process memory and performance

[Dmitriy Kargapolov]

Hi all,
I have some process (gen_sever) performing multiple mnesia queries, so
complex lookup takes about 840 mks (pretty old h/w, non-smp, R11B-5). When
internal in-memory storage added to this process, so its memory increased up
to ~ 60MB, same lookup slow down to 2200 mks. Note that in this test lookup
did not use big memory. This big memory organized as complex recursive data
structure.
Why memory allocated by process indirectly affects its performance? Is it
related to how GC works?
Thanks.