Memory Limit Tips / tricks

[YourOldBuddy]

The reason Im asking is that Im looking at a dedicated rendering node for him. Im wondering wether or not to buy up to 16GB of memory. So far I have yet to see anyone who has been able to use more than 3. Im ok using Win 64bit and VRAY can run on it? If so, Im recommending that he buy a 7000$ supermachine in a few days. I dont want to spend thousands of his dollars on useless memory.

[DaForce]

welll $7000 on a single machine is a LOT of money for a single machine. Buying 16gb of ram is a waste of money. That WONT help his rendering speeds. Unless he renders scenes that require all 16gbs... which i doubt he will be.

I suggest you get machine 2 machines with only 4gb of ram. That would make a bigger difference to his render times.

Vray will run on xp64, but what you really want is the 64bit build of vray, which isnt release yet.

What sort of machine are you building up for him?

[YourOldBuddy]

He's already got a 2GB Dual Xeon 2,8GHz IBM XServer and its to small for him. Apparently hes rendering in 3500*3500, a few million polygons and it can take days for it to render. Hes also got a few smaller machines which lock up if he sends tasks to them.

Maybie hes not distributing his tasks enough but hes of the opinion that 16GB will make a world of difference to him.

He's got connections with the local IBM distributor so he should be able to fetch one for a good price or Im buying him a Dual Opteron 16GB from GAMEPC.com.

[YourOldBuddy]

Is it really ok to go 64 bit XP and VRAY for 3D studio Max? Someone said something about not being able to run some plugins. It may have been because he was developing and rendering on the same machine. Or I may have misunderstood him. English isnt my first language.

[YourOldBuddy]

DaForce be with me.

[DaForce]

Hey Mate,
Sorry for not replying sooner, left work after my last post and was at my GF's place till now

Anyway, 16gb of ram, is basically kinda crazy. I can see maybe 4,6 or even 8 being usefull... but 16 ... nah.

Well quite a few people here render out over 5000pixels with atleast a few million polys without to many problems.
There are quite a few tricks to the trade when it comes to high poly counts in vray. I would suggest he looks into these tricks and get 2 machine with atleast 4gb of ram each, that way he should be able to render what he wants and twice as fast.

THe few people that i know here that run xp64 have basically no problems what so ever.

WHat im trying to get at is your friends needs are not anything special. People on this forum do similar type of work day in day out and they copy with 2-4gb.... so in my eyes 16 is over kill and a waste of money.

[Da_elf]

win xp64 wont use any more memory than the normal winxp32 unless your using a fully 64 bit program. then you can access the extra memory.

[percydaman]

win xp64 wont use any more memory than the normal winxp32 unless your using a fully 64 bit program. then you can access the extra memory.

thats incorrect. Ive had max use up to 4 gigs using winxp64.

[YourOldBuddy]

Up to 4 because you didnt have any more memory or up to 4 of 6-8 GB of memory?

[YourOldBuddy]

He really wants a big arse machine. Im trying to get him to back of buying anything too expensive. He's even talking about a bladecenter.

The local IBM distributor is interested and they are probably going to let us try out a few builds for free. We may have a chance to see for ourselves if 2,4 or 8 gig make any sort of sense. Meeting up with a server specialist in 50mins.

[priad]

Hey Percy have you any pbl to work with xp64, vray and max??????
because I have 4 Gb of ram on a machine and you know what .

[percydaman]

i haven't had any real big problems. But since purchasing the system, I haven't done alot of graphics on it.

[ihavenofish]

i use 3ds max 6/7/8 on windows xp64 every day. not with vray, but im sure much of this applies.

in xp64, max can use up to 4gb of memory. this is the theoretical limit, but because windows itself can allocate terabytes, it is also the practical limit. max will run right up to the line before crashing. if it crashes before that, then its not likely a windows memory issue.

max as it is right now, and consequently all of its integrated plugins can use no more than 4gb of memory in xp64. in xp32 default is 2gb, and 3gb with the switch.

so, 16gb of memory, in xp64, is completely useless IF all you are going to run is one instance of max as a time. if you have other apps that can make use of it, or would like to run 4 heavy scenes at once (which is neat on a dual dual core) then 16gb is interesting, though not likely cost effective.

and on a side note, i have yet to see any xp64 specific issues with any aspect of max. been using it since may, every day as my only os.

so, back to xp32. xp32 can only address a maximum of 4gb. period (there is pae in windows server, but very few apps can make any use of it). it can only allocate a maximum of 3gb to one application. 16gb ram is a collosal waste of money if you plan to run xp32.

also to note, when xp sp2 cam along, ms changed the way windows sees memory. now once you put in 4gb or more, windows will only see 2.7gb. this cannot be worked around. this is by design. if you were to however put 3.5gb in, windows would have no issues seeing and using it all. max, however, could still use no more than 3gb theoretically, and 2.4-2.6 in practice.

at this point id cry if i was forced to return to 32 bit windows max just doesnt crash nearly as much anymore.

later