You can allocate 4GB of virtual memory which will ensure that it doesn't get allocated until you actually hit a new page. Heck, you can, and OurMachinery has a

You can allocate 4GB of virtual memory which will ensure that it doesn't get allocated until you actually hit a new page. Heck, you can, and OurMachinery has a great blog post on this, allocate 100GB of virtual memory and then use pointers as immutable ids and your app will only use as much physical memory as needed and the OS will take care of the rest. https://ourmachinery.com/post/virtual-memory-tricks/ https://ourmachinery.com/post/virtual-memory-tricks/