As the title says, I've got tons of free memory, but I keep getting OutOfMemoryExceptions when processing traces and calling properties on Data Sources. Why is this happening?
The ETL file format is designed to be very space-efficient, and also supports optional compression. Due to these factors taking the data from an .etl file and transforming it into our more useful structures can often require significantly more memory than the original size of the file. However there are two steps that can be taken to make OutOfMemoryExceptions less likely:
Don't use data sources you don't need. Even if none of the properties on a data source are called by your code, simply turning it on by calling its Use method will result in the data source processing events and preparing data for consumption.
Ensure your program is running as a 64-bit process. The default Visual Studio C# project settings are to compile your program targeting AnyCPU, but to prefer running it as a 32-bit process. Unchecking the "Prefer 32-bit" option in your project's Build properties or switching your project's build configuration to x64 will cause your program to run as a 64-bit process.