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#### 8.3.8 ‘TeX capacity exceeded’

TeX—and by consequence, LaTeX—does not use dynamically allocated memory. Therefore, attempting to produce a very large diagram with the `latex_vis` backend (see The latex_vis backend) will likely exceed TeX’s hardwired memory capacity:

 ```! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=350001]. \psm@endnode@i ... \endgroup \psm@endmath \egroup \use@par \@psttrue l.489 \task {0} & \task{1} \\ No pages of output. ```

TeX/ LaTeX’s memory capacity can be increased but the mechanism for doing so varies from one TeX distribution to another and is rarely straightforward. See http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=enlarge for a few terse pointers. In general, it is best to try to minimize the number of loop repetitions when running programs through the `latex_vis` backend.

An alternative is to use a prebuilt large-memory latex. Some TeX distributions come with a hugelatex executable, which is just like latex but compiled with larger memory limits. ncptl can be told to use hugelatex by setting the LATEX environment variable (e.g., with ‘env LATEX=hugelatex ncptl …’). This may be the most convenient way to produce complex diagrams with `latex_vis` when simplifying the run is not an option.

Scott Pakin, pakin@lanl.gov