unexpected exception error....

[jacksc02]

gio, have you tried using the dynamic memory option?

[Giovanni]

Jack, I tried the dynamic memory option. I set the memory limit to 1gig (500Mb per core).

The results are pretty much the same: "loading bitmap" takes 2/3 of the 1.7 gig physical ram available at beginning, and when v-ray starts calculating the irr map, all is left is about 200mb, which quickly drains down to 70Mb, when MAX crashes with unexpected exception.

I am wondering if the bitmap pager and the dynamic memory settings are propagated properly to the servers using backburner....because I could not really see any difference in the way the memory is used...

Back to the question: are you guys able to render on 2 gig RAM a million poly scene with 600+, small maps? Is it normally done?

Thank you

regards

gio

[vlado]

The results are pretty much the same: "loading bitmap" takes 2/3 of the 1.7 gig physical ram available at beginning, and when v-ray starts calculating the irr map, all is left is about 200mb, which quickly drains down to 70Mb, when MAX crashes with unexpected exception.

I don't believe the Bitmap pager option is transferred to the slaves - you'd need to edit their 3dsmax.ini file manually to set this.

Best regadrs,
Vlado

[Giovanni]

Thank you Vlado, that is correct.
I looked up my local MAX.INI, and copied over the pager settings to the slave max.ini.

Well, now it does not crash. But it takes about one hour just to doenload the bitmaps...

When the irradiance map starts calculating, it is also 10 to 20 times slower, but that may be due to the vray dynamic memory settings (1gig for two cores)...

I will let it render at night and see. Maybe I can turn back static memory, and maybe the bitmap pager settings are wrong...I will try to tweak those too.

Any suggestion for those parametrs? Page size, map treshold...?

Thank you again

regards

gio

[Giovanni]

I left the thing render at night, and it crashed 4 or 5 times.

So, the bitmap pager and the dynamic memory only take longer to...well, crash.

Right now I am trying to render all geometry but no maps...
It just started...It took awhile to begin, now it is 50% irradiance map, pass 1 of 3, memory is at 450Mb...but going down...no, wait, it is stabilzing at 450Mb...the rendering is quite fast...maybe...just maybe....

pass 2of 3...350Mb ram left...but it's variable, depending on the geometry being rendered...390 now.

Well, now will either crash trying to render the final image, or trying to save the 3000pix wide rendering...or it will not crash at all.

At that point it could be a problem of maps (DOH!)...

irradiance map, 3 of 3, ram back to 450Mb, I do not see why it should not make it throu...DAMN MAPS!

50% irr map rendering, 3 of 3, ram is back to almost half gig. V-ray must be using the previous passes, no extra ram needed...Ah! chaos kick asses...

Well, if everything goes well, it will tell us the geometry is fine.

It started to render the final image, RAM available is back to 650Mb, and incredibly it is not going down...

So, the bottle neck is at the beginning, right after loading the bitmap, and at the firt irr map pass...That point is the most RAM consuming.

How do I go through that? Why is the bitmap pager not working? Settings?

Well, the image is rendering, fast, the RAM is at 750Mb (how does it do that!?!), it should all be fine.

I will tweak the bitmap pager and see if I can hit the sweet spot.

Again, anyone has suggestions on the best settings? Specs of my computer and scene in the posts above...

Thank you

sorry for the long (mostly useless) post, but hopefully it will help someone else in the future.

regards

gio

[Giovanni]

Guys, there is a little, tiny error in the bitmap pager panel of my MAX 7...

It says the units are Kb. They are not. They are Megabyte.
I was allocating 5 gig of RAM to the pager pool...

When you open the MAX.INI you see the actual number of kilobyte. I corrected it and it appears it is now rendering.

The problem is, by what I can see, it will take about a week to complete.
It has rendered 65% irradiance map (1 of 3!) in about 5 hours...

I will try increasing the pager pool and the bitmap treshold (less maps on disk).

Question: the network render folder, under my slaves' backburner has all the maps needed for the rendering. However, it also has a bunch of maps which I do not need (hidden layer trees!).

Does this means MAX is loading maps that will not be used in the rendering? What about v-ray? is it loading bitmaps even though they are not in the rendering?

That would be bad...

How do you purge your scene of unused maps?


Thank you all, and again, any workflow suggestions on large scene rendering will be appreciated.

thank you

regards

gio