Itoo Software Forum

Forest Pack => Forest Pro (*) => Topic started by: Richard Birket on September 22, 2015, 10:03:02 AM

Title: Reduce RAM usage
Post by: Richard Birket on September 22, 2015, 10:03:02 AM
We are having quite a few issues with v4.4.1 where we get excessive hanging at the end of a render and also various crashes. The scene is quite heavy with a lot of grasses and flowers and a few trees.

The RAM usage when rendering is beyond 20GB. What methods should we be using to reduce the amount of RAM? Are there some general tips? I had hoped that only the geometry in each bucket would be loaded into memory but given 20GB+ I am thinking not.

A checklist would be useful - for instance, is using VRay Proxies a good idea, or using Brute force, or IRmap better or worse.
Title: Re: Reduce RAM usage
Post by: Richard Birket on September 22, 2015, 10:30:35 AM
It looks like our problems might be related to the XREF scene issues pointed out by Peter Guthrie in another thread. I have added a comment to that thread.
Title: Re: Reduce RAM usage
Post by: Michal KarmazĂ­n on September 22, 2015, 10:31:41 AM
Hi,
Quote
We are having quite a few issues with v4.4.1 where we get excessive hanging at the end of a render and also various crashes.

Would you please save and send us the minidump file (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=1484.0) of the crash? (You can get the minidump clicking "View report details->View report contents", checking the path of the "3dsmax_minidump.dmp" file and making a copy of it, before closing the 3ds Max Error Report window). Hopefully, it'll point to the problem source.

Please specify which 3ds Max / renderer releases are you using. Thanks in advance.
Quote
What methods should we be using to reduce the amount of RAM? Are there some general tips? I had hoped that only the geometry in each bucket would be loaded into memory but given 20GB+ I am thinking not.

As mentioned in the Rendering Best Practice (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FORESTPACK/Rendering+Best+Practice) section of our on-line reference guide (http://docs.itoosoft.com/display/FORESTPACK/Forest+Pack+Documentation):

"To render high-poly objects or proxies, increase the Dynamic Memory Limit from the default value to a percentage of your total RAM. The optimal value depends of the complexity of the scene, but usually a minimum of 2000 or 3000 Mb. is required. In V-Ray 2.0 and later, you can set this to 0 to remove any limit in that case, V-Ray will take as much memory as needed."

I would suggest you to check this "Should i use meshes or proxies with Forest in V-Ray? (http://forum.itoosoft.com/index.php?topic=2345.0)" post regarding proxies / meshes advantages.

Hope you'll find it useful.

Best regards,