Virtual Machines

So, I was thinking about virtual machines, specifically about extending a 32 bit virtual machine to have access to more memory by segmenting the memory. Now, the 8086 supported 1 MB with a segment selector offset four bits, so each segment differed from the one preceding it by 16 bytes. I was thinking about having the segment selector offset 16 bits, supporting a 48 bit memory space and making adjacent segments differ by 64 KB, or I could offset it 24 bits and have a 56 bit memory space, with segments differing by 16 MB. Which is more useful, larger or smaller segment differences? Should I just make each segment distinct, allowing a 64 bit memory space?

>>23
It was a simple Beowulf cluster for running lots of small parallel jobs, not a fancy NUMA system. Worked well for most processing, but then there's always that one researcher who has to try out the new processing method written by some grad student, who's never even taken a CS class, that chews up RAM like it's going out of style.