RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

[dkendig]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Why not an easy solution and the ASGvis team contact the SU team and ask for the little change? And I suppose so a request by a plugin developer will get more attention than by some users. I miss a little enthusiasm.

Do you honestly think we haven't mentioned this to them? The voice of 3 developers in one software company, versus the voice of entire community is quite different. The more they hear people complain about their limitations, the more likely they will be to do something about it.

It should not be the job of the users.

Agreed

Some months before as I discovered that the spawner was RAM limited too. I asked Joe for that "hack", he never heard about it before, but quick found the right switch at his developing software and the spawner was ready for more RAM usage.

Modifying our software is something we can do, we have source code, and we make the software... modifying SketchUp itself is not something we can do...

I'm not saying you shouldn't try this new work around, I'm just saying that we're not liable in any way shape or form if you do, and if you experience issues, I wouldn't be surprised, and we're not going to support the issues that stem from this. It was just a disclaimer, sometimes people like to think that if they do something that's unsupported, we need to support it. Sometimes if a prominent member of a forum suggests something, even people that have no idea what they're doing will try it, without even questioning the safety or reprocucssions of their actions. The disclaimer was just to let people know that we're not encouraging this hack, and that contacting the software manufacturer about this issue, may result in them actually fixing the problem. If you never tell them it's a problem though, they won't really have any reason to change the way it works.

So by all means, please continue to try to find ways to make SketchUp fit your needs, just be aware that you do so at your own risk.

[Micha_cg]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Ah, I understand.

[edonk]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Righteo. I don't think I'll use higher res textures just for the sake of upping the RAM usage though. If the resolution of my textures suffice my needs, I'll stick with it. But maybe some projects I'll require more custom made textures and I'll make better ones .

Thanks for the information!

Actually I'm making a conscience effort to try keep the size of my textures down on new projects now. Now I know the limitations of the program I have to adapt to it.

[40th]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Hi,

today I have seen at Damiens LargeSceneRendering.pdf, that SU is limited to 2GB. Maybe this is a solution:

http://forum.asgvis.com/index.php?to...19093#msg19093

I'm curious - will it work for SU? For Rhino v3 it was working.

-Micha

It seems to like this patch is helping. I've had SU (7.1 + VfS 1.44.6 using 3gb of ram and didn't crush.

[40th]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

The limit of ram I've reached is 3.6 gb. It's pretty good compared to the default 2gb allowed by SU.

[dwanimations]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

hi all,

I try`t it also on a 88 mb file... but my ram dos not go further than 1.429.544 K...I am using a x64bit machine so its a bit frustrating :P
In my raycaster params I have the mem limit set to 4000...

If someone has sugestions for me plees tell..

[fantoosh420]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

There is yet another way which enables the OS to allow all the applications some amount of RAM which you decide. Typically, the preffered choice is 3 GB because some 32 bit program tend to have trouble addressing more than 3 GB of ram.

The process is

1. For Windows XP

Right-click My Computer. Click Properties.
In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
On the Advanced tab, under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
In the Startup and Recovery dialog box, under System startup, click Edit. The Windows boot.ini file will be opened in Notepad.
Save a renamed copy of your boot.ini file somewhere on your computer in case you need to revert back to your original version of the file. Note: Boot.ini files may be different from computer to computer.
Highlight the following line in the boot.ini file:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


Copy (Ctrl-C) and paste (Ctrl-V) the line just below the original. Note: Your exact text string may be different from the text string in this document. So be sure to copy the text string from your boot.ini file, not the text string shown here.
Modify the copied line to include “ /3GB”, as shown in the example below. Note: Do not overwrite any existing lines.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional 3GB" /3GB /fastdetect


Save the boot.ini file and close Notepad.
Click OK to close each dialog box.
Reboot your computer.
During startup, select the 3GB option. If you do not select the 3GB option, the system will default to the 2GB total memory setting.
If there are problems at startup, you may need to update some of your drivers.

2. For vista/Windows 7

To enable the 3GB switch on Windows Vistaâ„¢

Right-click Command Prompt in the Accessories program group of the Start menu. Click Run as Administrator.
At the command prompt, enter "bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072"
Restart the computer.

To turn off the 3GB switch

Right-click on Command Prompt in the Accessories program group of the Start menu. Click Run as Administrator.
At the command prompt, enter "bcdedit /deletevalue IncreaseUserVa"
Restart the computer.

