``9`` (inclusive), optionally OR-ed with the constant
:const:`PRESET_EXTREME`. If neither *preset* nor *filters* are given, the
default behavior is to use :const:`PRESET_DEFAULT` (preset level ``6``).
- Higher presets produce smaller output, but make compression more CPU- and
- memory-intensive, and also increase the memory required for decompression.
+ Higher presets produce smaller output, but make the compression process
+ slower.
+
+ .. note::
+
+ In addition to being more CPU-intensive, compression with higher presets
+ also requires much more memory (and produces output that needs more memory
+ to decompress). With preset ``9`` for example, the overhead for an
+ :class:`LZMACompressor` object can be as high as 800MiB. For this reason,
+ it is generally best to stick with the default preset.
The *filters* argument (if provided) should be a filter chain specifier.
See :ref:`filter-chain-specs` for details.