Using the Server JVM

(From http://kano.net/javabench/#servervm)
Every form of Sun's Java runtime comes with both the "client VM" and the
"server VM." Unfortunately, Java applications and applets run by default
in the client VM. The Server VM is much faster than the Client VM, but
it has the downside of taking around 10% longer to start up, and it uses
more memory.

There are two ways to run Java applications with the server VM:

1. When launching a Java application from the command line, use java
-server [arguments...] instead of java [arguments...]. For example, use
java -server -jar beanshell.jar.
2. Modify the jvm.cfg file in your Java installation. (It's a text
file, so you can use Notepad or Emacs to edit it.) This is located in
C:\Program Files\Java\j2reXXX\lib\i386\ on Windows,
/usr/java/j2reXXX/lib/i386/ on Linux. You will see two lines:

-client KNOWN
-server KNOWN

You should change them to:

-server KNOWN
-client KNOWN

This change will cause the server VM to be run for all
applications, unless they are run with the -client argument.