Is there a rule-of-thumb for dynamic memory? If I have 12Gb of ram, should I allocate 80%? What if one of my render slaves only has 8Gb of ram? Should I allocate a percentage of the machine with the least amount of ram? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Depends on the scene - too little and you’ll choke performance, too much and you might end up swapping to virtual memory. Ideally keep an eye on a frame and up the number if you see “unloading geometry” at any point - that means you’re hitting a limit on the amount being held in dynamic memory and vray has to release some of it to load in new meshes. 0 is worth a try too - it sets no limit on the amount of memory usable so in theory it can overrun to virtual memory - if you’re not sure it might be a good default amount. If your renders start taking a ridiculous time then they’re probably swapping out to disk so you can start putting in fixed limits.
Thanks. I thought I read that V-Ray 2 allowed you to set the dynamic memory to 0, which allowed v-ray to automate this.
Yep - 0 means no limit but again you run the risk of it spilling over. Worth a go though, the more memory you throw at a render with proxies or displacement the faster it gets.