest, you use mkfile to create
a file of some length and then point swap to it. It has the advantage that
you can create it at any time, and it is all in one contiguous set of blocks
on the disk. It still takes up disk space, and is not accessable from the
miniroot for installation purposes.

3. Zero length file--You use touch to create a file and then point swap to
it. It has the advantage of not using space until you need it. It has the
disadvantage of possibly filling up the filesystem unexpectedly, and having
extents.

4. Virtual swap--This isn't really swap space at all, you are just telling
IRIX that you have this much space when you don't. It's generally good for
applications that spawn a bunch of processes rapidly which would allocate
a lot more swap than you actually have (mail servers would be a good
example). Some applications will die horribly if this is turned on
(Photoshop for instance).


I wants option number 3...Its kinda like the Winders SwapFile, it feels like the most desirable option to me. NTFS space is quite available...

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Tiger: G4 PowerPC Dual Core 400 Mhz w/640 MB RAM
20 Gig ATA HD all HFS+
Internal DVD
Access to Server
True Tiger

Leopard: Acer Intel Atom Dual [email protected] w/1 Gig Ram
160GB HD-133GB NTFS, 15.68GB HFS+
SD slot
No Net access
iDeneb 1.6 Lite

Compaq SR5710F [email protected] w/3 Gigs Ram
80 Gig ATA HD (NTFS - Vista)
200 Gig ATA HD (NTFS-Data)
Access to Server

Server: Compaq 1.8 Single Core Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
~2 TB online....