• tries to use currently allocated memory (initially 64MB)
• garbage collects several times
• finally determines that it really needs more memory
• allocates more memory incrementally
• repeats this process until it reaches a steady state

If you know you are going to use at least 128 MB or more, then try specifying -Xms128M or larger as the starting memory. It should improve your startup time and initial usage prior to swapping.

If you are certain that you are going to swap, then at least try to reduce the amount of time spent garbage collecting. For example, if Application Developer/Eclipse has to live within 256 MB, then it may be spending much of its time garbage collecting which appears like swapping (application freezes or slows to a crawl for a while). You might try specifying -Xmx384M as your maximum memory usage to reduce the amount of garbage collecting. Even if you have many large applications running simultaneously, you likely use one program for a while, then switch to another, then after a while switch back. The key here is that using a program for a while and ignoring the others, plus a larger maximum memory for java (like 384 MB) lets Application Developer/Eclipse take advantage of more physical memory and garbage collect less while the other programs are swapped out. Obviously there's a trade off of maximum memory for a program versus the physical memory available... you'll have to find that "sweet spot" somewhere between 256MB and 1GB for your machine.