The influence of population size and search time limit on genetic algorithm

Genetic algorithms use numerous parameters in their work. Most researches investigated different selection strategies and genetic operators and their influence on schema dynamics, but only few of them tried to understand deeply influence of population size and generations number limit. In this paper we will try to take a deeper look on the problem of the population size and limit of generations given for the search of the solution. This research involves investigation of GA's behavior on the different types of functions. These include functions with many optimums, functions with limits in search space (non-linear programming tasks) and NP-problem functions. Author is going to show that population size increase improves the performance of GA and affects results more than change of generations number limit.