Intellij Idea15 CE fails to launch with -XX:+UseG1

Question

I am trying to test running with string interning to see if it helps ease the massive memory requirements of intellij. In order to use java 8's built in interning you need to run the G1GC. However adding this parameter to the user idea.vmoptions file causes the jvm to fail to start. It is definitely this parameter only and other collectors seem not to be an issue. The bundled jre is 8u40 and i'm running on OS X.

12/28/16 11:06:24.559 AM idea[15003]: JNI_CreateJavaVM (/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 15 CE.app/Contents/jre/jdk) failed: 4294967295

I also find it odd that the application is launched as a platform native binary which creates a jvm via jni, but that may be beside the point.

Answer 1

Use this config:

-XX:-UseParallelGC
-XX:-UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:+UseG1GC