The problem (more of an observation at this point) was the apparent excessive memory usage of Apache2/mod_perl2 (64-bit build) on top of 64-bit Linux (RedHat Fedora Core 2 - AMD64 distribution).

We built perl/Apache/mod_perl/libapreq/etc/etc.... in the same fashion as we had for our 32-bit environment (again RedHat Fedora Core 2 - x86). The memory load was normal. We were not doing any crosscompiles of 64 to 32 or viceversa.

I had a brain fart. We (read "me") got crossed up on what -m64 caused gcc to do. I read the docs and understood this to cause gcc to force the usage of the additional registers on the opteron. This is the default behavior when building (note to self...) in the 64-bit environment. Also found that there is a -march=k8 option (again a default in 64-bit land).

As far as the memory usage problem I thought I was on to the source when I stripped my httpd binary and went from:

VIRT RES SHR 76232 3856 73m to 17524 2064 15m

(both without mod_perl) but this resulted in a minimal gain once mod_perl was loaded.

I'll keep digging arround though.

Well, for all my rootin' (as they say in Arkansas) I didn't either :{