Ok, I am confused. Perhaps somebody can help me - because I have a small brain.
I have just purchased a dual core AMD and I now have 2 Gb of RAM - this is my latest upgrade from my aging Commodore 64.
When I run Blender 2.45 in Windows 2000 and I am working on a scene (which is memory intensive) I get the gnarly BSOD - Blue Screen of Death. Which obviously, I have to reboot. On several occasions my O/S has been corrupted in the process.
I tried to use the build I found at graphicall.org for multi-core processors. When I did that I would lose objects from my .blend files for no apparent reason.
I can run other applications under Windows 2000 with this hardware configuration and I never get the BSOD - only in Blender.
My question is many-fold. Why is this happening? That’s the first question.
The second question is, if I migrate to Linux (SUSE 10) will continue to experience these issues? Also, I notice there is a Linux 64 Blender build for download - am I able to utilize that if I run under Linux?
Sorry for the elementary questions - my brain is fried.
First of all… I ran Blender for 2 years on Windows 2000… not a hitch. Dont know about multicores though. Now on Ubuntu 7.10 with Quadcore. Works like dream.
For the second question, I have been using blender under linux for more than two years, both 32 and 64 (AMD Opteron, NVidia Quadro, 4GB RAM). No problem at all. So if you are already decided to switch to Linux, Blender compatibility will not be a problem.
I’m not a Win2K fan but it should work and hopefully somebody can give you some input on what you can do to fix that. It is disappointing that a user application results in a system crash. Linux is my preferred platform but if you switch be prepared to spend some time on a non-Blender learning curve.
My guess would be that you have a memory issue. Either with the chips themselves or your bios settings. Crashes often happen when heavy memory usage apps are launched. Did you build the system yourself? Examine your memory chips and look for the little sticker on them (be careful not to touch the contacts or chips). If you have mismatched cycle length RAM, you will get a lot of crashes, it does not matter what app. Once you have determined the cycle length of your ram make sure your bios is set to match that cycle length.
If you download the Ubunu ISO and burn a disc, you will find that it has a built in memory checker. You can run this without actually installing the OS (make sure your bios is set to boot from CD before HD).