Passing this argument to windows kernel allows every application to use 3 GB RAM. you can set even higher value like 4GB or even 5GB but chances are that a few application won't work beyond 4GB and a lot of them won't work beyond 5GB. further, Since the RAM usage limitation of 2GB default is applicable to 32 bit application (a 64 Application can address as much as 64GB RAM if the system has that much RAM installed) hence, it will not affect 64bit application working. Also, you have to choose the switch carefully, a 3GB switch can be enabled on a system with at least 2 GB RAM but some program (like vray) which use RAM real time (and not RAM+Scratch Disk combination) won't work with 2GB RAM installed. For such program, the thumb rule is that you need to have 1 GB extra RAM installed compared to the switch value. For example, for 3GB switch, you need to have 4GB RAM installed and for 4GB switch you need to have at least 5GB RAM installed in your computer.

[Micha_cg]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Thanks for RAM switch explanation. So far I understand there a two RAM limit - one is by the OS and the other is by the software. The switch helps against the OS limit and the pacth helps, if the software isn't set for large RAM space like the old Rhino 3 or SU.

[andeciuala]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

i coud use more the 2GB with this app, thank you. it worked for me.

[patplace_cg]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

anyone tell me how to use that little patch. i download and unzip. then run the program.....then what?????

[edonk]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

anyone tell me how to use that little patch. i download and unzip. then run the program.....then what?????

It asks you where your sketchup exe file is located. Usually in ProgramFiles/Google/Googlesketchup6 or 7 if you have that. Click on your exe when you have found it and press ok. Voila!

[patplace_cg]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Thanks. so it actually patch the SU not VRSU. I got it. cheers.

[dkendig]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Yup, it modifies SketchUp, and does... "something magical" to the app so it can use more memory. I'm still waiting to hear about some sort of horrible side effect that this patch causes, there's no way that this can be done with no consequences.

[DiditzZz]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

Hi I have downloaded and will keep trying almost all the possible tests considering the options available prior to my analysis to what have you guys observed (throughout the whole thread). So here I would like to explain what I've done so far and the results I got.

Computer:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 950 @ 3.07GHz
6GB RAM
Windows 7 64-bit
SketchUp 7.1.
V-Ray for SketchUp 1.48.83

3D:
File - a home for the aged, total of 4000 square meters in terms of 3D space and 5-storeys high (had to create the general overall 3D to show the rendered aerial view for the client).
File size - 67mb as the original, but problems (such as crashing, temp folder stupid message, no renders started even with no crash) kept appearing so had to do cleanups with some of the scripts and sketchup purging until 51mb now.
Edges count - 469K
Faces count - 239K
Largest material resolution image - whops didn't really pay attention and got one at a crazy 4000 x 4000 resolution XD

Results:
Rendered using VfSU's highest output (2048x1536) with my own final render visopt setting. Result:
Temp folder not enough, crashed. Memory usage for SU stopped at 1.5GB. All this time I have no idea to why my render never started or it always goes on the crash/bug splat whenever I render more than 1024x768.

Installed the 4GB RAM patch and then renderred using the same render setting. Result:
Render successful. Memory usage jumps to 2.833GB but showing some unusually unpredictable activity. Render of a 2048x1536 finished successfully with a whopping 1 hour and 44 minutes. The anomaly I found is that the render goes smoothly as the rapid increase of RAM usage, but after hitting 2.5GB, the increase went very slow. This is maybe due to the setting I have. Another unusual thing is that after the render's done, the RAM usage goes down to 1GB while before I started render (which I just opened the file), the RAM usage was only at 350MB. After that I thought it was maybe due to the bug I once read somewhere in this forum, the one about the gradual increase in RAM usage after each render, though I'm not sure.

Notes:
- I may have to post screenshots of my render setting (doesn't know how to post an internet free re-download link) if by any possibility that the results I got may have been due to certain settings
- I will continue on this observation thoroughly and confirm to you Micha and Dkendig.

[dkendig]

Re: RAM patch for SU to use more than 2GB?

I appreciate the detailed report, but regardless of what your findings are, this "patch" hacks SketchUp and makes a modification that we are not comfortable with. Feel free to do anything to your computer and your own copy of SketchUp that you want to do, but we will absolutely not support any issues you encounter with this hack applied.