VRay Frame Buffer size limit?

Is there a limit to how large a VFB can be? We’re trying to render a 16k x 16k picture and the rendering gets stuck on “Preparing direct light manager”. I tried a few different sizes and 13k x 13k still works okay but any size above that freeze the render. Tried on a completely new scene with just one box object and makes the same problem. We’re using 64bit machines with about 128GB of ram so memory allocation should not be a problem.

Thanks

Are you using the max resolution control to set the size of the image or are you setting the main max resolution quite small and then using the resolution controls in the vray buffer to set your actual size? Images over 16k get put through fairly regularly I think, it’s just if you use the max resolution to do it the memory for that bitmap gets allocated at the start and can cause some wobbles!

See this page: Chaos Docs

The important thing is to turn off the “memory frame buffer” option.

Best regards,
Vlado

Yeah, I know about rendering into a vray image file instead of memory frame buffer, but for us it’s more convenient to use the memory frame buffer instead of a file. You know, render regions and stuff… I thought as long as you have enough RAM then any size is okay?

Yes, however depending on which version of V-Ray you are using, there was a bug that would cause a hang at the start of the rendering if the resolution was beyond a certain size (exactly what you are experiencing). This is fixed in the latest official 3.0 builds on the site, not sure about 2.x yet but we can get you an update for that too, if needed.

Best regards,
Vlado

Oh I see, alright. We’re actually still on 1.5. Didn’t see many advantages for us to upgrade to 2.4. But looking for upgrading to 3.0 soon because with the embree, render masks (we love render regions here, haha) and sub-pixies issues solved it’s a very impressive release.

In the meantime we’ll render into vray image file then. But thanks Vlado for the support you’re giving to the customers!