PRE_PAGE_SGA

Parameter type	Boolean
Default value	false
Parameter class	Static
Range of values	true | false

PRE_PAGE_SGA determines whether Oracle reads the entire SGA into memory at instance startup. Operating system page table entries are then prebuilt for each page of the SGA. This setting can increase the amount of time necessary for instance startup, but it is likely to decrease the amount of time necessary for Oracle to reach its full performance capacity after startup.

Note: This setting does not prevent your operating system from paging or swapping the SGA after it is initially read into memory.

PRE_PAGE_SGA can increase the process startup duration, because every process that starts must access every page in the SGA. The cost of this strategy is fixed; however, you might simply determine that 20,000 pages must be touched every time a process starts. This approach can be useful with some applications, but not with all applications. Overhead can be significant if your system frequently creates and destroys processes by, for example, continually logging on and logging off.

The advantage that PRE_PAGE_SGA can afford depends on page size. For example, if the SGA is 80 MB in size and the page size is 4 KB, then 20,000 pages must be touched to refresh the SGA (80,000/4 = 20,000).

If the system permits you to set a 4 MB page size, then only 20 pages must be touched to refresh the SGA (80,000/4,000 = 20). The page size is operating system-specific and generally cannot be changed. Some operating systems, however, have a special implementation for shared memory whereby you can change the page size.